A Photographer’s Haunting Portrait Captures the Sacred Stillness of a Dried Oasis in Morocco

23 July 2025

A powerful reminder of what’s at stake’ Mustapha looks down a well, in a picture from the series Before It’s Gone. Photograph: M'hammed Kilito

In the heart of Morocco’s once-thriving oases, where life used to pulse with the steady rhythm of palms and flowing water, a silent crisis has begun to define the landscape. Photographer M’hammed Kilito, who has spent years documenting the region, presents a haunting image that is more than just a striking visual. His photograph is a story of climate, memory, and the delicate relationship between humans and the land that has sustained them for generations.

The shot in question was taken in the oasis of Tighmert, a place that in earlier years offered lush green relief from the Saharan encroachment. Today, Kilito’s lens captures a different reality. In the foreground, a lone woman is wrapped in a white haik, standing in an empty, dusty space that once teemed with life. She bows in prayer beneath a stand of withered palms. The dryness of the ground and the skeletal remains of what were once proud trees bear witness to a story unfolding far beyond the frame. The photographer’s careful composition lends the moment a sense of solemnity, but there is also a quiet accusation, a subtle call to look deeper into what has happened to this sacred land.

Kilito, who comes from the oasis city of Laayoune, has spoken at length about the cultural and spiritual connection people in the region have with water and greenery. Oases have never simply been agricultural sites. They are places of memory, of ancestry, and of rituals that tie families together. In Tighmert, as in so many oases across Morocco, drought and the reckless over-extraction of groundwater are slowly erasing centuries-old traditions. The photograph, taken on a bright afternoon when the air was thick with heat, is more than a documentary record. It is a meditation on loss and on the quiet perseverance of those who remain.

Kilito’s process was as contemplative as the image itself. Before making the picture, he spent time with local families, listening to their stories of past abundance and present struggle. Many described the old days with longing the festivals under the palms, the way water shaped every element of life, and the particular smell of earth after rainfall. Now, they see their children migrating to cities, leaving behind elders who pray not just for rain but for the survival of their heritage. When Kilito met the woman who would become the subject of his photograph, he was struck by her devotion. She explained that she came to the dried oasis daily to pray, believing that the land itself still held a sacred energy even as its surface grew harsher and more barren.

The moment Kilito chose to press the shutter was deliberate. He waited until the sun created long, almost biblical shadows and until the landscape seemed to hush around the figure in white. The resulting photograph is quiet yet urgent. The woman’s prayer is not only a religious act but a form of resistance against the forgetting that threatens her home. The image has an almost painterly quality, a blend of sorrow and reverence, and it has resonated far beyond the borders of Morocco.

Viewers and critics have responded to Kilito’s work with a mixture of awe and concern. Many see it as a call to action, an invitation to reconsider our relationship with nature and to recognize how quickly climate change can rewrite the most stable parts of human existence. For Kilito, the response is bittersweet. He is pleased that the world is paying attention to a crisis often overlooked in conversations about climate, but he is also wary of the distance that images can sometimes create. To him, the photograph is not only an artifact but an offering a hope that those who see it will feel the same connection to the land that he does.

Oases like Tighmert may seem remote to outsiders, but Kilito’s photograph makes their vulnerability real and immediate. In every line of cracked earth and every fold of the woman’s garment, the story of a vanishing world is being told. The photograph stands as both a memorial and a prayer, a sacred moment frozen in time, urging those who look upon it to remember and to care before these vital places disappear completely.