FirstLook: Casablanca Not the Movie

FirstLook
- Photograph by “Yoriyas” Yassine Alaoui Ismaili
Categories
- Creatives

I love walking the beach in Casablanca. Earlier this year I saw a dog digging a hole into the sand. The scene grabbed my attention, and I began to take a couple of pictures. When a boy rode up on a horse behind me to watch what was happening, I quickly took three steps back, placing the horse in the left of the frame, and made this photograph. To me this photo represents Casablanca—chaotic yet organized at the same time. It is part of my series “Casablanca Not the Movie,” which I began in 2014 as a love letter to the city that has inspired me the most. The group of images show a truthful representation of Casablanca that you won’t get from Hollywood: one of diverse cultures, people, traditions and urban development.

—”Yoriyas” Yassine Alaoui Ismaili
www.yoriyas.com
@yoriyas

You may also be interested in…

The World's Fastest Scientist

Written by Andrew A. Sicree // Photographs by Nik Wheeler

Born in the Nile Delta, Ahmed Zewail became the first scientist to record molecules while they were undergoing chemical reactions that take place in a few millions of a billionth of a second. This established the field of femtochemistry and earned him the 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In November 2009, he was appointed one of the first three US Science Envoys to the Middle East, and he passed away on August 2, 2016.

Read

Creatives

Cave Artists of Sulawesi

Written by Graham Chandler
Photographs and video by Meridith Kohut

When a hand stencil-painting in the caves on this island recently dated to 39,900 years ago, Indonesia took a place alongside France and Spain as a site of the earliest known representational art. Now we must ask not only how and why we began making pictures, but how and why we did so on two continents, at the same time.

Read

Creatives

If I Forget You, Don’t Forget Me

Photographed and written by Manal AlDowayan

To reconstruct memories of her late father’s generation, the artist and author interviewed her father’s peers and made artifact-based portraits of his “unique generation that saw Saudi Arabia at its poorest and later at its richest,” a generation that understands “what it means to build your dreams from scratch.”

Read

Creatives

Habibi Funk’s Musical Revivals

Written by Mariam Shahin

Across North Africa a few back-street stores still sell records pressed in the ’70s and ’80s. There Jannis Stürtz has been digging for local classics to rerelease on his digital-and-vinyl label, Habibi Funk, bringing them to global audiences and illuminating some the era’s most vibrantly hybrid music scenes.

Read

The Alhambras of Latin America

Written by Raphael López Guzmán, Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales, et al.
Photographs courtesy of Raphael López Guzmán

From the 1860s to the 1930s, architects throughout South America and the Caribbean took inspirations from the Islamic design heritage of southern Spain, where the most inspiring building of all proved to be the Alhambra palace.

Read

People

For the Love of Reading

Written by Piney Kesting 
Photographs courtesy of We Love Reading

From its first read-aloud in Jordan in 2006, We Love Reading has become one of the world’s most-recognized nonprofit organizations encouraging reading among children. Behind its success stand more than 7,000 local volunteer “reading ambassadors”—mostly women—in 61 countries and its founder, a scientist whose own four children inspired her.

Read

Tastes

Spice Migrations: Cinnamon

Written by Jeff Koehler 
Art by Linda Dalal Sawaya

The series Spice Migrations opens in Sri Lanka with one of the world’s favorite spices, which once grew exclusively on that island. Traders priced cinnamon like gold, and those who could get it used it for health as much as for flavor. A storm, and a Portuguese fleet, changed everything.

Read

People

FirstLook: Ahmet Dadali's Rodeo 7 Double Mute Grab

Photograph by Pally Learmond

For this shot I did a simple rodeo 7, which is two horizontal spins, and added a little extra spice by throwing in a double mute grab, which is holding one ski with both hands. It was a super high-speed jump, which I needed to make the 25 meters to the landing. I was lucky to land it first hit.

Read

Places

Britain’s Muslim Heritage Trails

Written by Matthew Teller 
Photographed by Andrew Shaylor

Not far from London, newly inaugurated walking routes trace some of the first Islamic patronages and cultural contributions to the UK. The trails start at the country’s first purpose-built mosque and lead to two cemeteries—one dedicated to nearly forgotten Muslim veterans and the other the resting place of several dozen British Muslims, more than a few of them leaders in their fields. While the sites owe their origins to a 19th-century linguist, the trails have come about through collaborations among a local journalist, the London-based nonprofit Everyday Muslim and the town of Woking. All have teamed up so visitors can walk the paths of stories that hold “the potential to change Britain’s popular historical narrative.”

Read

To take advantage of all features on this website, it is recommended that you allow all cookies.

You may also be interested in…

Subscribe to our newsletter