In Morocco it was difficult for me to take pictures, at first I did not even try : I just felt I shouldn't, so I wandered around leaving my camera in my bag.
I was outside a sheep market a few days before the Aïd when a boy walked up to me and asked me to take his picture !
I opened my bag but instead of taking out my camera I grabbed my sketching pad and a pen. I sketched him and gave him the drawing. By then many other children had gathered around us, and as often I did one portrait after another. This boy with the white trousers came back a while after having had his portrait done, and asked for a new one. I sketched him a second time, but he came back a third time a bit later, and this time he asked to have his picture taken (so that I would ship it to him). I took out my camera and as I pointed it, a girl behind him slowly turned her face away and covered it with her hands.
When I came back home after my trip to Morocco I wanted to recreate the feeling of the scene. The sketching pad and pen can be guessed at the bottom right, but only the boy model is depicted in detail, because when I am sketching I am so concentrated on his face that it is the only thing I see. I am only barely aware of all that goes on around me, only feeling the presence of the other children all around.
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| Photograph on one of the children with his sketch |
