Focus On: The Portals of Fes

All right Sports Fans, as we wrap up 2012, I thought I'd wrap up this series on Morocco as well. And so, I'll sign off with my take on the arches, windows, and doorways of Fes. 

Happy New Year and see you in 2013.

Focus On: The ONCF

One of the things I was looking forward to during my trip to Morocco was the chance of riding the Office National Chemin de Fer (ONCF) - the Moroccan State Railroad company. Being from Chicago, I have a bit of an interest in trains (no, really) and while I’ve ridden plenty of metro systems throughout the world, this would be my first chance to ride intercity heavy rail outside of the US.

To be sure, taking the ONCF was partly born of necessity - inter-Moroccan air travel was expensive and not particularly convenient and renting a car would have been problematic given the distances I wanted to cover. Talking to people who had been in Morocco before, I came away with a pretty good feeling about the ONCF, but even then I still wasn’t sure what to expect. I mean, Amtrak approaches third world levels of service on its own, and now I’d be taking the train in Africa.

Well, as I’ve mentioned before, Morocco is not Africa and is certainly not a developing country. And the ONCF was - quite simply - the only way I could imagine traveling in the country. Yeah, trains were a little late once or twice, but certainly no worse than the US. And while they were perhaps a little dated (I’d guess they were comparable in levels of comfort to US trains in, say the fifties to the seventies) they were more than serviceable.

One quirk of the ONCF which I feel compelled to share with you however, should you ever find yourself in Morocco, is that First Class is a rip-off. In first class, you have assigned seating in a six person compartment (3x3 facing each other). Whereas in Second Class, it’s 2x2 open seating. Basically my First Class ticket entitled me to sit by the door of the compartment, two seats away from the window, staring at someone for four hours. In Second Class, I could pick my own (window) seat. The comfort level was the same (maybe in the summer an air conditioned compartment is worth it. In February? Climate control wasn’t an issue.). Needless to say, I rode Second Class with my First Class ticket (thoroughly confusing the conductor in the process).

Finally, any railroad that has orange trees growing in its stations has to be doing something right.

Like a Mosque in the Rain

I believe the official name of this mosque is “The Mosque of the Divinity” but all of the toubabs in Dakar just called it the Seaside Mosque. It was also probably one of the more popular photographic subjects in Dakar, since it was a pretty dramatic building and one that you could shoot from multiple angles. Since I had to drive by it every weekend to get to my prefered French chain grocery store, I got in the habit of throwing my camera bag in the car, just on the off chance that I’d catch some good light.

Which I did. Many times in fact. Here’s the best one:

Focus On: Jomo Kenyata International Airport

Jomo Kenyata Airport in Nairobi, Kenya is the bane of my photographic existence. Okay, maybe not THE bane, maybe more like A bane. Or perhaps an annoyance. A minor one even. And I guess it is a relatively infrequent annoyance at that. But “Jomo Kenyata Airport is a minor, infrequent annoyance of my photographic existence" just doesn’t have same ring to it.

So, why is NBO a minor, infrequent annoyance of my photographic existence? Is it because the terminal is a hulking, seventies, brutalist monstrosity?

No. But it is that.

Is it because the ratio of duty free stores to restaurants is ‘the entire airport to one’?

No. But that is definitely the case.

It’s because the light and air quality at NBO - at least every time I’ve been there - are amazing.

But also because it’s a brutalist monstrosity.

Let me explain.

There aren’t any jetways when you deplane at NBO but - and this is unusual for an African airport - they don’t make you take a bus to get to the terminal. You simply walk along marked paths and then up and onto one of several pedestrian bridges and into the terminal. What this means is that you get to walk in the ramp area of a decently sized airport, which would be a pretty big photographic draw to me anyway. But - for some reason - it seems like every time I fly through NBO, I’m there either early morning or late afternoon - when the light is at its best. However...while I almost always have an SLR in my carry on bag, it’s always broken down. Furthermore, taking photos in airports (or any government facility; real, imagined, or otherwise)  in Africa can be a pretty adventuresome experience. Maybe NBO is cool with you breaking out the SLR and shooting away, but I've had enough experiences in Africa that I wasn't quite prepared to find out.

No problem you think, just shoot from inside terminal while waiting for your next flight. One issue with that. Remember how I said that NBO is a brutalist monstrosity? Well, if you try shooting from inside, this is the view you get:

Yeah. Concrete pillars are just great. 

So, this was the view I was confronted with for years. Great light, interesting and colorful subjects, and no good way to shoot them. 

Unless maybe my equipment was the problem? DSLRs are great, but they do tend to draw attention to themselves. On the other hand, Point and Shoots don’t usually offer the image quality I want. 

Enter my new Fuji x100. Great camera all around, but my favorite feature is that looks about sixty years old. Whip that thing out on the tarmac and not only do you not get hassled, you get shots. 

My travels don’t seem to take me out to East Africa very much anymore, so I’m not sure when I’ll be getting back to NBO. But at least I was finally able to capture what I saw out there. 

But don’t get me wrong - it’s not like I’m saying I can die happy now or something. 

I mean, at most, it was a minor infrequent annoyance.