Traveling Sri Lanka’s central highlands and a bit of eastern coast allowed me to experience and photograph this tropical island. Tea plantations, people, rainforests, wildlife, cultural sights and much more…
Sri Lanka is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean, it is also known as Ceylon. Its area is maybe 10-15% larger than Croatia but the population is 5x bigger. Sri Lanka has a long and documented history reaching back some 3,000 years. Many well preserved temples and ruins of ancient towns, such as Polonnaruwa from 10th century, are truly astonishing. The island is home to many cultures, languages and ethnicities. The majority of the population are Buddhist.
- 70.2% Buddhism
- 12.6% Hinduism
- 9.7% Islam
- 7.4% Christianity
The country’s main economic sectors are tourism, tea export, clothing, rice production, and other agricultural products. Tea production and trekking in Sri Lankas’ central highlands has been the most interesting part of the trip for me. It has been interesting to see how my favorite beverage is being made. Another thing I loved was curry and I had it few times a day. Food is generally excellent and it is based around fruits and vegetables. With that abundance and good quality I had no need for meat products there. ZOOs and captive animals are not my cup of tea, so I decided to give a safari a go. I’m not sure how it is in Africa but in Sri Lanka they let 200 jeeps drive around 100 elephants, in my opinion that ratio is way to high and it disturbs the elephants, I’m not doing that again.
For photography I’ve used my Fujifilm X100f and Capture One Pro for editing. I really love the output coming out of it, plus the camera is very light, small and discreet which comes handy while traveling. One thing I’ve noticed while shooting small camera system is that people don’t pay attention to me, it seems I’m not taken seriously anymore. It might sound a bad thing for professional client work, but for street and travel it allows me to capture natural and spontaneous moments. So far my photography had mostly focused around nature and climbing, but lately I started to show interest for street and life photography. Perhaps using Fujifilm X100f has influenced me to do so. I believe that a good photographer is able to adapt to all types of genres. Mixing things up teaches you to see things differently, and in the end of the day, allows you to improve and grow. Staying in the same place and doing the same things year after year never brought anyone to anywhere.
