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12-day Sri Lanka Photography tour 2025

Join us on the 5th edition of this photo tour to Sri Lanka, a country that is just waiting to be photographed! This is an unmissable chance to perfect your people photography skills, eat like royalty, and experience one of the most unique countries on earth.

 

For the first time, we are going to run this tour in January to make sure we have the perfect weather throughout the country. 

Have a general question about the tours? Check out the FAQS & Policy

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A CLOSER LOOK

The island of Sri Lanka offers a tremendous diversity of photographic opportunities. We’ll take train rides to lush green tea estates where you can interact with the plantation workers, and then head to the southern coast to enjoy the bustling fishing activity, before ending in Colombo for some market hunting and street photography. We created the Sri Lanka Travel Photography tour to capture this one in a lifetime travel experience.

About Sri Lanka

What’s great about Sri Lanka is that you can balance luxury accommodation with very non-luxurious locations for photography, such as smelly fish markets and muddy tea fields. It makes for a great mix of creativity, adventure and comfort – a combination that makes it probably the most chilled-out photography tour run by Pics of Asia! 

 

Spending time in Sri Lankan villages will help you get under the skin of this country, find out what makes people tick – and capture their unique pride and optimism in your images.

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2024 TOURS

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Sep 1 – Sep 12
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Cambodia photography tour 2025
Aug 4 – Aug 15
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Best of Central Vietnam 2025
Jun 2 – Jun 11
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Central Vietnam Highlands 2024
Nov 11 – Nov 15
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North Vietnam reflections 2025
May 15 – May 26
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Bangladesh 2025
Nov 24 – Dec 5
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Sri Lanka 2025
Jan 12 – Jan 23
3-day Central Vietnam 2025
Apr 4 – Apr 6
Jun 13 – Jun 15
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BRIEF DESCRIPTION

Cast your net a little wider to capture the people of Colombo’s busy streets, the tea-pickers at work in the vast plantations and the colourful characters of the southern coast.

TOUR DETAILS

Duration: 12 days - 10 shooting days

Starting In:  Negombo

Ending In: Colombo

Participants: 6

Skill Level: All Levels

Comfort: High

DATES & TOUR LEADERS
Jan 12 – Jan 23, 2025 Etienne Bossot, Lee Starnes

PRICE

6 pax

4250 USD

  • per Person
  • Includes Single Supplement
  • Please note that these tours include everything (hotels, transportation, all meals) but excludes your international flight and Visa.

YOU WILL LEARN

peoplelandscapecompositiontechnical

TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

Negombo and its fishing life

The mountain city of Kandy and its busy market

The amazing train ride through the tea plantations

Capture the locals picking up tea leaves

People and landscape photography on the South Coast

Colombo and our special street photography itinerary

sri lanka photo tour map

Negombo

capturing fishermen of Sri Lanka on a photography tour with Pics of Asia

Kandy

capturing the market life of Kandy with the Sri Lanka photography tour 2019

Train Ride

Photographer on the train ride between Kandy and Nurawa Eliya in Sri Lanka

Tea Plantations

Capturing the tea leaf pickers in Sri Lanka with Pics of Asia

Fish Markets

chopping off fish in front of a crowd in Sri Lanka with Pics of Asia

Seascapes

Taking photo of the sunset with rocks and palm trees in Sri Lanka with Pics of Asia photography tours and workshops

Galle

A man selling street food at sunset on Galle face in Colombo

Colombo

street photography at the railway station in Colombo

Preparation

01. What's Included

In all our tours we strive to make things easy so everyone can focus entirely on photography. This is the reason why our rates include everything during the tour: accommodation, transportation, all meals, and even tips to local people. What is not included is your international flight, visa, travel insurance, and souvenir purchase.

02. Group Size

Like in all our tours led by two photographers we limit the number of participants to 8, for better and more personalized coaching. As it is the case in my tours, we will mostly focus on people and ways to take their photos, in travel or street photography style. As we are doing photo critiques and Lightroom tutorials, make sure to take your laptop / iPad.

03. Accomodation & Transportation

We will be staying in 4-star hotels for most of the tour, making this tour one of our most comfortable one. All our meals will be in local restaurants and hotels. All our transportation from city to city will be made with our minivan. The train ride in the tea plantations included!

OUR GUESTS SAY IT BEST

Hear how past tour participants experienced this tour.

Thomas Cassoudesalle profile picture

Thomas Cassoudesalle

Geneva, Switzerland
Been lucky enough to attend many of Etienne’s tour. Etienne always has the capacity to inspire and lead people during the workshop, Sri Lanka was definitely no exception. Tour was co-led with Lee and it was great to get two teachers. Both have a different and complementary approach and it is always helpful to exchange views during the photoshop review. What I like the most in any of his tours, no matter the destination is always his capacity to improvise and jump on any interesting opportunity that might come along the road. He always tries to make the best from any situation. Some might think that it is a lack of preparation, some others like me will value these very rare moments where you need to quickly get out from your comfort zone and shoot something you did not prepare for! I think Etienne’s master that piece, I would even say that it is his “hallmark” which makes it so special and enjoyable. You will always end up with something special, unexpected, different, something that you will bring back home in your “photo toolbox”. Something which is not buyable, which is called passion, experience and the sincere desire to share his knowledge.
Devin Springer profile picture

Devin Springer

USA
I had the pleasure of attending the November 2019 Sri Lanka photo tour with Etienne. This was a fantastic week, filled with fish markets, scenic drives, walks through tea fields, and other excellent photo subjects. Etienne is an attentive guide and natural teacher, and he really cares about building his students’ skills during photo shoots and through photo critique sessions. Sri Lanka is an amazing destination, with a huge variety of landscapes, street, and portrait photography possibilities. The effort that Etienne put into scouting out the best and most interesting photo locations was evident throughout the tour. I appreciated the flexible nature of the tour, with an itinerary that still allowed for last-minute changes to chase a unique photo opportunity, catch a particularly good sunset, or hide from the occasional rain shower. Photographers of all skill levels will enjoy this tour and will see the quality of their photos improving over the week. I came away from the tour with good memories, a hard drive full of new photos, and a more creative approach to making images. If you like photography and have ever wanted to see a bit of Sri Lanka, I can’t recommend this tour highly enough. Just writing this review makes me want to sign up for the next trip with Pics of Asia!
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Carl Wong

Hong Kong
I’ve joined two tours run by Etienne. The first was the Sunrise with Fishermen tour back in 2015. I had such a memorable and fun experience I decided to come back to Hoi An for the 3 Day Tour in April this year. Both tours were well run and as a keen street photographer, I learned a lot just seeing how Etienne operates and how he’s able to see scenes unfold. What sets these tours apart is the local knowledge that Etienne has - as a tourist, I would never be able to find the places we were taken. It’s certainly off the beaten track and away from the masses. I’ll definitely be back to join one the Pics of Asia tours in 2019.

OTHER TOURS YOU MIGHT ENJOY

Here's a few other tours we think you might be interested in.

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5-Day Central Vietnam

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GET STARTED ON AN AMAZING JOURNEY

Expect the unexpected. Expect to improve your photography skills thanks to spending time with expert, hands-on teachers in some of the most photogenic locations in Asia. Expect meaningful interactions with local people and expect to return home with photographs you can be justifiably proud of, and memories and friendships that will last a lifetime.