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.
The northwestern view of the Hatton National Bank Towers on Darley Road, Maradana, as seen from the top of the 356m high Lotus Tower, South Asia’s tallest building, in March 2018.
The 17th century Galle Fort’s New Gate which faces the modern city of Galle, with the Sun Bastion beyond, and Galle Bay in the distance. Shot from the Moon Bastion in September 2016.Continue reading “Morning on the Ramparts #4”→
A horse and jockey head to the track for a training run at the Nuwara Eliya Turf Club, in the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka. The town has a history of horse racing that goes back to the mid-19th century, when John Baker, brother of the famous Samuel Baker, imported his English thoroughbreds to what was then the British Crown Colony of Ceylon. The race course was built in 1900. Shot on assignment for Serendib, the inflight magazine of Sri Lankan Airlines. My photo story, “The Nuwara Eliya Season in Spring”, ran in the April 2017 issue.Continue reading “Morning at the Track”→
Son of the Morning Light 