This kid's family sold smoked camel meat at a stall in the souk, a legendary and sprawling marketplace located in the heart of Fes.

Like many photographers of my generation, I grew up looking at National Geographic magazines. I am not sure if my parents intended to open a up a library, or possibly a small store where they sold old issues? But just like everyone else I knew, we had a section of shelves in our house devoted to hundreds of these yellow-spined books. It was a definite phenomenon, the way our parents all seemed to hoard these magazines. I often wonder what happened to provoke this. Was there an announcement before we were born, to all parents, letting them know, "Listen. A subscription to National Geographic is very serious business. You can't just throw them away like the magazines that they are, you are going to need to keep them, ALL OF THEM, and you are going to need to keep them indefinitely, maybe forever."

Eventually, my parent's contract as stewards of The Collection must have expired, because at one point it was suddenly okay for my brother to cut them up to use in school projects. I'm not sure what changed, but I was fine with it, by then I had most of them all but memorized anyways. The articles and photography within the pages of our National Geographic magazines would go on to be an inspiration for me throughout my career, spanning everything from how I frame up a photo, to what I even choose to point my camera at in the first place. (If you'd like to read more about how National Geographic inspired me and my photography, please feel free to do so HERE).

The way this young boy was hanging out at his family's stall, presumably after school, like it was the most normal thing in the world to be sitting beneath two giant rotting camel heads, reminded me of how I would hang out at my FAMILY'S BUSINESS as a kid, just trying to entertain myself and pass the time. We sold living plants and not camel meat, but this boy struck me as very relatable. As a kid, I would have loved to have read about what this boy's life was life and looked at pictures of him hanging out with his dead camel heads. I wonder what kind of imaginary adventures they go on together? And I also wonder if he would have been interested to read about me, hanging out after school in America, going on my own adventures with a bunch of tropical house plants?

Hey. You work with what you have...

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I never did end up eating any camel meat in Morocco, and to this day (as far as I'm aware) I still haven't; however, I did want to murder a camel in Jordan that wouldn't stop ruining all my Petra photographs, and you can meet that delightful creature HERE.