Daoud Aoulad-Syad

What first led you to photography?

It happened entirely by chance. At the time, I was a pure scientist. I was preparing a doctorate in fundamental physics, and photography played no part in my life whatsoever. One evening, in a gallery in Nancy, I discovered an exhibition of black-and-white photographs. The images portrayed ordinary people, working-class neighbourhoods and scenes from everyday life. They reminded me of my own life, my family and my neighbours. I felt an overwhelming emotion. The very next morning, I bought a small Russian camera without an instruction manual and began teaching myself.

Who was the photographer who changed your life?

It was only a few years later, during an exhibition at the Arab World Institute in Paris, that I met him. It was Henri Cartier-Bresson. We spoke at length. I was about to join the Magnum agency in Paris, but he gave me invaluable advice: “Go back to your country. Photographing Moroccans is what truly matters.” I have remained faithful to that advice for the past forty-five years.

What Morocco have you sought to preserve through your photographs over the years?

When I began photographing Morocco in the 1980s, there were very few Moroccan photographers documenting the country. Very quickly, I realised that I wanted to work on memory. My camera became a notebook. I always carry it with me. I never set out with a specific subject in mind. I walk, meet people and observe. The themes emerge later, when the images begin to speak to one another. My ambition has always been to leave a trace.

Is there a city that occupies a special place in your work?

I am from Marrakech, and I have photographed the city extensively. But the Marrakech I documented is no longer the Marrakech of today. I knew a popular city, deeply Moroccan in character. I lived in the medina and photographed its inhabitants, their gestures and their daily lives. Much of that has disappeared with globalisation and the development of tourism.
That is the natural course of things, but I am grateful to have built these archives. They bear witness to a world that no longer exists.

What sparks a photograph for you?

What interests me above all is people. I come from Cartier-Bresson’s humanist tradition. Landscapes can be magnificent, but it is people, their stories and their emotions that capture my curiosity. I often say that people see, but they do not look. Photography is about learning to truly look. When one really looks, one becomes attentive to light, gestures, relationships between people, to what is visible and also to what remains unseen. With experience, that way of looking becomes almost instinctive. But one must remain receptive to the world.