VOYAGE

My journey into the South of Morocco opened up a very small window onto the daily life, culture and magical land of the Berbers, while opening up a huge one onto the my own forgotten world.

It is so easy to forget where you come from, allowing the light to slowly fade out of your life.
Although it may sound surreal, its relatively easy to become a stranger in your own home, not only loosing your home, but also loosing yourself in the process.

All you have to do is to give blindly, your love, your trust and everything you have to people that skillfully know how to hide their greed, envy and jealousy. To give and to share your sole with people that are able to fake love, illness, friendship, intelligence, culture and even parenthood in order to grab all they can from you. And when you uncover their scheme, when there is nothing left to steal, since there is never enough to satisfy and fulfill their endless needs, they put on another mask and run without any conscience onto the next target, onto another scam. However, talent and dignity can not be stolen. Their quest for perfection, for the white picket fence, becomes an endless journey into the lost and sad land of depravation, dishonesty, forgery, vanity and mediocrity.

The images from the Voyage are a symbolic expression of the contrasts encountered in a magical land, driven by my desire to recover what was stolen from me, starting from the very beginning: “Home”.
Sometimes dramatic and sometimes dreamlike, the imagery from my journey, is a reflection of childhood memories, peace,
harmony, friendship, freedom, beauty, love and details that compose life and humanity into a mirror shattered by lost time,
broken dreams and betrayals.

The Voyage has allowed me to collect and put back together almost seamlessly, the scattered pieces of what some define as an interesting life, others judge as a crazy life, what I simply call my life, my “Mektoub”.

The photographs in this blog and in my book VOYAGE, are the testimony of an intense voyage through memory, time, emotions, healing, culture, beauty, simplicity, happiness and humanism.

Door To…

SIMPLICITY

In the land of opportunity, simplicity is seen as poverty, culture is a luxury, beauty is associated to wealth, which in turn fuels envy, selfishness, vanity, and true poverty.

Going to the Sahara Desert made me realize that the white picket fence is a purchased, embellished and fabricated illusion of happiness and accomplishment, a statement of arrogance, fake success, hypocrisy and monotony; a desert without oasis, where true humanism will never grow, and its soil will only continue to produce poverty, envy, loneliness and violence.

In the land of simplicity, flowers grow from rocks and sand, there is no need for a white picket fence.

Kasbah With A View

Contemplation

Suddenly, my thoughts, body and feelings were submerged in a soft yet powerful wave of harmony and forgotten peacefulness.
The colors, light, the skies, the music, the drive, the mix of emotions and the feeling of belonging in a very foreign and forgotten place, became the perfect ingredients to create a state of absolute serenity and contemplation.
As I stood, observing and absorbing the timeless and otherworldly beauty of my surroundings, I was mirrored by these scenes of people simply standing there and contemplating as well.
We had reached the city of Ouarzazate, the door to the Sahara Desert, where one could be satisfied for a moment by stopping time and watching the scenery bathing itself in the light of a sunset or a sunrise.
I concluded that these figures observing peacefully the landscape, were driven by faith, peace, simplicity and their ability to take nothing for granted.
I want to thank them for helping me find the way out of my cave. Those of you who know me personally will
understand the meaning.
For everyone else, you can just pause for an instant and ask yourselves; how many days of our lives are spent in the chaotic land of absurdity waiting for life to happen while life is going by.

I Have A Dream

Morning Walk

Going Home

Sheltering Sky

Gathering On The Water

Love

Doubt

Mirrors

Ten

Nomad 1

Nomad 2

The Shepherd

: © copyright 2011 daniel malka all rights reserved

Camel Man

Nomad

The Henna Hands

Work

Rest In Peace

Pot Burners

The Tool Makers

The Bread Man

Textures

En Passant

DESERT KIDS

SITTING

Friend

The Musician

He is walking along the road, lute in hand.
I ask him to play something.
He crouches, plays, and starts singing.

I am on my way back.
This is how a journey ends.
Or does it.

Inspired by a forgotten world,
I was able to reach deep into my own forgotten self,
Find my simplest values of life and humanism;
A true white picket fence.

Although life sometimes brings many losses,
There is always music around us,
A reminder that no matter what,
The Voyage must go on.

DANIEL MALKA PHOTOGRAPHY "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Martin Luther King, Jr

VOYAGE

GALLERIES

THE DANIEL MALKA PHOTO PROJECT

DANIEL MALKA PHOTOGRAPHY "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Martin Luther King, Jr

VOYAGE

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GALLERIES

THE DANIEL MALKA PHOTO PROJECT