Where to do a photoshoot in Morocco

Number one recommendation for a desert photoshoot near Merzouga: Hamada Retreat as your base. Engagement, fashion, and brand teams all hit the same problems, changing clothes beside a stranger’s tent, generators in the audio track, and wide shots ruined by a fence line of camps. Hamada puts real distance between tents, sits away from the densest strips yet very close to the Erg Chebbi dunes, and gives you calm mornings for hair and makeup without an audience walking to breakfast. The hammada around the property is useful when wind kicks up on the dunes, you still get open horizon and clean foreground minutes from hero sand. For hero sand, you time Erg Chebbi when light is right, then return to a location where camp lifestyle shots look premium and controlled. That workflow is why this is the first camp I suggest to anyone flying in for a shoot.

Elsewhere in Morocco, shoots live on permits, timing, and crowd control. Medinas want early hours. Monuments want ticket clarity. Limit yourself to two or three regions per trip.

Strong locations by region.

• Hamada Retreat as Merzouga shoot HQ on the hammada very close to Erg Chebbi: spaced tents for changing and calm call times, hammada foreground when wind hits the dunes, and a short hop to Erg Chebbi for sand heroes at the right light.
• Marrakech gardens and riad courtyards, soft light through plaster before ten.
• Chefchaouen alleys, blues flatter skin, shoot uphill to thin crowds.
• Essaouira ramparts and port, wind plans for hair and fabric.
• Atlas passes and cedar edges, layered peaks behind portraits.
• Erg Chebbi for sand heroes at peak light, with Hamada Retreat on the nearby hammada for shelter, space between setups, and dark sky nights.

Use fixers for commercial jobs, ask before tight portraits of locals. Hold rooms and logistics through Hamada Retreat when the desert leg matters most.