I finally moved out from Sri Lanka with my wife to Singapore with the hopes and dreams of building a life for ourselves in a country where the ruled are not unbearably oppressed by the rulers. We had to leave a lot of people and things behind. We knew that this was not going to be easy when we first discussed the possibility of building our future in another part of the world. But we were suffocating with the weight of the financial crisis created by those who ruled Sri Lanka for the past 75 years out of greed and nepotism.
Today I am in a country where life is good for a young couple in their prime, to work, live, and enjoy life to its fullest. I am seeing a whole new level of positive energy in my creative work since I moved here as well. My portraiture work came to a complete standstill. I do not have access to an affordable studio here or any connections with models. But I adapted. I changed. Instead of feeling stressed or discouraged, I dived deep into other channels of photography. I have always been a street photographer at heart, so I had no problem turning to my roots with that. I am shooting way more often on the streets than I used to, especially since I have very little fear of being subjected to verbal or physical violence for taking an innocent photograph with no ulterior motives but documenting an interesting moment.
I am finally able to explore Film Photography, something that I could not have done back in Sri Lanka since there was no film stock nor any color lab that could develop film. I plan to explore a few ideas for long-term photography projects this year. At least one of those would be done with 35mm film.
This is a new beginning, and I welcome all the creative adventures on which I am about to embark in this beautiful country.