I recently spent 11 days out in the Moroccan desert documenting the Marathon Des Sables.

I worked with a new collective of people that goes under the name Suitcase Media & Productions. On this project we had 4 members. Mark Gillett (Photographer),

Romain Sepulchre (Filmer), Maite Gula (Editor) and me (Editor). Our roles were loose, as all of us would help each other out with every aspect of production.

Video above was one of my edits. It got GoPro video of the day and received over 20k views in a few days.  Pretty stoked on that one. Music: Yeah Okay, Josef http://soundcloud.com/josefmakesmusic

Click MORE…

MDS 2012 – Stage 3 from Suitcase Media & Productions on Vimeo.

The above video is one of my favourites. We wanted to capture the organisation involved during each race. Every day the campsite that holds 1000 people is taken down, moved 25 miles or so, then rebuilt. Amazing.

Below is a very small selection of images from the trip.

First day on location. All 11 GoPro’s out ready to be charged.

Using a USB hub to charge them up.

7 hour drive to the first camp site.

First night on camp. Full moon business. Amazing skies.

Daily 5am starts. Woken up by the sound of the tent being dismantled.

First day start line. Everyone eager to go. The atmosphere at this point was ridiculously intense.

The catering trucks in transit from one camp to another.

We stopped off in an Oasis hotel to work on that days edit. The time-lapse video above was made in this very location.

GoPro’s after a heavy clean session. The dust gets everywhere.

We climbed to the top of the mountain pass one morning. As we got to the top the runners emerged and proceeded to run down the ridiculous incline. Some amazing views from up here.

As I was at the top the heli came down to drop off some photo journalists.

I managed to blag a lift back down to the first check point. First ride in a heli. Conclusion: Mega.

GoPros downloaded after another day of shooting.

A storm approached. A very strange feeling. The contrast between the super dry desert and the approaching rain was odd. I took cover behind a car as the hail started to pick up. The wind speed was pretty mad. I was taking photos, and later as the storm passed I reviewed them and noticed I had inadvertently got a bolt of lighting in one of the shots.

Got to take another ride in a chopper on the last  day. The pilot took us on a little ride over the camp an dunes. I love how the runner’s tents are a perfect circle.

Another view from inside the heli as we pass over the dunes.

We drove ahead and waited for the runners to arrive. Had a bit of time to kill…

GoPro Setup on top of one of the dunes. Unbelievable views.

A local waiting for the approaching runners.

Someone’s bike left under this sun shade.

Backing up the 300+ GB of data in the airport before caching the plane home.

Brief summery:

This was a unbelievable experience. The pressure of having to get an edit up and online everyday was tough to say the least. But the payoffs made it totally worth the effort. I discovered so many new things.

More photos can be found Here

A day by day diary of events Here

Cannot wait until the next adventure…