Raditha’s Photos

It’s said that you will love your Sigma 50-500mm lens as long as you don’t point it up a tree. Here is proof. I shot about 20 photos of this Changable Hawk Eagle perched on an Alastonia tree but only one came well. Even then there is room for improvement.

There are certain light conditions though which allow the lens to be pointed up at a tree, a clear sky with the sun behind your shoulder is one of them.

A normally calm, quite and dark residential lane gets transformed on Vesak day with people bringing out their vesak lanterns.

Last year’s vesak was at Great Western. In 2007, I forgot to take a photo!

This is a photo of the Colombo fort area. An pro will say it isn’t a particularly good one, because the foreground is a wee bit dark and the sky apears to be mostly white. Even so, I value this photo highly because it represented a once in a life time opportunity. It was taken on the day of a national election when the city center was deserted.

This was at a time when Sri Lankan elections were more violent than they are now and people were expecting a curfew in the evening. So the city was even more deserted than usual. Unlike most people, I went out. Took the kid to the Galle Face. On the way back took this photo of the YMBA and the other building which at the time was marked for demolishen but fortunately they didn’t carry it out.

This was also the time of the ceasefire, otherwise it would not possible to take photos in the fort area. So that’s why this is such a rare and valuable photo and that’s why the government of Sri Lanka stole it.

With the number of trees that have been cut down in the neighbourhood in recent weeks, it’s a miracle that this dead tree was left standing. It made a perfect perch for this Brahmini Kite. If you happen to pass the Kelanitissa Thermal power station, don’t forget to look towards the sky, you will see at least a dozen of them soaring a long way up. The thermal currents produced by the steam turbines coupled with the proximity of the garbage mountain makes it one of their favorite areas.

This one though was seen in Battaramulla, I don’t know if they range that far but then again Kelanitissa is not so far off as the crow (or the kite) flies.