Glenn Mckimmin Gallery

Some places make you stop and look.

Walking through the streets and markets of Sri Lanka, I came across this butcher shop. No refrigerated display cabinets. No perfect packaging. No polished supermarket lighting. Just a man standing in the middle of his workplace, surrounded by the reality of his trade.

To us, it might feel confronting or completely foreign. To him, it’s just another day at work.

I had the Meta glasses on, so I filmed myself walking through the market and seeing it exactly as it happened. No setup. No location scout. Just looking, noticing the light, and deciding there was a photograph here.

That’s one of the things I love most about travelling with a camera.

You start looking beyond the landmarks.

You notice the workshops. The markets. The people behind counters. The tiny businesses down side streets. The ordinary parts of someone else’s life that feel extraordinary when you’re seeing them for the first time.

And somewhere in all of that, you find a frame.

Sometimes the best stories aren’t the ones you went looking for.

They’re the ones that make you stop.

Yesterday in Sri Lanka, I got charged by an elephant.

Actually, two.

I was in the jeep with a group of my photography clients when this lovely lady decided we’d been hanging around long enough.

The funny thing is, I wasn’t thinking about making content. I had my Meta glasses on, so what you’re watching is pretty much exactly what I saw.

No setup. No second take. No beautifully composed wildlife sequence.

Just an elephant coming towards us considerably faster than I would have preferred.

And that’s one of the things I love about these trips. We come here to make photographs, but the moments you remember aren’t necessarily the photographs you planned.

Sometimes they’re the completely unscripted ones that happen between them.

This was definitely one of those.

And yes. Everyone’s fine.

Sri Lanka continues to deliver.

The old fella in the doorway, no shirt, in the shade, watching the street go by. Almost everyone walks straight past him.

Street photography is just learning to see what everyone else misses. You wait, you look, you search for the moments sitting right on the side of the road. And when you find one, you don’t rush past. You sit with it for a while.

This is Stories on the side of the road.

Some of my favourite photographs were never planned.

You’re driving somewhere, heading for something completely different, and then you see a person, a place, a bit of light and you stop.

This little roadside workshop was one of those moments.

No location scout. No setup. No shot list. Just something that caught my eye and a person whose surroundings already told half the story.

Photography isn’t always about travelling to the famous places. Sometimes it’s about being curious enough to stop at the places everyone else drives past.

Keep looking. The stories are everywhere

So far, Sri Lanka has given us everything.

We started in Negombo, watching the fish markets come alive at dawn. Fishermen hauling in the catch, knives moving, scales everywhere. Then down to the coast and the Jetwing Lighthouse, a stunning old place right on the rocks at Galle. We photographed the Dutch fort in soft morning light and chased the stilt fishermen at sunset, that iconic shot everyone dreams of.

From there it was inland to Gal Oya for wild glamping. A boat ride across the lake at golden hour, and then the moment we came for. Elephants swimming across open water right in front of us. You don’t forget that.

And through all of it, the white background work. Meeting the people, setting up the sheet, and letting their faces tell the story.

But the honest truth is this. The photography has been incredible. The people have been even better.

This group is up for anything. Every early start, every long drive, every plan that changed. No complaints, just yes. That’s rare, and it’s the thing that turns a good trip into a great one.

More to come.

The Vedda People

We’re staying in Rathugala, deep in the forest country of eastern Sri Lanka. This is Vedda country.

The Vedda are the indigenous people of this island. The name comes from an old word for hunter. Forest people. They’ve been here longer than anyone can remember, and they still carry themselves the old way. An axe slung over the shoulder, nothing else.

I spent the last couple of days with them, doing the thing I love most. Finding the stories nobody tells. Setting up the white sheet in the middle of their world and letting their faces do the talking.

This is why I travel. Not for the landmarks. For the people. The cultures still holding on, and the faces that carry the whole history of a place.

Another chapter of the project. Another story worth keeping.

Life doesn’t always go the way you expect it to. Mine certainly hasn’t. But somewhere along the way I stopped waiting for it to, and started doing the thing I actually love. That changed everything.

These are the men who cut fish at the Negombo market in Sri Lanka. A white sheet, a bit of light, and a face. It looks like a little thing.

But this body of work is years in the making. A patience and passion project built on one simple idea. To capture culture and life the way it really is, and give you a different perspective on people you might otherwise walk straight past.

I get to guide people into cultures they’d never see alone. Learning from them. That’s the part I love most.

So keep trying. Do the thing you love. The little things add up to a whole life.

I wore my Meta glasses into the fish market in Negombo, Sri Lanka so you could see exactly how I find a frame.

The footage is raw. Me walking the stalls, nothing staged, nobody posing for me. Just looking. Watching where the light falls, watching the hands work.

And then the final image at the end. The split second when everything lines up and you just know.

Most people only ever see the finished photograph. They never see the looking that came before it.

That’s the part I love. The search, the timing, the one frame you keep.

Fish cutters, first light, Negombo, Sri Lanka.