Lina

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Thalangama Lake, February 2023.

• 35mm • f/4 • 1/640 • ISO100 • R6 & RF14-35/4L •

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Temple of the Water God

I believe that water is the closest thing to a god we have here on Earth.”

— Alex Z Moores Living in Water

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The Randenigala Reservoir, surrounded by the jungles of the Rantembe Reserve. December 2018. If water is the one true god of our planet, then the reservoirs we’ve built over millennia must be its greatest temples.

• 24mm • f/8 • 1/1600 • ISO800 • 5DMkIII & EF24-105/4L •

Afternoon Over Thalangama Lake

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Kotte, Sri Lanka. February 2023.

• 14mm • f/4 • 1/800 • ISO100 • R6 & RF14-35/4L •

The Doomed Giants of Anuradhapura

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Sunrise over the Basawakkulama Tank, believed to be Sri Lanka’s oldest reservoir, built in 400BC, against the backdrop of the Ruwanwelisaya and, faintly in the distance, the massive broken Jetawanaramaya, both over 2,000 years old. The tree silhouetted against the morning is one of many that line the tank’s retaining bund. For perhaps a century or more, these broadly spread giants have sheltered farmers, workers, schoolchildren, and the occasional photographer, using the bund as a footpath into Anuradhapura. When I took this picture in January 2017, while on assignment for Serendib magazine, the trees were also home to rock squirrels, numerous nesting birds, and families of grey langurs. But sadly, it has now been reported that the government has begun felling these ancient trees because they are believed to be damaging the bund with their great roots. The perspective they have given to one of the most iconic views of Anuradhapura will be the least of the losses their deaths will bring.

• 18mm • f/3.5 • 1/250 • ISO100 • 600D & EF-S18-200/3.5-5.6 •

Twilight of the Kings

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Last light over the almost completely dry bed of the Habarana Lake, in northern Sri Lanka. One of the country’s oldest historical reservoirs, the lake is believed to be the ancient Aggivaddhamanaka Tank, built by King Vasabha of Anuradhapura at the end of the 1st century AD. Shot on assignment in January 2016, for Explore Sri Lanka magazine.

• 18mm • f/3.5 • 1/40 • ISO400 • 600D & EF-S18-200/3.5-5.6 •

Racing the Gold Home

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A brace of tourist boats race home through the evening golden hour cloaking Lake Gregory and the Nuwara Eliya Valley. This is a recent reprocessing of one of a lengthy set of photos I took of the lake, through the evening and into the night, in February 2017, for Serendib, the inflight magazine of Sri Lankan Airlines. My photo story, The Nuwara Eliya Season in Spring, ran in the April issue.

• 18mm • f/8 • 1/160 • ISO400 • 600D & EF-S18-200/3.5-5.6

Still Villu

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Wilpattu, Sri Lanka. May 2022.

• 80mm • f/5 • 1/250 • ISO100 •

Percy Bendi Wewa #2

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‘The Percy-Built Reservoir’, Wilpattu National Park, named after former Wildlife Conservation Department warden, Percy de Alwis. Sri Lanka. May 2022.

• 18mm • f/3.5 • 1/2000 • ISO400 •

Firefight

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I’ve been missing the predawn curtain raisers on my morning walks, these past weeks, sunrise coming earlier, as we arrive at our longest day of the year, today, 3rd August. But some morning showers gave the sun something to fight, and there’s nothing like a fight for spectacle. Weras Lake, Bellanwila, Sri Lanka.