This is another of my favorites from Morocco. The rugs made there are of very high quality. I remember seeing many European tourists in the showroom purchasing the finished products.This shot was taken during a stop while traveling in the Atlas Mountains. I don’t remember the name of the village but I was able to take quite a few shots of the local color (literally).

The workforce was made up almost exclusively of very young girls. It’s obvious that their small hands were needed for the manual effort to create the rugs. This was quite a while ago so I’m not sure if the rugs are produced the same way today. On the United States Department of Labor web site page for the ILAB(Bureau of International Labor Affairs), the article titled “ILAB Morocco” contains the following quote. “L’Union Marocaine du Travail (UMT) estimates that 5,000 to 10,000 children between the ages of 8 and 14 work in the artisan carpet industry and between 2,000 and 3,000 work in the export-oriented carpet industry”.  That being the case, they seemed to have raised the age of the workers since a few of the girls in this shot seem to be younger than 8.

Most of my Morocco shots were done with a Nikon F and various Nikkor lenses. A 35mm f2.8 wide angle was used for this shot on Kodak Kodachrome slide film.