What are the best photography spots in Morocco?

After years of building trips for photographers, I can tell you Morocco gives you about six distinct "worlds" in a single country, and each one is a different photographic problem to solve. The headline icons are the Erg Chebbi dunes near Merzouga in the Sahara, the cascading blue streets of Chefchaouen in the Rif, the labyrinthine medinas of Marrakech and Fes, the earthen kasbah of Aït Benhaddou near Ouarzazate, the Roman ruins of Volubilis, and the windswept ramparts of Essaouira on the Atlantic. Build your shot list around these and you have a portfolio.

The dunes are the trip's crown jewel for landscape work. At Erg Chebbi I always have guests up before dawn — the low sunrise light rakes across the sand, throws long shadows down the ridgelines, and turns the whole erg apricot and rose for maybe forty minutes before it flattens out. Sunset does the same in reverse. Bring a camel silhouette or a lone figure cresting a dune for scale and you have the classic Sahara frame everyone wants.

For colour and texture, nothing beats Chefchaouen and the medinas. In Chefchaouen the entire old town is washed in blues — go at first light, before the day-trippers arrive around mid-morning, and you'll have the painted alleys, the keyhole doorways and the flower-draped staircases almost to yourself. In Fes, the famous Chouara tanneries are best shot from a leather shop's rooftop terrace (they let you up hoping you'll buy — a small tip or purchase is the fair deal), looking down on the honeycomb of dye pits. Marrakech's Jemaa el-Fna is a dusk spectacle best captured from a rooftop café balcony as the food stalls fire up and the smoke catches the last light.

My honest advice is to plan the trip around the light, not the map. We sequence the route so you're in the desert for a sunrise and sunset, in Chefchaouen for an early morning, and on a Marrakech rooftop at dusk — rather than arriving everywhere at flat midday when the medinas are gloomy in the shadows and the dunes look like a beige carpet. A private car and driver makes this possible, because you're not tied to anyone else's schedule and can chase the good hours.

Tell us you're a photographer when you book and we genuinely change the itinerary for it: earlier starts, longer stays in the most photogenic spots, a guide who knows which rooftop has the view and which alley still has the morning light, and the flexibility to wait for a moment rather than being rushed on. Morocco is one of the most rewarding countries on earth to point a camera at — it just repays those who chase the hours.