Flawsome

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Mother and child, Slave Island, May 2023.

• 70mm • f/2.8 • 1/320 • ISO1600 • Canon R6 & RF24-70/2.8L •

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Turbo

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Katunayake, Sri Lanka. Shot on assignment for Smart Media and Gateway College, in September 2018.

• 400mm • f/5.6 • 1/1000 • ISO200 • 7DMkII & EF100-400/4.5-5.6L •

Where were You, Dad, When We Sent the Tyrants Home?

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Protestors atop the barricades at the Sri Lankan Presidential Secretariat, at Galle face, Colombo, call for President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his government to resign; accused of corruption and ineptitude that has created the worst economic crisis in the country’s modern history. The Galle Face demonstration, which began on 9th April 2022, is now in its fourth week, dubbed ‘Gotagogama’, after the protestors’ primary demand — “Gota, Go Home!” The protests have seen Sri Lankans turn out in hundreds of thousands, mostly middle and working classes, of all ages and ethnicities, united in suffering, and a hope of turning things around before it’s too late. An acute shortage of foreign exchange reserves has seen Sri Lanka unable to import essential fuel, causing widespread electricity cuts, some as long as thirteen hours a day, and forcing millions to stand in interminably long queues for petrol, diesel, and cooking gas. President Gotabhaya Rajapakse and his Prime Minister, and older brother, Mahinda Rajapakse, have refused to resign in spite of the protests, prolonging the crisis. Vital medicines and essential supplies are running out, and the government has already indicated that it will default on its $51 billion foreign debt repayments due in June. With the country on the verge of bankruptcy, any recovery depends on a prompt replacement of the current administration, as the protestors are demanding.

• 170mm • f/5.6 • 1/250 • ISO100 •

Keeping Out the Extremists

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A young family tries to negotiate, to no avail, their way through a police barricade leading to Colombo’s Independence Square, a popular venue for protests in the city. President Gotabhaya Rajapakse, faced with widespread public protests demanding his government’s resignation over mismanagement and corruption, called the protestors extremists, and reacted with a 36-hour curfew across the weekend, and a social media block, hoping to discourage further visible dissent. Both tactics failed; unable to gather in Colombo City, large protests continued in the suburbs, through the evening and into Sunday night, while the widespread use of virtual private networks (VPNs) circumvented the state’s blockade of Facebook and Whatsapp. Sri Lanka, 3rd April 2022.
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Armed troops of the paramilitary Special Task Force (STF) man a barricade blocking access to Colombo’s Independence Square. Sri Lanka, 3rd March 2022.
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A Special Task Force (STF) police officer refuses to let me past barricades blocking Colombo’s Independence Square. Sri Lanka, 3rd March 2022.

Mutual Curiosity

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Stewart Road, Slave Island. January 2022.*

*Shot on a Canon EOS 5DMkIV & EF 24-105/f4L, courtesy Canon/Metropolitan.

Morning Hoop Time

The 1st Hour Project #40 -- little girl playing with hoops.
While most of her family still sleeps, a little girl gets in some playtime in her half-finished home in Gampaha, Sri Lanka. Shot in September 2016, for J Walter Thompson’s ‘The 1st Hour Project’, a study on how urban families spend the first hour of their day.

Schoolboy, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Schoolboy, Colombo, Sri Lanka by Son of the Morning Light on 500px.com
Shot in November 2018, for Smart Media and Gateway College.
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Lockdown Lessons

Lockdown School #3 by Son of the Morning Light on 500px.com
Colombo, Tuesday 7th April 2020. Day 18 of the lockdown. Exchanging his school desk for a table in the corner of the kitchen, my nephew takes down his homework off the internet.
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Waiting for Glory

Tiny Dancer #2 by Son of the Morning Light on 500px.com
Child dancers wait to hear how they have placed at the IDW Dance Championship in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
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