This trip was extra special for me because I went by myself, the first bit of travelling I’ve done solo since 2011 (and then it was Europe, Asia alone is a whole different kettle of fish!). It came at a time where I really needed some proper time with myself, thinking, exploring, pushing myself - and sometimes that is best done when you’re not travelling with anyone else. I’ve always wanted to go to India but I’m definitely not quite ready to go there by myself and I had heard so many good things about Sri Lanka that year I decided to just go for it.

I had 2 and a half weeks which was a perfect amount of time, if I’d had longer i could have been a bit more relaxed about the itinerary and travelled spontaneously a bit more but i wanted to make sure i covered a stretch of the country in that time too. Sri Lanka’s train system is famous and it is absolutely as amazing as the travel adverts make out. Steaming through countryside for hours on end, peeking into every day lives as you whoosh past, smelling ALL the smells.. it was such an experience in itself. I went hiking, found temples, ate at road side cafes, swam with turtles, got absolutely poured on with some of the worst rain I have ever seen, met some incredibly welcoming people (I mostly did home stays / B&B type things) did a cooking class, saw whales, practised yoga, went serious shopping in the markets, saw elephants in the wild, and so, so many more incredible things.

Colombo - Habarana - Ella - Kandy - Mirissa - Unawatana

I always struggle with photography on trips; do I take my ‘work’ camera? Do I use my lightweight Fuji instead? Do I take no photos? When I switch my brain into ‘camera taking mode’ it can be hard to relax sometimes I end up making the whole trip about getting that incredible epic shot rather than enjoying the scene in front of me and interacting with people.

Part of this trip was switching off from work too, and re-forming my view on the medium that I work with. SO, I bought a film camera and vowed to only shoot film for this trip. Learning to use film again had been on my list for a long time and always got shoved to the bottom, but this trip away was about me pushing myself so off I went to the second hand camera store.

I know that one of the worst things you can do as a photographer is to just photograph for work, rather than personal projects or passions, but struggling with the balance between work / play is something I’ve been really trying to work on this year to keep my passion with photography, and to keep my work progressing.

Shooting film gives you a whole different perspective on image making. The complete antithesis of the modern day camera phone where you can snap as many photos as you like, shooting film takes it back to basics. You get 24/35 on a roll - so you make then count. Instead of taking 10 photos I’ll really think about my composition, the light and most importantly the content of the image - is this worth a frame? Why am I taking this photo? It makes my question what I’m looking at, what inspires me enough to get it out of my bag and wind it on. Sometimes I’ll compose an image and go to take a shot and think nope, actually that’s not that great, and save that frame for something else.

It makes me reevaluate photography.

And boy when I get the scans back... I am literally squealing. Because you have the anticipation, film isn’t an instant gratification game at all. You have to drop them off, and wait for about a week while the film people do their magic, and then I get them through as digital images and then choose which ones I want to print for my photo albums.

Anyway enough waffling, there’s definitely more to say on this subject which I will save for my next travel film scan post about South America!