Window To The Past

The old-school photo studio that barely exists anymore once proliferated in the 1890s in the Stamford Road vicinity, where Chinese photographers built up a thriving business taking photos for people in the days before the iPhone and idiot-proof cameras. As it turned out, these photographers were also capturing life in Singapore, as they were documenting important events from weddings to family portraits. Some 90 of these photographs and the stories behind them are the subject of From Brush to Lens: Early Chinese Photography Studios in Singapore, an exhibition at the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall. In the process, it shines a spotlight on Chinese portrait photographers from Guangzhou, who learned photography from the Europeans, and came to Singapore to build a better life.

The exhibition is on until May 3, 2020.