Walking in the streets of Essaouira

The story behind the photo

A narrow street in the medina of Essaouira, with the lower half of the walls painted the blue that the whole town uses, an arched doorway at the end, and a length of cloth hanging above it. The alley is barely wider than a pair of shoulders, and the vertical frame says as much.

I composed it as a corridor: the two walls converge, the arch closes the perspective, and the paving leads the eye up to it. Everything is deliberately symmetrical except the hanging fabric, which is off to one side and slightly moving, and which is the only thing in the picture that has happened rather than been built.

The light never reaches the ground here. It comes down the walls, bounces, and arrives blue from the paint and warm from the lime above it, so the shadow side is not grey but faintly violet. Direct sun in a medina is a disaster for photographs; this kind of second-hand light is what makes them.

Essaouira has been a port for a very long time, and the blue is habit rather than decoration: the same pigment is used on the boats. The town smells of fish, thuya wood and salt, and the wind never entirely stops.

I wanted a photograph with nobody in it that is nevertheless about people passing: a passage, its wear, its colours, and a piece of cloth left out to dry.