Morning Walk

All of my photography teachers have prescribed me to get up early and go out to find exiting photographs during the early hours of the day. Unfortunately, we do not practice this century old advice. But when you practice the advice at the right location, you can get better results. 

I totally agree with the thinking that "early birds get more worms". 

One day when we were relaxing on a weekend at my wife's place, which is about 35 km form the Colombo city, I got up little early in the morning and went out for a small walk. Even though I didn't expect any specific photographs, I just carried my camera with me. 

Following are some of the photographs I recorded at around 6.30 am - 7.00 am

Against the light

Light direction is one of the most important aspects of a photograph which can drastically change the message and mood of the photograph. Light direction is not only the direction of the light. When I say light direction that consists of relative position of the key elements. i.e., Light source, object and the camera.

When the source of the light is in front of the camera, and the light is travelling towards the camera, it becomes a bit of a challenge for the photographers. But in such situations, ever popular silhouette shots can be created. With the introduction of DSLRs, this silhouette photography has become increasingly popular and simple. By using spot metering and selective focusing, even amateur (like me) can take technically correct silhouettes.

Shown below are some of my recent, against the light photographs which were taken near the “Bere Lake” (an urban lake at the heart of Combo) between 5.30 – 7.00 pm. 

A lonely bird..! So small when compared with the rest of the world. The shadows of buildings make this little more meaning full as it adds the urban feeling in to the photograph.

Above average shutter speed made very static and the golden reflection gave a warm feeling to the entire picture. 

This lonely swimmer could have been very ordinary without the shadows of the buildings on the water. 

Evening is not the only time to capture silhouettes. Morning hours can also do the trick. The link given below, are some nice silhouettes from the net.  http://www.fanpop.com/spots/inspiration-and-creativity/images/25581219/title/silhouettes-sunset-photo

Back lit leaf..!

Few days a go when I was in my small home garden..the afternoon sun was shining on plants. When I just changed my angle of view, a back-lit leaf was shining like a green emerald. I took some photographs just before sunset.

Kandy Perahara - different perspective

Kandu Esala Perahera was a big event for most of the photographers and photo enthusiast like me. Canon announced a photo competition on the vent with some exiting prices for local and foreign photographers.Some of my friends like me also wanted to have a "go" at the event. I also joined. Our approach turned out to be a  total disaster due to lack of understanding of the event and lack of preparation. We could not get in to the place we planned for the shoot. Finally we ended up among the crowd just without knowing what to do what to shoot. The photos shown in this post are classic examples of bad results of unplanned photography assignment. 


We could not be still enough to use low shutter speeds to capture motion as we wanted. No space to set up the tripod. A running rain was there during the early hours of the evening. When procession started, it was little too dark. Add to the problem, our location was not a popular place for the performers. Most of the dancers were just walking in front of us. This is what happen when you do not study the situation and plan for the shoot. We came out with some ordinary shots of the procession. 


Shown below are some of the photographs I took that night, and even though those are not very good, I like this perspective of "Esala Perahera 2011" 

Still and motion all at once..!

This small kid looked so lonely even when Kandy Perahera in front of him.

Can this be categorized as child labor..!

Another "try" to capture still and motion together.

This two perahera workers were having a nice chant while the procession was going on. 

This "try" to capture still and motion together seems little successful.  

Finally, my advice to all my readers is.." if you want to have good photographs on any occasion, study the event, plan early, plan well and then only take your camera out." Any unplanned attempt will produce photos like my photographs. 

Wesak Festival - A religious and cultural festival - a night photography heaven..!

Wesak festival in Sri Lanka. One of the most exiting opportunities for night shots on the streets of Colombo.

These photographs were taken in May 2011 during Wesak festival week. All these photographs were taken during a small walk around a "Bare Lake" at the heart of Colombo.

 All these shots are taken with ISO 800, spot metering and mostly 1 stop under.

Night lights were beautiful but the reflection on the water was even more beautiful. It was a nice atmosphere where several lot of photographers were capturing these images and posting on their Facebook pages or other galleries pages on a daily basis during the festive week.

When photographing night lights and reflections, the tripod is a handy equipment which I could not carry on that day. If I used a tripod and given a longer exposure rather than hand held camera, the reflections on the water could have been more beautiful The water surface could have been totally colored for a longer exposure of 5-10 seconds.



Looking forward to Wesak Festival 2012 and be in touch for another set of photographs. This time I will go with the tripod. :-D

(Click on the images for larger view)

High Angle..!

One day I had to spend some time at Kandy, Dalada Maligawa (temple of tooth relic) waiting foe one of my colleagues. I had the camera with me and took some shots from the above. Personally, I do not like high angle shots but I made some color changes and did some touch-ups to give these pictures a mood. Unfortunately only few people liked these. Just have a look whether you like them or not. Feel free to email me if you like to make a serious comment..! (nirmanaj@gmail.com)

 Even though this seems a very simple photograph, the way the child and mother walk downwards made me stop at this. They are walking with eyes on the ground and the front is dark. Its just like the future is not clear but we just descending to the darkness without knowing what will happen next. 








This elderly mother was waling in to the shade..I felt like she is moving towards the darker period of life.

Sunset & Digital Photography

Sunset is a very common photographic event. When i started my photography while in school, capturing a nice sunset on film was a difficult task which required lot of training and patience. But today, the digital camera has made this task extremely easy. Any one with a DSLR or even with a point and shoot digital camera can capture stunning sunset pictures. 

 Nice sunset pictures are not a way of show off your talents any more. Most digital cameras have special scene modes which allows the user to capture professional looking sunsets at ease. Once I took some of my sunset shots to my photography teacher and asked for his opinion. All photographs were technically OK, nicely composed..BUT the problems was..they are so common. Any one could take them. 

This is becoming common for most photography situations. Today, everyone got a digital camera or at least a camera on the mobile phone. 
We shoot at almost anything. So....we are regularly exposed to thousand of photographs on a regular basis. To take a photograph which will stand against the rest is the difficult task today. 

The photographs in this post are some of the shots I have taken while wasting some time at Wellawatte beach. I had to pick up my wife from her work place little late, waiting on the road was a terrible experience..BUT luckily I had the camera with me. 

Nawam Perahera

Nawam Perahera is a well known photographic opportunity to new photographers to practice night photography. The specialty of Nawam Perahera is that you are allowed to move freely with the procession without much restrictions. Given below are some of the photographs I took in 2010 Nawam Perahera. 

Given Below is an article I published in CamaraSangarawa.org

ලෝක ඥානයෙන් සවිබල ගැන්වෙන ඡායාරූප - [Sebastiao Salgado]

by Nirmana » Thu Sep 29, 2011 11:21 am

ලෝක ඥානයෙන් සවිබල ගැන්වෙන ඡායාරූප - [Sebastiao Salgado]

ඩිජිටල්කරණයේ ආගමනයත් සමගම ශ්‍රී ලංකාව තුල කැමරා, ඡායාරූප ශිල්පීන් මෙන්ම විවිධ ඡායාරූප ද සුලභ විය. 

බහුවිධ මාධ්‍ය ඔස්සේ අපගේ නෙත ගැටෙන මේ නවීන ඡායාරූප අතරින් බොහොමයක් අපගේ නෙත රඳවා ගැනීමට හෝ සිත සසල කිරීමට සමත් නොවීම කනගාටුවට කරුණකි.

අද ලංකාවේ බිහිවන ඡායාරූප ශිල්පීන් බොහෝ දෙනෙකුගේ රූපඥානයත්, ''ගැජට්'' ඥානයත්, ඉතා ඉහල බවට විවාදයක් නැත. 

නමුත් ඡායාරූප ශිල්පයෙන් පරිබාහිර ලෝක ඥානයෙන් ඔවුන් සන්නද්ධ නොවීම නිසාදෝ ඔවුන්ගේ ඡායාරූප සුවිශේෂීබවින් තොර සරල ස්වභාවයක් උසුලයි.

ලෝකයේ ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨ ඡායාරූප ශිල්පීන්ගේ නිර්මාණ අධ්‍යයනය, ඇගයීම, ඔවුන්ගේ සමාජ පසුබිම සහ

 එම ඡායාරූප බිහිකිරීම දක්වා ඔවුන්ව මෙහෙයවනු ලබූ සමාජ ආර්ථික පරිසරය පිලිබද අද නවක ශිල්පීන් උනන්දු වන්නෙ ඉතාම අවම වශයෙනි.

සුපිරි ඡායාරූප උපකරණවලින්ම පමනක් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨ ඡායාරූප බිහි නොවන අතර,ලෝකය, මිනිසා සහ පරිසරය පිලිබද වූ පිරිපුන් දැනුමකින්,

 අධ්‍යනයකින් සහ දයාවකින් ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨ ඡායාරූප බිහි වන බව මගේ හැගීමයි.

මේ සමග පලවන ඡායාරූප කිහිපය දෙස බලන්න. මේ බ්‍රසීලියානු ජාතික Sebastiao Salgado නමැති ශ්‍රේෂ්ඨ ජීවමාන ඡායාරූප

 ශිල්පියාගේ නිර්මාණ කිහිපයකි. දුක් විදින ජනතාවගේ හගීම්, ඉරණම මෙන්ම ඔවුන්ගේ ජීවන අරගලයේ කටුක, ශුෂ්ක බව මේ 

ඡායාරූප වලින් පිළිබිඹු නොවන්නේද?

වෙළඳපොල ආර්ථිකය විසින් ගොදුරු කරගන්නා ලද, ආර්ථික බලවතුන් විසින් නිරන්තරයෙන්ම පෙලනු ලබන, 

හෙට දවසේ ජීවත්වීම සඳහා පමනක්ම සටන් වදින අසරණ දුප්පත් ජනයාගේත්, ජීවත්වීම අරගලයක්ම වූ කම්කරුවන්ගේත්,

 යථා ජීවන ස්වභාවය මේ ඡායාරූප වලින් නිරූපනය වන බව මගේ හැගීමයි.



මෙම ඡායාරූප වලට පිටුපසින් සිටින Sebastiao Salgado ආර්ථිකය පාලනය කරනුලබන බලවතුන් විසින් ජනතාව කොතෙක් පීඩාවට

 පත්කරන්නේද යන වග පැහැදිලිව අවබෝධ කරගත් පුද්ගලයෙකි. ආර්ථික විද්‍යාව පිලිබද පශ්චාත් උපාධිධරයෙකු වන

 Sebastiao තම වෘත්තිය ජීවිතය ආරම්භ කරන්නේ ආර්ථික විශේෂඥයෙකු ලෙසිනි.

ආර්ථික සමග බැදුනු සමාජ ක්‍රමය විසින් පාගා දමනු ලබන අසරණ මිනිසුන් පිලිබද වූ තම ලෝකඥානයෙන් සන්නද්ධ 

තෙවෙනි ඇස මේ විශිෂ්ඨ ඡායාරූප බිහිකිරීම දක්වා යොමුවී ඇති ආකාරය ප්‍රසංශනීය නොවන්නේද?

දුක්විදින අප්‍රිකානු ජනතාව වෙත හෙලනු ලබූ සානුකම්පිත බැල්ම Sebastiao හට "Unicef Goodwill Ambassador" තනතුරක්

 පවා කැදවාගෙන ඒමට සමත්විය.Sebastiao Salgadu විසින් භාවිතා කරනු ලබන ''ගැජට්'' පිලිබදව කිසිදු නිනවුවක් 

නොමතිව මෙම ඡායාරූප රස විඳිය හැකි නොවේද?

විවිධ කැමරා වෙළඳනාම, තාක්ෂනික මෙවලම් හා ඒවයේ යෙදවුම් ගැන කෙස්පැලෙන තර්ක විතර්ක කරනා අපේ ඇතැම් 

ඡායාරූප ශිල්පීන් තම ''ගැජට්'' ආකල්ප පසෙකලා අපේ රටේ අපේම මිනිසුන්ගේ ජීවන අරගලය , දුක, සතුට, 

ආදරය ලොවට හෙළිකිරීමට තම රූපඥානය මෙන්ම ලෝකඥානයද මෙහෙයවන්නේ නම් කෙතරම් අගනේද?
විශිෂ්ඨ ඡායාරූප සහ ඒ හා සබැදුනු ඡායාරූප ශිල්පීන් මෙන්ම එම නිර්මාණ බිහිකිරීම දක්වා ඔවුන් මෙහෙයවනු ලැබූ 

ඔවුන්ගේ ලෝක ඥානයේ භාවිතය පිලිබද හරවත් සංවාදයකට මෙම ලිපිය පෙරවදනක් වේවා..!
----- නිර්මාණ ජයතුංග ------




Children's ward in the Korem refugee camp



Dispute between Serra Pelada gold mine workers and military police



Gourma-Rharous



Refugees in the Korem camp

First Day with my DSLR..!

The above is one of the first photographs that I took on my first day with my DSLR. It was a bright morning at Kelaniya temple. Most of my own favorite photographs are taken in early hours of the day. 

You need the right lens to get the optimum magnification. But on my first day, I had only the kit lens. I started to feel that I am little handicapped without right tools to get closer to the subjects. But.., stop worrying and start living is my style. 

I had to crop the picture to get the above frame. As a new comer to digital photography, cropping was something I liked that much. 

How to select the right DSLR for you..?

This was a simple yet complex question that I had in mind when I wanted to purchase my DSLR. 
The enthusiasts were having a non ending argument of Nikon or Canon..? 

My personal ideas is that Canon OR Nikon argument is useless exercise. I have listed below the cause of action that I took in selecting my DSLR. 


1. Consider what are the highest and lowest specs of good camera brands. I considered only Nikon & Canon. 


2. Think clearly, why do you want this camera...? What purpose..? since you are going to buy your first DSLR, do you actually want the top of the range..? Or do you just want to buy a average DSLR?


3. Do you really want to pay for any features that you will never use..?


4. Mega Pixels..? The mega issue in selecting a digital camera. Think about the  size of the photographs that yo are expecting to take. High number of mega pixels will bring yo bigger pictures, but at a higher cost. If you do not want to spend a lot, my advise is to go for a medium sized mega pixel option. (We can find enough examples of very good photographs taken even with 6 mega pixel DSLR)


5. Consider how much you can afford and start small..!


6. Do you want additional lenses..? I could not afford any additional lenses when I purchased my DSLR and the kit lens (18mm-55mm) was fine for me. 


7. Any other accessories...? Wait wait...get familiar with the camera and basic operations first. 


8. Then the big question..NIKON or CANON..? When i made my choice, I selected two models from both brands. Then went to both local agents and inspected the cameras physically. There is a very big difference between two camera designs and I selected the camera that fits best in my hand. Ergonomics..! Yes that is very important. 


Small note on Nikon Vs Canon. : Both manufacturers make great cameras. Different models have their own merits. The color reproduction of these brands are different and what is best is totally on personal preference. 


Actually my final selection was based on ergonomics and user friendliness. Keep in mind my friends...user friendliness is a very personal feeling. 

Re birth

As I mentioned in my previous post, my photography was neglected for about 11 years and the technical aspects of photography evolved to the digital era during my absence. My wife wanted me to buy a small digital camera for the purpose of taking some pictures of our wedding. 


And I continued to shoot picture with that Nikon Cool Pix and my wife found my photos are above average for that camera. She was not aware about my heavy involvement with photography during my school age and when I told her about my old time hobby, she persuaded me to buy a DSLR by financing the project by 50% regardless of what ever the camera I wanted to buy. 

Shown above is one of the photographs I shot with my Nikon CoolPix. This is the view from Banrarawela National Holiday Resort. With all control on auto as no controls available in the camera, this was shot before the sunrise by keeping the camera stationery on a garden bench. 


In January 2011, I purchased a DSLR camera with the support of my wife also and started shooting more controlled photographs again.  

The Start..!

This blog is a part of my efforts to communicate, share and interact with the people who enjoy photography. I already have a fan page on Facebook, which is currently active with regular updates of my personal photography work. 
My Photography Fan Page.


Photography is my all time favorite hobby and my first step of photography was taken with my father, going to photography exhibitions, going through great photographs on foreign and local magazines etc. My father is totally responsible for opening my eyes in to visual beauty. As I grew up, I was fascinated by various B&W photographs that I came across as well as my father took me to various international film festivals held in Colombo, where the cinematography was world class. 


We didn't have a camera at home, but my father had a good collection of photographs by various local photographers as well as some photographs taken by him long years a go. Even though I was a photo enthusiast, I was not in to any kind of active photography until joining the "Royal College Photographic Society" (RCPS).


I became a member of RCPS in 1993, and was an active member as long as I was in school. I was lucky to be elected as the student chairman of the society in 1997. RCPS gave me opportunity to meet a lot of prominent photography professionals in the field. further to that I was exposed to various photography overages such as annual price giving, other annual events, big match etc. That was a rare experience for any one in school age. 

I consider my self extremely lucky to join the photography classes conducted by Mr. Lal Hegoda in 1999 and continued my photography studies with "Hegoda School of Photography" up to Diploma Level. At that time I used a fully manual YASHIKA camera which I still love to hold. 


Higher education, unprofessional studies, career development, lack of time and money resulted in a total negligence of my lovely hobby from year 2000 to 2010. YES...I was totally out of photography for almost 11 years. I was taking pictures when we go on a trip or at any family gathering ect.., but that is not photography is all about. Fortunately, the proper photography education that I received form "Hegoda School of Photography" remained back of my mind.