§ Workshop — Masterclass
THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN
Ouarzazate, Morocco
Departs · 17 May 2027 · 6 days
Participants · 6 · Spots remaining 6
A photographic journey into the heart of Southern Morocco. Some places are visited. Others are crossed. And then there are those that must be observed, listened to, and ultimately told through images.
Southern Morocco is where the desert keeps its name. We have conceived this workshop with this philosophy in mind. More than an itinerary, it is an immersive photographic expedition designed for those who seek to create meaningful visual narratives rather than simply collect destinations.
Over the course of 1,200 kilometres, this carefully crafted journey leads through the vast and timeless landscapes of Southern Morocco. Five distinctive stages unfold across a region where mountains, desert, fertile oases and centuries-old villages coexist in remarkable harmony, revealing a land where history and everyday life remain deeply intertwined. This is not a journey built around landmarks, but around light, people and stories. Each day follows the natural rhythm of photography: the first light gently revealing the textures of earthen architecture; the long afternoon shadows transforming villages into studies of geometry and form; the golden hour washing the desert in warm tones before darkness gives way to one of the clearest night skies on Earth.
Throughout the expedition, participants will encounter the living heritage of Berber culture, meeting communities whose traditions, craftsmanship and way of life have been preserved across generations. These are not staged encounters but genuine opportunities to observe, engage and document daily life with sensitivity, respect and curiosity. The route unfolds through an extraordinary diversity of visual landscapes: endless dunes sculpted by the wind, lush palm groves emerging from arid valleys, fortified kasbahs and ancient ksour rising seamlessly from the earth, dramatic canyons, high plateaus and forgotten caravan routes where every bend offers a new photographic possibility. Alongside these striking landscapes lie remarkable testimonies of human history.
Millennium-old communal granaries, prehistoric rock engravings and Africa's oldest known beehive stand as enduring symbols of a civilisation that has learned to live in balance with its environment. They offer photographers the rare privilege of documenting a cultural heritage whose significance reaches far beyond its geographical boundaries. The journey has been designed around one essential luxury: time. Time to wait for the perfect light. Time to return to the same location when conditions change. Time to build trust with the people we meet. Time to slow down and allow photographs to emerge naturally through observation rather than haste.
Whether your approach is documentary, portraiture, landscape or personal visual storytelling, The Far Side of the Sun offers an environment where every photographer can develop a coherent body of work while refining both technical skills and visual awareness. Every destination becomes a chapter. Every encounter enriches the narrative. Every shift in light transforms the way a place is seen and remembered. The ambition of this journey is not simply to return home with beautiful photographs, but with images that preserve memory—images capable of bearing witness to a land that still exists beyond the noise and acceleration of the modern world.
Because travel photography is not about collecting places. It is about building relationships. Not about passing through a landscape, but allowing the landscape to leave its mark upon you.
The Far Side of the Sun is an invitation to slow down, to observe with intention, and to tell stories with honesty. A journey where every photograph becomes a fragment of memory, and every memory quietly shapes the way we see the world.
§ Field Work
Field Work
What the shade already knows
People here have already solved the light before the camera arrives — palm groves break the sun into fragments, earthen rooms gather it at the threshold, the open plain offers none at all. Photograph where people already choose to stand, and the exposure problem and the human one turn out to be the same question.
Meeting people, not moments
This is not a set of appointments with the golden hour. A genuine encounter — a doorway, a shared shade, a conversation that slows the walk — is worth more than the hour it costs against the shot list. The sequence should carry the rhythm of the road, not a checklist of what the road passed.
The travel diary
Our age hands us machines and calls them memory. They are fast, and the journey is not. The journey asks for the opposite of speed: it asks for pauses, for halts, for the hours when the body rests and the mind catches up with where it has been.
Carry a notebook, and write in it by hand. There are moments on every journey when you find yourself alone, for an instant, before the immensity in front of you. It is then that thoughts arrive which will never come again, and which no screen will keep for you. Fix them on the page, or they scatter into the dust, the sun and the wind of the day, and are lost.
A gift of your own images
Most of the advice I can give you is obvious. Protect your equipment. Keep your socks and shirts away from the dust, because pulling on a clean, fresh shirt is always a pleasure. Any traveller knows these things, and perhaps you know them already. I say them not to teach, but because a teacher leads by example.
But there is one thing I have learned over the years that I do not impose on you: I recommend it, with force. If you wish to build a real relationship with the people you meet, a gesture of tenderness, a gift, is the surest way. Travellers have always carried gifts to the peoples and the strangers who received them. And what is the most precious gift a photographer can give? An image.
My suggestion is simple. Take one of those small photo albums, ten by fifteen, and fill it with the pictures you love most, printed small.
§ The Light Map
The Light Map
By May, the sun in southern Morocco has acquired weight. It exposes the open ground, drives movement towards shade and changes the hours at which a village becomes most approachable. To photograph the journey well, we must notice how people already live with the light before deciding how we will use it.
From 17 to 22 May, sunrise at Ouarzazate advances from approximately 06:31 to 06:28; sunset extends from 20:16 to 20:19, in Morocco’s local time (GMT+1). At Merzouga, sunrise is about eleven to twelve minutes earlier, with sunset around eleven minutes earlier. Almost fourteen hours of daylight give the road a generous span, but not every hour asks for the camera.
Full moon falls on 20 May. The journey begins beneath a waxing gibbous moon and ends just after full, with substantial lunar illumination across the central nights. In open desert, moonlight can preserve the shape of ridges and distant ground; it also reduces the contrast of faint stars. Night work belongs to this illuminated landscape, rather than to a promise of a completely dark sky.
Ouarzazate’s May averages are approximately 16°C at night and 31°C by day. Lower desert areas can be hotter, while exposed afternoons bring the possibility of dust and wind. Shade, water and a slower pace through the hottest hours are part of the photographic method.
Palm groves break the sun into fragments. Earthen rooms gather it at a threshold; the open plain offers little shelter from it. Our attention changes with those places. The sequence grows from the difference between them, and from the encounters that cannot be reduced to an appointment with the golden hour.
§ What You Will Learn
What You Will Learn
A road through southern Morocco joins places that a single photograph can easily separate: the village and its water, the cultivated ground and the desert, a person and the work that occupies their day. During this journey, we will learn to keep those relationships within our photographs.
Finding the story in a place
At each stage, we will move between an establishing view, a closer observation and the details that give a location its particular character. You will learn to recognise the picture that explains where we are and the one that begins to reveal what happens there.
Earthen architecture, communal spaces and traces of work will be approached with attention to their use. Camera height, viewpoint and focal length will help you show how these elements belong to the surrounding terrain.
Following the daylight
We will study the way low light describes a wall, how an awning changes the illumination on a face and how bright ground returns light into shadow. Metering and the histogram will support decisions about skin, sky and the texture of earth.
You will practise choosing shutter speed for a moving subject, depth of field for an environmental portrait and a stable tripod setup for slower landscape work. Filters will be used where they clarify exposure or reflections. At twilight and during the night sessions in the programme, we will work with manual focus and the balance between available light, shutter time and noise.
Photographing through an encounter
A portrait begins before the camera rises. With the support of our local contacts, we will practise introducing ourselves, asking to photograph and giving people time to decide how they wish to participate.
You will learn to work with the available surroundings, notice a revealing gesture and avoid directing away the very qualities that drew you to the encounter. Names, context and notes will remain connected to the images so that memory can become an accurate account.
A journey with visual continuity
The landscape changes over the route, and your photographic approach should be able to change with it. Daily conversations and editing will help identify the threads you want to follow: habitation, labour, water, the passage from enclosure to distance.
We will build sequences with different scales and moments of quiet, allowing portraits and landscapes to illuminate one another. Your final selection should convey how you came to understand this territory, with enough specificity for its people and places to retain their own identity.
§ The Itinerary
The Itinerary
§ Phase 01
Ouarzazate
The road begins in earth
An opening day devoted to Ouarzazate and the first visual grammar of the journey: earthen architecture, working streets, thresholds and the relationship between the city and the desert beyond it.
§ Phase 02
Kasbahs · oases
Architecture along the water
The route follows selected kasbahs, ksour and cultivated valleys. We work on architectural rhythm, human presence and the fragile systems through which settlement continues inside an arid landscape.
§ Phase 03
The Drâa
Palm groves and the memory of passage
Travel south through the Drâa Valley towards Zagora and the desert threshold. The photographic day follows markets, roadside encounters, earth, water and the long continuity of movement.
§ Phase 04
The open desert
Beyond the last garden
With local drivers and suitable vehicles, the group enters the desert margin. Dunes, wind, caravan traces and nightfall are approached as parts of a visual narrative rather than isolated spectacle.
§ Phase 05
Cultural landscape
Granaries, engravings and living memory
A day devoted to selected communal architecture, rock traces and inhabited landscapes, subject to confirmed access and local guidance. Photography proceeds through context, consent and time.
§ Phase 06
Return · edit
The Far Side of the Sun
The road returns towards Ouarzazate with a final field session along the route. The collective edit turns distance, encounter and changing light into a coherent sequence rather than a collection of stops.
§ Accommodation
Accommodation
The arrival · Ouarzazate
The night before the first working day is offered by London Photographic Workshop. The group gathers in Ouarzazate for the welcome dinner, also offered by LPW, and begins to understand the route as one photographic story.
The road as a sequence of bases
This is not a workshop built around one hotel. Accommodation follows the geography of Southern Morocco, using carefully selected properties in Ouarzazate and along the southern route so that the best light is not sacrificed to repetitive transfers.
Earth, courtyard and shade
Where possible, the group will stay in locally rooted riads, kasbahs, guesthouses or small hotels whose materials and scale belong to the territory. Character is important, but so are reliable rest, hygiene, equipment charging and practical access.
The desert night
When the confirmed route enters the desert, one night may be spent in an appropriate camp or lodge with local support. The exact location depends on vehicles, weather, access and the final operational circuit.
The table
Breakfasts will usually be taken at the accommodation, though early departures may move them onto the road. Lunches will be local and characteristic; dinners will follow the rhythm of each base and the photographic day.
The final night
The additional night after the final working day is offered by London Photographic Workshop, allowing the edit and departure to unfold without haste. Confirmed properties and room arrangements will be communicated once the route is closed.
§ The Equipment
The Equipment
§ Photo Gear
Photo Gear
Around Ouarzazate the desert is stone before it is sand, and in May the sun is already hard by nine in the morning. Here is what it does to equipment.
What the desert breaks
A fine dust rises with every gust and every slammed car door, and it finds the rings of a zoom and the sensor in the second a lens comes off: here lenses are changed inside the vehicle, back to the wind. At midday a black camera left in the sun burns the hand and slows the screen, so it lives in the shade of the bag. And the contrast is brutal: white walls, black doorways, a sky without a cloud. Filters here are not decoration; they are the only way to keep both ends of the light.
The list
Tripod
At dawn and dusk the tripod gives the photograph time; at night it gives it the sky. And it gives it something more: a frame that stands still while teacher and student take turns at the viewfinder and talk about the same image.
The bag
One bag, carried on the shoulder, that closes completely: the ground is dust and stone, and there is nowhere to set a rucksack down.
Ziplock
Two small secrets: ZIPLOCK bags, two for every piece, and BONGO TIES for cables and covers. In a sandstorm, they are what separates a working camera from a ruined one.
What we bring for you
There are a few wonders in our bags for you, too. Medium format cameras to pick up and use, including the splendid HASSELBLAD X2D II 100C. A complete set of LEE filters with matte boxes, SEKONIC light and colour meters, a COLORCHECKER.
And then there is Luca, your guide: a true fine art photographer — read: a rather unusual photographer. Do not be surprised if view cameras, ultra-panoramic film cameras and other delightful oddities emerge from his bags. Shh… they are part of the experience, too.
Need a backup camera, a particular lens, a tripod, a head or a monopod? Tell us before departure so we can plan what to bring. Our enthusiasm is considerable. Our carrying capacity has its limits.
§ Personal Gear
Personal Gear
This is a workshop, but the desert treats it as an expedition. Arrive equipped for one.
I have seen people arrive in Ouarzazate with everything and still be missing the one thing the desert asks for. It is rarely a lens. It is a pair of shoes that already knows your feet, a scarf you can wrap in the wind, water you can reach without stopping. The desert is generous with light and severe with carelessness. Pack as if every object had to earn its place, because here it will.
What you bring
What we buy together
What we bring for you
Everything else travels with us, packed in a waterproof dry bag: a local SIM card, and a loan phone if yours cannot take a second one; a Starlink satellite connection, for a call home from the edge of the Sahara; a walkie-talkie; a first-aid kit; a satellite locator beacon and an emergency flare for the desert days; a compass and a map case, with printed maps; a tablet for every two people; a little local currency as pocket money; a laminated emergency sheet; a compact phrasebook; pouches for your documents; and your own printed copy of our unique guide.
§ Travel Conditions
Travel Conditions
Southern Morocco is internationally accessible through several major airports. The workshop begins in Ouarzazate; participants who cannot reach it conveniently may tell us which Moroccan international airport they plan to use. London Photographic Workshop can coordinate a collection where practical, or provide detailed guidance, recommended transport and trusted drivers for joining the group independently.
The route covers substantial distance by comfortable private VIP van or equivalent. Desert tracks and remote cultural sites require suitable 4×4 vehicles, local drivers and, where appropriate, specialist guides.
This is a field-based documentary journey. Light, road conditions, weather, local events and respectful access to communities will influence the daily sequence. The itinerary may change so that an encounter is given time or a location is not forced against unsuitable conditions.
Photography of people is never assumed. Consent, local guidance and the relationship built in the moment take precedence over the desire to return with a particular image. Archaeological, architectural and protected sites may also impose restrictions on access, tripods or professional equipment.
Final arrival plans, vehicle arrangements, confirmed route and any location-specific permissions will be communicated before departure.
§ Safety & Accessibility
Safety & Accessibility
Desert areas and remote routes will be approached with qualified local guides and suitable vehicles. Access, permits and safety conditions will be checked again before departure and throughout the journey. Any variation will always be decided with the group’s safety and the quality of the experience as the first priorities.
Each participant will receive a carefully prepared printed Field Guide: a practical companion to the entire workshop, containing essential contact details, emergency information, precise maps and the travel guidance needed for every stage of the itinerary.
We deliberately favour a printed format over a digital one: where mobile data, network coverage and electrical access can be intermittent, a physical guide remains reliable and always at hand. Whenever you move away from the group to make photographs, we ask that you do so in pairs.
In desert areas, radios will be provided to maintain communication between participants, groups and vehicles. Local mobile phones with Moroccan SIM cards will also be available for emergency calls and local communication.
§ Post-Workshop
Post-Workshop
After leaving Southern Morocco, with earth architecture, dunes and the encounters that taught the work its rhythm, the images ask to be shared with those who built those relationships together.
I did not include six months of post-workshop contact by chance, nor as a simple service.
Many years ago, I was teaching an online course that could easily have felt impersonal. Instead, when it ended, the group did not want to dissolve. We had never all sat around the same table, yet years later we are still a living community. From that experience came conversations, magazines, books, friendships and shared ways of looking.
It taught me how valuable a small circle of people can be when they have lived and worked through an experience together.
For this reason, every workshop includes six months of continued contact at no additional cost: a private group, image sharing, feedback, and a form of ongoing tuition shaped by cultural prompts — a book, an image, a thought, an exhibition, or an occasion that may open a new direction in the work.
The event ends. The adventure in photography begins.
§ 04 — The Archive
Frames from Ouarzazate, Morocco
A selection of high-resolution frames captured on past expeditions. Select any image to view it full-size.