Letters From My Inbox -Part One

Letters From My Inbox, Part One— Is a new forum I have set up for discussion. Here you can write to me and I will publish a selection of letters I regard to be the strongest every month. I appreciate every letter that comes to me but sometimes I cannot reply to individual needs, so this seems a fun way to get questions answered and information out there, helping everyone at the same time. I will be doing a three-part series of backdated requests. Then I will be doing a forum every month starting from March—So get writing to see your questions answered and photos reviewed. You can email me on lgriggi@me.com or just send me a message through the blog.

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Cheap Photographers Only Kill Themselves, Not The Industry. Inspiring words by Zack Arias

Opening words By LUCIA GRIGGI,  Photo by ZACK ARIAS

I am taking time out today in-between getting ready for my trip to Sri Lanka at the end of the week and organising my business before I go. The last few weeks have left me thinking about how I should deal with certain clients in the surf industry. How, sadly, some photographers have been left feeling, due to ‘that other photographer’ who will do the work for considerably less, or hang on, maybe ‘just’ for free. I ask myself this: “Is it the client that should stop taking the free photos they are given?” Or: “Should the photographers be responsible for honoring their self-worth and expense sheet?” The answer to my question, I guess, is like trying to answer “who came first, the chicken or the egg?” My point being should I keep bashing my head against the wall trying to figure this unanswerable question out? Should I carry on feeling stressed about why companies downgrade for free or why photographers put in all their effort, but get nothing in return? It came to me that this pointless thinking needed to be eliminated and taken out of my current mindset. I needed to concentrate on more joyful thoughts, which would encourage me, and my work, in the surf industry and outside of it (which you all must know has a much higher level of professionalism).

The truth is, I started playing around with a camera in 2004. I spent all of my savings getting my first three prints together, thinking I could sell them and be a professional photographer in a small Cornish country village. So, realising soon after that this was not going to give me a full-time career, I worked shooting surfers in the UK on the British Surf Tour. Getting paid $120 a day. Standing 12 hours on a freezing-cold English beach. I was later ‘picked up’ by a PR company called Excess Energy Communications, where I was used as their staff photographer shooting commercial events with press related campaigns around Britain and Ireland. I earned about $400-$600 a job — which would be either a half day or a full day’s work, maybe once every few weeks. I finished with them in 2006 when I started to travel more, working internationally (meaning I left home to venture into the much harsher world of being a traveling professional photographer). The rest took its toll and I am now to where I stand today. Still working to better myself, improve and gain more knowledge. Work for higher regarded clients and live on a perfect right-hand surf point someplace in this world. Have a little wooden cabin somewhere away from consumerism, but still getting amongst the hustle and bustle of the world when it is needed. This will have to come at a price… The price of being payed. Read the rest of this entry »

The Emporer’s New Clothes-Britpak Hunt The Jungle Physician In Sri Lanka

Kataragama's spiritual traditions throughout Sri Lanka and South India

Words and Photos by LUCIA GRIGGI

Deep in the Forest of the remote island’s south-eastern jungle I’m hacking through the debris trying to find a legendary trail. For over centuries the native people have experienced the homeless life of a beggar, who trod this trail for over a millennium, leaving everything behind but a bundle of essentials.

Sleeping and living outside, under trees and in shrines and temples; seldom knowing from where their next meal will come; braving death from animal attacks or disease they walk. We walk alongside in order to find a wave. A few days earlier we had met a tuk tuk driver who used to carry back breaking loads of supplies along the path, he warmed me that time, animals, and invasive people may be intrusive to our pathway but there would be a rewarding empty wave to surf.

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