Shutterbug of S'pore past makes debut

LOKE Hong Seng, 71, is not a name recognisable to the art world. But a recently discovered treasure trove of street portraits he took from 1963 to 1985 might change that.

The avid shutterbug captured the spirit of Singapore in her early years in some 200 evocative black-and-white photographs. For many years, he kept the negatives but never printed them because the costs of doing so back then were prohibitive.

So he kept the negatives safe and dry among his most prized possessions until his son persuaded him to meet gallerist Audrey Yeo of Yeo's Workshop in Gillman Barracks. Impressed by what she saw, Ms Yeo asked Mr Loke to show his works in a solo exhibition and publish them in a book. The exhibition is now on at Yeo's Workshop while the first 500 copies of the book are nearly sold out.

Mr Loke, who eventually went into radio broadcasting, says: "Cameras and film back then were so expensive. So I would go out and find something that was really worth shooting before I took even one shot. Plus, the camera I used belonged to a friend, so I had to be extra careful."

Many of the photographs depict a period of transition when Singaporeans were asked to leave their kampung homes and move to high-rise HDB flats. Several snapshots depict construction workers, samsui women and people moving furniture to their new flats.

Other gritty portraits show boatmen, farmers, street hawkers and children selling drinks on the streets.

With his strong sense of drama and composition, why did Mr Loke stop taking pictures after 1985? "The landscape didn't change dramatically after that. The high-rise buildings were all around you . . . I lost interest."