Ismail Zaidy, a photographer from Marrakech, says: "I always try to take my culture and put it into my own universe — not copying it as it is, but imagining it how I see it, and creating from that."

How does he see it? In pastel colours, vast skies, soft flowing fabrics, and tender portrayals of familial ties.

How does he create? For years, all his striking images came from nothing more than his phone — Ismail only picked up a professional camera about a year ago. He weaves traditional Moroccan elements into a dreamlike, contemporary world: staging his siblings against minimalist backdrops, playing with symmetry and colour, and turning everyday moments into soft, poetic visual stories.

This is his story.

— Ismail, before we talk about your journey as a photographer and an artist, I would love to dive into your past a bit. What was before photography? And how did it all start?

— I was born and raised in Marrakesh. I studied international management, and I have a bachelor’s degree in it. I started doing photography when I was in my last year of university. But at that time, I wasn’t thinking of photography as a career or something serious — I was just taking pictures of landscapes, cats, my friends, and posting them on Instagram.

With time, I started getting followers, engagement — people were getting interested. But I realised I was kind of recycling what other people were already doing. I felt I wasn’t bringing anything new to the field.

So I started learning more about conceptual photography. I began experimenting with whatever I had at home — fabrics, mirrors, any materials I could find. I wasn’t investing in equipment back then: I would come home from university, grab some fabrics, and go up to the rooftop with my little brother. We would create, come back, edit the photos, and post them on Instagram. It was like this: tap, tap, tap, tap.

One day, I needed a female model, so I thought about my sister. I was a bit afraid in the beginning, because coming from a conservative society, it is not easy to share photos of your sister. But I did it, and people actually respected it.

I always try to take my culture and put it into my own universe — not copying it as it is, but imagining it how I see it, and creating from that.

— As I remember, your very first project was “3aila” in 2018. Could you tell me more about it?

— Honestly, back then, I didn’t call it “3aila” yet — I was just taking pictures of my siblings. In 2020, right before COVID, I had a big opportunity: Hassan Hajjaj invited me and told me, “I’ll give you my space to do a solo show.”

I told him I didn’t even have a name for my project. And he said, “Name it 3aila — family.” I said, “Okay, let’s do it”. We named it “3aila”, and since then, that is what the project has been called.

I have never changed the name, out of respect for Hassan — he is one of the biggest photographers in the region, and it was an honour that he helped me with it.

Now we are working on the second phase of this project.

— Wow, I want to hear more! Is there any concept?

— I don’t have a strict or methodological vision for this project. For me, it is something very personal. Photography is always my escape from everyday life and from everything happening in the world right now.

With all that is going on, I have found that photography helps me stay grounded. It gives me space to breathe. That is why I don’t have a specific strategy or plan — I am not thinking about where it is going or what it will become. I do it simply because I love it. It is part of me.

And I think that is what people connect to. Sometimes when they see the pictures, they are not saying “wow” because of something big or flashy — they just say they feel something, that it touches them. I don’t know, maybe it is the energy we put into it. We spend a lot of time creating these images with love, with my mom, with my siblings, and maybe people can feel that.

So, the next version of the project is like a family photo — the kind you have at home. It has been seven years since we started, and you can see that my sister and brother have both grown. But the main idea of this second version is more about the connection within a family — the kind of connection we don’t see much anymore.

Now you often find families living in the same house, in the same space, but each person is isolated — the kids in their rooms, the mom and dad each on their own. That connection is slowly disappearing, and I think it will affect us later when parents get old and children don’t have that bond with them anymore. I want to reflect this in my photos — to say that we have to keep this connection, to protect it.

Family only happens once in your life. You can have many friends over the years, they come and go — but parents, siblings, that is something unique.

This project is about showing how family connections can affect you deeply, in a positive or negative way — but I always show it in a poetic, beautiful way.

Soon, we are going to shoot some new photos with my mom and sister. There is this phase when girls reach a certain age and start seeing their mother as an enemy, but the mother is just trying to keep them safe. And later, when you get older, you realise your mom was right. My sister was the same. Now she says, “I’m sorry, she only wanted to protect me.” I want to capture that exact stage — the tension and love between them — in photos.

— How would you describe your overall approach to photography?

— I love experimenting. I don’t want to just repeat myself. I want new challenges, new experiences. I want to grow.

I believe I will do photography all my life, and I don’t want to burn out in the next four or five years. So I’m chasing new challenges, trying new things. Maybe in five years you won’t find me on the rooftop anymore — maybe you will find me in a studio, doing something completely different.

— Now, let's go through a few of your works. For each photo, I would love you to share everything you can: the emotions, the story behind it, and if there was any concept, explain it. So, first of all, tell me about the series of photos with mirrors you made in March 2018.

— This one was maybe the first real conceptual series I ever did — and it went viral at the time. I got a lot of followers from it. People really loved it!

I still remember preparing it; it was so funny. I asked my mom to bring me a mirror, and at home I found some orange and white fabric.

At first, I had this idea of showing a woman’s face in the mirror, but technically, I didn’t know how to do it. So I decided to try something else — to catch a cloud and place it in the mirror. So, I just took the mirror, waited for a cloud to pass, and captured it, then made it a bit bigger when editing.

The cool thing is that after this series, people in Morocco started using clouds in their pictures a lot. It became a kind of trend.

But for me, it was just experimenting — my first time shooting with my brother, trying things out. It was a good experience, and I think this was the series that really opened the door for me into the world of conceptual photography. It made me happy.

— And what about this photo of the boy with his head inside the trousers?

— Oh, it was so funny! At first, we tried to do the painting on his face — but it didn’t work at all. It was a disaster. I ended up fixing it later in post-production.

When I shared it, people were like, “Wow, who’s the makeup artist who did this?” But actually, it was just me editing.

Back then, I named this photo “Rest Area” because the boy (my brother) was just chilling on the rooftop. It was meant to be a calm, relaxed photo. He had no expression on his face, just lying there, totally at ease. Even the way his trousers flopped looked relaxed.

It was simply about that feeling — sometimes we just need to chill.

From this photo, I started a new series called “Soul Escape.”

None of the people in the photos are smiling in the photos — it is like they are under the pressure of life, of family, of problems and stress. But even with all of that, each of them still has an escape, still has hope.

Some of them once dreamed of becoming engineers, artists, football players — but life chose a different path for them.

And you can also see, through the series, how the faces of my siblings have grown and changed over time.

— Wow, I thought these were different people!

— The funny thing is, when I tell people this project took me seven years, they say, “Wow, that’s too much!” — but you can actually see the difference in their faces from photo to photo.

— And the sky is so beautiful. When did you take the photos with the violet sky?

— The sky in winter in Marrakech is the best — it is the perfect time to take photos. That is why most of the time I shoot in winter.

That photo with violet sky was taken at the end of the day. The funny thing is, until last year, I didn’t even have a good camera — I was shooting everything on my phone. So I never had the privilege to shoot in the middle of the day, because the light was too harsh and everything looked burned.

So most of the time I shot either early in the morning or at the end of the day. And that is when I always got those beautiful colours — when the sun is low or sometimes gone completely, during blue hour, when the light is soft and the colours are magical.

— So do you feel a difference between using a camera and using an iPhone?

— In the beginning, I was shooting with a Samsung S5 — for the first three years, actually. Then I got an iPhone 11, later an iPhone 16, and only after that did I finally get a camera.

With the camera, it feels different — but honestly, maybe if I hadn’t started with the phone, I wouldn’t pay so much attention to details. When I was shooting with my phone, I had to put in more time and care for every little thing.

The camera helps more with editing and printing. For example, last year I shot for Fashion Trust Arabia, photographing the winners — and it was raining. If I had been using a phone, I wouldn’t have gotten good photos. But with the medium format camera, we could keep shooting even in the rain, and during editing, we got really good results.

And in the end, the client doesn’t care if you shoot with a phone or a camera — they just pay and want great results.

— Now, the next photo with a lot of people on a rooftop. I think it is one of the viral ones, too. How was it made?

— This one is the most viral photo I have ever made — and probably the most well-known. It was my brother, and I think either my cousin or my sister, I don’t remember exactly.

I would love to bring a lot of people to my rooftop for shoots, but I can’t — it is a shared rooftop, and that would cause problems with the neighbours. So for this photo, I only brought my sister, my brother, my cousin, and three friends.

We created it using a kind of “raffle mode” — they stood in one place, we took a shot, then they moved and we shot again, then they came back, moved again… and in the end we got this layered composition.

The idea behind the photo was about connection and collaboration. You can see all the colours are variations of white and pink — different shades of pink. It represents what we have now in our culture, especially in our region, where people are becoming very closed off.

But I believe that if you stay too focused on yourself, you can stifle your creativity — especially in the creative industry. When I went to Europe, I saw how open people are to collaborating, helping each other, and even supporting you financially if you have a strong vision. But here, in our region, creatives are often very closed. There are no opportunities, nothing is moving.

That is why I made this photo — to say you have to open up, you have to collaborate. In photography, it is not enough to just be talented or to have a beautiful heart — you have to connect with people, be kind, be professional. Not just for yourself, but for the energy you give to the world.

— And what about this series with flowers?

— This one was during COVID. It was at La Mamounia, one of the most iconic hotels here in North Africa, in Marrakech.

They invited me during COVID and gave me access to the hotel and the gardens, and they asked me to create a photo for their magazine.

So we did this — we brought flowers, stuck them onto plastic, and created the photo there during COVID.

— And the last one: I can see an amazing photo of your mom and sister. What exactly did you want to capture?

— As you can see in the photos, my mom looks completely relaxed — just chilling — and my sister has a slight smile. It is rare in my photos to see people showing emotion on their faces, but here it fits the subject I told you about before.

You can feel that my sister trusts my mom, and my mom is calm and peaceful. My sister is leaning toward her, almost like a small sheep gently pressing its head — it is that same kind of gesture.

It is more about connection. It is about trust. My mom doesn’t show any dramatic emotion, just this quiet presence that says, “I trust you, my daughter,” and my sister responds with a soft smile. It is that kind of loving emotion between a mother and her daughter.