Part one
“Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is... At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible"
My May adventures were epic in nature and found inspiration in the Pablo Coelho book The Alchemist. The moment I finished listening to that book on Audible, I hit replay. It was three times in a row before I decided to buy the paperback book and mark it up. As a creative it was inspiring and transformative. A portion of the Santiago’s journey takes place in Morocco, and as luck would have it, my own personal legend took me to the very same landscapes of the book.
an audience while on my pursuit of my personal legend in Morocco, photo by Sara Louise Ramsey
Along with a group of fellow advertising photographers from around the world, we all set out to find a personal photographic project to create in the support of each other, our central hotel serving as a hub of ideas, feedback and support. I was drawn to the outlying Atlas Mountains and the villages where the lifestyle strongly reflected the balance of nature, beauty and simplicity of a life from the past.
school in remote atlas village in morocco
It wasn’t easy navigating a land where I visibly did not fit in. Besides the culture differences, there was a huge language barrier that I couldn’t even use Google translate for, seeing how the villages spoke Berber languages and not Arabic.
But as Coelho wrote, there is a language of the heart, a universal language. This was a chance to practice that in making friends and earning trust in a country where trust is not given freely. As I sort through the best way to share my project, I will share a few behind the scenes stories that might tell a better tale, a tale of one person on their own personal legend.