by Jesper Storgaard Jensen
About me
I’m Danish, born in 1964, and have been living in Rome since 1997. I have always loved writing and at a certain point, after my arrival in Rome, I started to collaborate with magazines producing travel articles. It was from this that the Danish Daily wanted to publish a travel article of mine from an Italian island. Unfortunately the PR-photos were of a too poor quality. In other words, I had to do the photos myself. This is when I purchased my first ever 5-mega-pixel camera. That was back in 2003, and since then, my interest in photography has been steadily increasing. I had been working for the Danish Embassy in Rome for ten years, but in 2009 I took the jump to become a full time freelance journalist and photographer shooting travel, culture, food & wine and interviews. Everything with my own imagery.
The journey to Marrakesh
We – a total of eight persons – were doing a 7 day on-the-road-trip round Morocco, two days of which were spent in Marrakesh. As I needed to travel light, I packed only my Fuji gear – Fuji X-E2, the 18-55mm kit lens and the 35 mm lens for portraits & food. I must say that I find this a excellent combination and the overall weight is significantly reduced compared to DSLR gear.
Travelling in a country with a completely different culture to my own I wanted to play it safe. So I asked most people if I could take their photo, especially regarding portraits, which I guess is quite obvious. There were occasions where some scenes were too good to miss, and in these circumstances I fired from the hip, looking elsewhere.
Generally speaking, Marrakesh is a very photogenic location. There are so many varied situations, so wonderfully exotic, with such incredible faces, emotions, the colours, the textures. Everything seems to be calling you to be immortalized.
Future projects
Aside from my daily work, I like to have detailed, lengthy photographic projects and I’ll soon be leaving Rome for my summer holidays. I’ll be driving through the south of Italy to the island of Pantelleria, south of Sicily. During that month of holiday I’m planning on doing a project called “People I met”, taking portraits of people I’d casually meet during that month. On a long term basis, I’m working on a project where I’ll be photographing different kinds of Roman artisans in their working environments. This project will be continuing into 2016.
This reminded me of a trip to Marrakesh in 2009. It does indeed have many scenes and places crying out to be photographed.
Regards, Pete.
I love your shots, Sir. And Cheers! I’m a Fuji user too! X100s to be exact. 😀
Nice Article , you are young the Long Road ahead will help you , good Lucj.
great tones and rich colours, really depicts the mood of the place.. nice work.
nice photos and article, we have something in common, I was born and raised in Rome, in 1964 , I now live and work in Vancouver BC. My first digital camera was a Fuji S2 with 5 megapixels too, and after many years with Nikon gear I now shoot, Fuji XT1 and X100s. You will love Pantelleria, great moscato wine and capers. ciao Danilo
Thanks for sharing your photographs.
The colors just seem to pop off of the screen. Did you use in-camera settings or PP to get that look.
Sharing that look would be great!
Thanks again-