Photos: Bringing Back Back
My cousin Sudesh at his cousin Daji’s wedding (couple at left)
Another one of my weird photo fetishes is people’s backs. Not out of desire necessarily, but more often because I am a dumbass and I usually end up behind the action. Also I think it better, at Sri Lankan weddings and events the photographers are always in your face. While it may capture the visage, I think it misses the moment entirely. I take photos with a pocket camera and I’m short, so I frequently end up with people between me and the action. Even at events where I’m allowed back stage or nearby I feel phallicly inadequate without an 8-pound SLR, so I tend to lurk. Anyways, what follows are a few of my favorite back photos, and a link to a full gallery. At the beginning I ended up photographing backs cause I couldn’t be assed to get up and stand in front of the action. And now I, um, still can’t be assed.
Guard at Royal Thomian Match
Royal Thomian is good for standing behind people, though if the wrong people catch you you might get your ass kicked. Security guards are another thing. They have funny company names like ‘Gallant Plus’ and dress like serious paratroopers, yet get paid little, carry no weapons and are often skinny and dimunitive. They’re also at every event, yet never in the picture.
Kid Watching MAS Boxing Match
I also like having a subject/object relationship in the picture, rather than it being just an abstract window. If you have someone within the picture looking at the action it gives you a sense of seeing the event in that time and place. Or something. In this case the little kid was watching the boxing, which gives it a bit more import than the straight boxing shots. It’s not so much about the boxing as ‘seeing’ the boxing which is, IMHO, more interesting.
Friend taking a wizz
In this case the subject is this tiki character and the object is the innocent Kandy foliage. I like this photo mainly cause the flash went off and the colors came out OK. It’s worse for faces, but here the colors of the shirt are OK and you can still see some of the green in the background.
Tourist at Elephant Orphanage
All backs are not created equal and it never hurts to get women’s backs in the photo. Just saying. As a counter-example, there is a photo of the typical Sri Lankan male physique in the gallery.
Harini looking out at city (from Pinnacle Mall)
Concerning the latter, is always better to photograph the girlfriend’s back.
Daughter of and my aunt at my great-aunt Florie’s funeral
I recently wrote about gay marriage, which is not even on the radar in Sri Lanka. But we have another type of marriage discrimination here as well. Foreign marriage. If you marry someone non Sri Lankan, they can never become a citizen. Their lives and their rights to even be in the same country as their children are permanently unstable, and it’s patently unfair.
When 
I started off not really liking General Sarath Fonseka, him being part of the aggressive war effort. I didn’t support the war (largely cause I thought it would fail), and I thought Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Fonseka were gleefully stomping everything. Fonseka even came out and said “I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people,” in 2008 (
General Sarath Fonseka was arrested on a bunch of trumped up charges, but mainly for daring to threaten Mahinda in a Presidential election. Despite his poor health, Fonseka was arrested in February 2010 and sentence to three years. Word on the street now, however, is that he’ll be released soon. Like any day now. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has told 
Very nice pics. Haven’t been to a RoyTho in a few years :( Gallant Plus? In our day it used to be those Avant Garde chaps in black doing the security there. Who the hell is that skinny specimen in the pic? I could probably knock him down myself. The Avant Garde, on the other hand, were quite notorious for their batton-happiness, and were pretty beefy by Sri Lankan standards. Probably might have popped you one if you took random pics of them. Them being army deserters and all. Anyway, keep it up.