Club Meeting, Sri Lanka, The Teardrop of India - Tuesday 7th October 2025.

    

On Tuesday 7th October Morpeth Camera Club welcomed one of its own members; Paul Appleby who gave an
illustrated talk entitled ‘Sri Lanka, The Tear Drop of India’ Paul introduced his talk by showing members a map
of Sri Lanka and outlining the route of his tour of the Island, explaining that he had visited the island at the
time of the monsoon rains and that many of his images had been taken during wet weather. He also provided
information on the equipment he had used explaining that he now used micro four thirds cameras and lenses,
which were lighter in weight than the full frame equipment he used to use.

Paul then started his journey with some images of the island’s capital city, Colombo, featuring street scenes,
market stalls, Dutch and British colonial style buildings, including the old clock tower that had also served as
a lighthouse until 1952 and the red and white bricked Jami-Ul-Alfar Mosque, commonly known as the Red
Mosque.

Paul then went on to show members wide range of images from the numerous locations he had visited during
the tour. These included many historical world heritage sites, including ancient religious sites in Anuradhapura,
which had been the capital city of Sri Lanka for over 1,000 years between 250 BC and 993 AD. One of these
included the Jetavana Dagoba, which had at the time of building had been 120 metres high and was the 3rd
largest structure in the world after the two of the Egyptian pyramids, It is still the largest brick building in the
world with over 90 million bricks.

             

Paul went on to show images of the Sigiriya also known as the Lion Rock, a magnificent ancient rock fortress
and palace complex that rises 200 metres above the surrounding plains in Central Sri Lanka. Another notable
location he visited was the city of Polonnaruwa with its numerous temples and the stone shrine of Gal Vihara
that featured many giant images of Buddha carved into the rock.

As well as the images of historical buildings Paul showed many colourful images of birds, mammals, reptiles
and insects that he had taken during visits to national parks, nature reserves, botanical gardens and a river
safari. Other subject matter included the Temple of the Sacred Tooth and Kanyan Dancing and Drumming in
the city of Kandy, and a tea plantation and factory near the town of Nuwara Eliya. Towards the end of his talk
Paul showed a picture of the memorial to the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004 that had killed over 40,000 people
and displaced more that 1 million of the population.

When visiting other countries Paul uses the opportunity for some street photography and he likes to capture
images of the local population, but on this trip he noted none of the people he had photographed were smiling.
Being determined to capture an image of someone smiling he asked one of his subjects to smile, only to find
that the older man badly needed to see a dentist. However he eventually succeeded in getting a young girl to
smile by getting someone to distract her and make her laugh.

At the end of the evening Club Chairman Jeremy Cooper thanked Paul for a very interesting and informative
presentation that had allowed members to appreciate the many aspects of the colourful island of Sri Lanka,
after which refreshments were enjoyed.

Glyn.