Dear Neil,

My name’s Amanda Canning and I’m the assistant editor of Lonely Planet Magazine. It’s nice to meet you! I understand my colleague Alice has been in touch with you about using your image of the Sri Lankan women in the next issue of the magazine. It’s a really striking image and we’ve delighted to be able to use it.

As Alice may have mentioned, we include a short story with every image in the Postcards section. This simply consists of your memories of the day, and helps explain to the reader what’s going on beyond the viewfinder. Would you mind writing me a few words about your experience? For example, could you tell me where you were, what you were doing there, how you came across the women, and why the scene in front of you inspired to get your camera out. Did the ladies react when you took their photo and did you interact with them before/after at all? Finally, if you can tell me how the shot makes you feel when you look at it now, and why it’s special to you, that would be wonderful. Note that we don’t need any technical details about the photography itself – so nothing about shutter speeds or tripods etc.

We’ll provide a few details about yourself alongside the image too, so please let me know your full name, where you live, and a brief description of what you were doing in Sri Lanka (Eg, you were on a week’s holiday).

Thanks, Neil. Let me know your address and we’ll send you out a copy of the February issue so you can see the results for yourself – I hope you’ll be pleased with it! Best,

Amanda.