A passion for perfect pictures

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” – Aaron Siskind. This quote would probably sum up the photographs taken by Kanishke Ganewatte – all you need to do, is have a look at his work and this sentiment rings true.

Photography is something that came to Kanishke naturally. As a young boy, he would keenly observe his father develop his photos in a makeshift dark room and then carefully put them together in old paper albums with tissue paper protecting each page. He would even number them so as to have a mini index of each photograph.

“Having seen my father do this at such a young age, it was only a matter of time before I decided that I needed to get my hands on a camera of my own,” he said, adding that he would click at almost anything but realised that he had a certain idea in mind and wouldn’t stop till he got it right.

Kanishke moved to Melbourne in the late ’90s looking for greener pastures where he worked full time in quality assurance but still found the time to take photographs and eventually moved from film to digital.

Capturing people’s moods and emotions is what Kanishke truly loves and looking at his portraits, it is pretty easy to understand why, as his portraits certainly are works of art. “I am not keen on using Photoshop to an extent that it changes the essence of what I capture,” he explained, instead using the tool to make subtle changes.

Kanishke moved back to Sri Lanka in early 2011 for personal reasons and decided to stay on and pursue his passion in photography, leaving a world of commercialism behind. “Since getting back, I make it a point to capture something unique every day, be it a squirrel in my garden or the stunning sunsets at Mount Beach,” Kanishke stated. He’s also taken on a number of weddings, birthday parties, events and product shoots. One thing is certain, when you get an album done with his work, you are bound to have something unique to last you a lifetime.

Kanishke has 15 years of experience backing him and if you’d like to see for yourself what he’s been up to, check him out on Facebook by searching for ‘KanishkeGanewattePhotography’ or check out his Flickr page www.flickr.com/photos/kanishkeg/.