Two Colombos

Two of the many Colombos in the City of Colombo. Slave Island, April 2024.

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/2000 • ISO100 • Canon R6 & RF14-35/4L •}

Return to Wekanda

It’s been a couple of years since I was here, shooting a documentary assignment. They’ve finally cut off the water and electricity, but there are still people living here, against all odds. Wekanda Housing Scheme, Stewart Street, Slave Island. April 2024.

^{• 20mm • f/4 • 1/1250 • ISO200 • Canon R6 & RF14-35/4L •}

^{• 35mm • f/4 • 1/800 • ISO200 •}

^{• 35mm • f/4 • 1/400 • ISO200 •}

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/400 • ISO200 •}

St Anthony’s Sub-Post Office

Ratnam Road, Kochchikade, Colombo. September 2023.

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/40 • ISO250 • Canon R6 & RF14-35/4L •}

Minimal Mosque

Mosque inside the Maligawatta Muslim Burial Grounds, Colombo. December 2023.

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/500 • ISO100 • Canon R6 & RF14-35/4L •}

English Pettah

An early 20th century building in the English Palladian style, 4th Cross Street, Pettah. December 2023. Many of these buildings, scattered through the older parts of Colombo, are falling into disrepair; not old enough to be declared protected by the Archeology Department. This one, and many like it in Pettah, are used as warehouses by wholesalers. Little interest is shown in the upkeep of these urban landmarks as they gradually give way to damp and age. The demolition of the crumbling De Soyza Building in Slave Island, in 2021, brought much public outcry, despite the fact that the structure had been visibly deteriorating for many years with no attempt by the owners, the authorities, or the public, to restore it.

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/200 • ISO200 • Canon R6 & RF14-35/4L •}

The Cliffs of Colombo

Downtown Colombo, November 2023.

^{• 800mm • f/11 • 1/340 • ISO800 • Canon R6, with an RF800/11 from Canon/Metropolitan} 

Flies on the Wall

Mihindusenpura Flats, Dematagoda, Colombo. August 2023.

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/80 • ISO400 • Canon R6 & RF14-35/4L •}

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/100 • ISO200 •}

^{• 35mm • f/4 • 1/125 • ISO500 •}

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/200 • ISO500 •}

^{• 17mm • f/4 • 1/200 • ISO100 •}

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/80 • ISO100 •}

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/320 • ISO400 •}

The Dewatagaha Mosque

Named after the dawata tree (Carallia brachiata, or corkwoood) next to which a Sufi saint made a miraculous appearance in 1820, parts of the mosque, in Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo, are believed to date to the mid-19th century. Shot on assignment for Panos Pictures and Die Zeit in June 2023.

^{• 14mm • f/4 • 1/1600 • ISO100 • Canon R6 & RF14-35/4L •}

Dark Kandy

Sri Lanka. October 2018.

^{• 24mm • f/4 • 1/80 • ISO800 • Canon 5DMkIV & EF24-105/4L •}

The Last Refuge

The Temple of the Tooth, in the morning light of Kandy. Built in the early 18th century as a royal palace for Vira Narendra Sinha, the last Sinhalese king, it was converted into a temple to house the Tooth Relic of the Buddha. The moat and the octagonal Paththirippuwa pavilion were added in 1802 by Sri Vickrama Rajasingha, the last king of Kandy. Designed by the royal architect, Devendra Moolacharya, the pavilion’s eight points were meant to radiate from the king as he displayed the Tooth Relic to the crowds below, reinforcing his position at the centre of the world. The name Paththirippuwa comes from the Tamil words, parthu (meaning ‘to see’) and irippu (to be ‘seated’), and together sound like ‘to sit and see’, and many take this as evidence that Tamil was in fact the lingua franca of the Lankan aristocracy. After the British seized Kandy in 1815, the Paththirippuwa was converted into an oriental library, and thus it remains today, housing the temple’s collection of Buddhist palm leaf manuscripts and books. Shot for the New York Times in December 2018.

^{• 24mm • f/4 • 1/2500 • ISO400 • Canon 5DMkIII & EF24-105/4L •}