David Collingridge:
“The second photo I have chosen as much for the story behind it as for the sheer vibrancy of the colours. We may have had an unseasonal amount of wet weather but throughout the trip when the sun shone the colours were stunning. One of my other favourite pictures is of tea workers wrapped with coloured polythene against the rain. I have never thought of polythene as beautiful but with the density of the green of the tea bushes their outfits were as good as those on any catwalk. The chosen photo contains its own story. We had gone out for a walk along a narrow path from the River resort hotel with our guide Rajeev and we amazed to discover that this Tuk Tuk had been able to also use it although it had reached its limits at this point. it was even more laden than is immediately apparent as at least one of the ladies had their own ‘passenger’ on board as they were on the way to meet the midwife who had her ‘offices’ along this path. By good fortune we later met up with the midwife (who seemed to be very young) and with the assistance of Rajeev’s translation skills Rosie who also trained as a midwife were able to swap tales about the differences in how births are managed. I think the Sri Lankan midwife was surprised at the phenomenom of home births in the UK. Most of her work seemed to be focussed on ante-natal and post-natal car.”