Light beams filter through slats to illuminate the smoky air of the Marrakech Souks where you can buy everything under the Moroccan sun. The smoke from grills cooking succulent meats mingle with the exhausts of motorbikes speeding through alleys far too narrow for vehicular traffic to create a hazy aura in the market.

If the city of Fez originated in a design, it was designed to confuse. Each road shoots off into another narrower alley that branches into ever more constricting passages to eventually lead a new visitor into a state of bewilderment.

Couple that with the general pummeling your senses take at the hands of the masses of people and their wares and the city takes on the character of a dream.

In a city like this, open spaces are a rarity. For kids that want to have a game of soccer, there aren’t a lot of wide areas where a game can take place. So, they make do and you get a scene like today’s photo where kids kick around a ball in while being closely hemmed in by the walls of one of the medina’s wider avenues.

As with this recent shot, today’s photo of the day comes from Chefchaouen, Morocco.

Chasing the light through the narrow, blue alleys was good fun and sometimes resulted in nice backlit shots like this that give a nice rim light to the people. I love both the weathered walls and weathered, character filled faces.

This shot is from an enormous crypt located below the Koubbat as-Sufara in Meknes. Though it might look like a dungeon, it was actually used for grain storage.

This is another of the images lit with multiple speedlite bursts in multiple shots. Using the lights in this way ended up giving a lot more depth and texture to the shot than I might have gotten otherwise.

This is the last of my little experiments at Volubilis of lighting the ruins with a number of bursts from a speedlite.

This one was taken during an overcast day which allowed me to stop down and overpower the ambient light with my flash. Again, a moody, atmospheric image is the result.

I took a number of other images at the ruins, but no more of this type. I do, however, have another of these multiple-flash composite shots for tomorrow from another location.

As with yesterday’s photo of the day, today’s was taken at the Roman ruins Volubilis, Morocco using the technique of lighting various areas with a speedlite and then compositing them together in Photoshop.

This one turned out even more surreal than the last. It’s difficult to visualize what whole will look like when you can only see a part at a time, so half the fun of creating a shot like this is seeing it come together.

It would have been easy to let a magical sunset do all the lighting work at the Roman ruins of Volubilis in Morocco. The light was as perfect as could ask for, but I felt like I wanted to do something a bit more.

So, in addition to the light of the sunset, I decided to light the ruins myself. I ran around with a speedlite popping of flashes and after assembling about 20 or 30 shots in Photoshop, we have a slightly surreal view of the place that couldn’t have been seen otherwise.

I’m actually quite pleased with this little light-painting experiment. The scene takes on a dramatic, strange feel that wouldn’t have been there had I not run around like a crazy person in the few minutes that the light was perfect.

Perfectly-preserved Ait Benhaddou and its lack of electricity made an ideal location to try out a half-hour exposure to capture some star trails.

The Moroccan village keeps its UNESCO world heritage status by maintaining a way of life similar to what was present hundreds of years ago when the group of forts was built. That means no electricity lights up the buildings at night. There are a couple of lights visible in this image, but one is either a lamp or a candle and I think one is a flashlight. At a half hour exposure, they look like someone snuck a generator inside the complex.

This shot points directly North, so the stars appear to revolve around Polaris to create a nice swirling effect in the sky.

It took me a little while to warm up to Meknes. It wasn’t immediately apparent to me what it had going for it that might be different from the other cities I had already visited.

Eventually, it revealed its charms and one of those was the Medersa Bou Inania where intricate stone carvings hosted a gorgeous dance of sunbeams one fine morning.

After a couple weeks of travel, Morocco’s many medinas start to blend together. The claustrophobia-inducing alleys are never dull, but who doesn’t like a bit of variety?

A trip to Chefchaouen provides just such a change. The obvious difference between the old town of hilly Chefchaouen and its larger cousins is the sky-blue paint that covers nearly every wall of the city.

This ubiquitous hue gives the city a special visual character, but another crucial difference is the greater sense of calm that tends to reign in these hills. Less hassling happens here and when it does occur, it’s less intense than in the more populous centres.

The old cities in Morocco are always a treat for a photographer who’s willing to look and wait for the light. As in this photo, sunbeams sometimes pierce the defenses of the buildings and illuminate the narrow roads creating dramatic scenes of light and shade.

Considering just how popular it is, the tanneries can be difficult to find without help if you’ve just arrived in town. Fez truly is a maze, but if you have a couple days and a reasonably good sense of direction, you’ll be able to fumble your way to most locations without aid.

Amid the labyrinthine alleys of the city, a few clues will let you know you’re getting close to the tanneries. First, you’ve probably been heading downhill for a while (the tanneries are near the river), the smell (pigeon feces and cow urine are major components in the chemical stew used to treat the hides), and lastly, the people who will offer to scam you of your every last dirham guide you to this major tourist spot.

The tanneries will overwhelm you. The legendary smell will knock you off your feet, but shop owners and guides will provide you with a fresh sprig of mint as an antidote to the odour. The sights, sounds and feel of the place are just as piquant. Multicoloured vats of chemicals and dyes host rough-and-ready workers sacrificing some of their lifespan for a the job of sloshing around in noxious potions to treat the skins that will eventually turn into leather.

Largely unchanged for hundreds of years, the history of the place is practically tangible. The methods used on the hides here are the same as they were in the middle ages, and aside from a few modern touches, you could swear you’ve stepped back in time

Most tourists and travellers experience the tanneries from above. Guides will lead you into leather shops overflowing with handbags and poufs, up some stairs and onto a balcony that overlooks the vats. After getting their fill of the vista, visitors are then expected to either tip their guide or purchase something from the shops (and given the Moroccan penchant for the hard sell, consider yourself to have done well if you escape without an unwanted handbag).

This particular photo, however, was clearly not taken from above. If you know exactly which alley to enter, you can make your way quite close to the entrance of the tanneries. You’ll soon be confronted by a manager who may or may not be willing to guide you through the site. If you’re going to give it a try, I would recommend only keeping as much as you’re willing to pay in your wallet and no more. When you’ve already paid your agreed price, they’ll keep trying to extract more cash from you, but if you have no more to give, the haggling ends quickly. Just show them your empty wallet!