I do street portraits and candid street photography. I post them to Instagram but don’t have it on my phone as I don’t want to get addicted to views and likes.
I started when my friend loaned me his camera to take photos of the Christmas lights, but I came home with chaos, and nothing worthwhile. I decided to push myself to learn this skill, so I bought a camera and my friend taught me some of the basics. If I took photos of buildings and statutes that were beautiful to my eye, they didn’t look like that in my photos. But the people who were beautiful to my eye, were also beautiful in my photos. So, I’ve stuck with that.
I’m from Sri Lanka and moved to London in 2013 before coming to Melbourne. When I got off the plane in Heathrow there was no one there to meet me and I couldn’t speak English. I wanted to cry but there was no point as there was no one around to help me. I had to learn to talk to people to find a job, or whatever I needed, and I became brave from that point onwards.
When I’m out and about, inside I can be crying, what if they say no. Say I ask 10 people if I can take their photo, three might say no. But I focus on those who say yes and get very excited and in the moment. It’s really thrilling when I get a beautiful photo.