Welcome to my first photoblog entry. It's been almost a month since I got back from Morocco and I have a ton of photos to share. Together with my wife, kids, and extended family (18 of us total!), I was fortunate enough to visit the cities of Marrakech and Essaouira.

Marrakech is a major city in the North African country of Morocco (officially the Kingdom of Morocco) and is a cultural, religious, and trading center, having served at several times throughout history as the capital of the kingdom. Like many Moroccan cities, Marrakech features an old walled city (the medina) filled with craftsmen, artisans, and souks (traditional Berber markets). All of my photos were taken within the medina.

The moment I stepped inside the medina, I felt transported back in time, like Indiana Jones on an exotic adventure. The streets were filled with the noisy chaos of vendors, bicycles, motorcycles, donkeys, stray animals, playing children, tourists – either making their way through the narrow winding streets or jockeying for your attention.

This was my first experience shooting street outside the familiarity of New York. I was nervous and uneasy, as everything was foreign to me. Though I did a little research on shooting street in Morocco, I belatedly discovered that locals don't like their photos taken when I saw a sign on a wall that read “taking photos without permission is rude!” and encountered several individuals who didn't hesitate to make their dismay known.

I managed to stay relatively unnoticed by mostly shooting at the hip with my X100s (though I did get to use my DSLR on one instance).

The medina is pretty much one big maze. I was borderline lost most of the time but found it to be a magical place – with scenes straight out of my imagination and the movies.

I usually prefer my images in B&W but knew that wouldn't be the right way to go here as it would take away from the intense colors of the streets that I so wanted to capture – thus I decided to focus on using color with high contrast instead. I feel this somehow manages to convey the emotions I felt while I was capturing these images.