Chefchaouen Blue City — Medina Morning
30,858.75 ¥
The blue-washed medina of Chefchaouen in Morocco’s Rif Mountains at 7am — the pale indigo and electric blue staircase alleys before the market opens, potted geraniums on blue steps, the cat population undisturbed in the morning sun.
Description
Chefchaouen’s blue-painted medina is Morocco’s most photographed urban environment — the tradition of blue washing on the alley walls and stair steps dating from Jewish refugees of the 15th-century Spanish expulsion who associated blue with the sky and divinity. The blue varies from pale ice blue to intense electric indigo across the medina, the variation in the blue wash recipe producing a gradient of colour that makes the medina’s alley photography compositionally varied despite the monochromatic palette. The pre-tourist photography window is the 6:30am to 8am period, when the market traders are setting up but the tour groups have not arrived. This image was made on a staircase alley leading toward the medina’s upper residential section at 7am: the blue steps, the blue walls, the geranium pot of deep red at the stair’s turn, and the medina cat sitting in the morning sun are the four elements of the composition. Shot on a 35mm prime at f/5.6.
