Fishing Boats at Dawn — Negombo Lagoon
The lagoon fishermen of Negombo begin their work before the stars have left the sky. A quiet morning that changed how I think about patience.
Negombo lagoon sits north of Colombo, separated from the Indian Ocean by a thin strip of land lined with fish markets and churches. The Dutch built a canal here in the 17th century; the fishermen still use it.
I arrived at 4:30am, earlier than I needed to, because I have learned that the moments before the moments are often more interesting than the moments themselves.
The boats are wooden, painted in colours that make no sense until the sunrise arrives and suddenly every colour is the right colour. The fishermen do not speak much. They move with the efficiency of people who have performed the same actions ten thousand times.
I made perhaps forty photographs that morning. I kept three. That ratio feels right to me.