A short time ago The View from Fez was contacted by a Tom Robinson, a photographer now working in Marrakesh. He had read our stories on Chameleons in Morocco and was moved to do something about their plight. He has now put his ideas into practice and so we invited him to be a guest contributor. Here is what Tom has to say.
I recently moved to Marrakesh to do the electrics in a large hotel for an English builder, I have been here now for 4 months and being a keen wildlife photographer soon found out that Morocco has a lot of exotic wildlife to photograph.
I particularly became fascinated by the Chameleons and after coming across one in an olive tree on site one day I soon had my camera in out taking some close up macro shots. It was a little feisty flaring up and hissing at me. I got a few shots and before long it had climbed up the tree and was out of sight. It was great seeing these creatures in the wild, perfectly adapted to its life in the trees.
On my first trip to the souks, I came across a shop selling 2 Chameleons and at least 10 baby Tortoises. I was so appalled by the poor condition of the Chameleons in tiny cages and in direct sunlight that I bought them both. I managed to part with 80 Dirham’s in the end, a fraction of what the man selling them started off at.As I walked away with these two amazing creatures in a small box, I released that by buying the Chameleons I was only fuelling the trade and the shop would soon have more to sell, but never the less I had helped out two that would probably have died if they stayed there much longer.
Tom with one of his friends
Watching them disappear into their habitat was a brilliant feeling, just as I was walking away from the tree I noticed one of them on the outside branches, with the last of the sunlight behind and a few frames left on my film I took a couple of silhouette photograph’s and left them back where they belong.
The View from Fez would like to thank Tom for the article and the photographs.
1 comment:
Great story!
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