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Photoessay: Shifting My Perception of Singapore
- yzhensiang
- Dec 30, 2025
- 5 min read
Wrapping up the year with this photoessay feels appropriate as this is my second overseas trip this year. For regular readers, happy new year to you. I hope you have an amazing year ahead, and onwards to a better one. Now is probably also a good time to reflect on what you might want to change next year, especially if the outcome of this year wasn’t what you hoped for.
This year, I started writing more aggressively—both over at Fstoppers and on this site—while also sharing more images in a photoessay format. I can’t say I’m good at it yet as english isn’t my mother tongue. Despite trying hard, it still feels clumsy at times and writing even a simple article can take me a long time to complete. That said, the process has helped me organise my thoughts better as I push through and hopefully, by doing this more often, I’ll get a little better over time.
Now story time, my first trip to Singapore was eight years ago. Back then, to name a few iconic buildings, there was no Jewel, no Apple Store at Marina Bay, and Louis Vuitton Marina Bay was still under construction. Having photography as the main focus of that trip. I walked an average of 20,000+ steps a day, and on one day—guided by a group of local friends—we hit close to 35,000 steps. Despite covering so much ground, I was left with slight regrets. I was visually overwhelmed, lacked the technical skillset to fully support and translate what I had envisioned, and most importantly, also not having sufficient visual awareness to pick up interesting visual cues.
Coming back to Singapore this time around, I found myself exploring Singapore very differently as things are a little better compared to my first trip. Though this trip was more family-focused than photographic. Also having my partner with me—someone with a better sense of what enjoyment actually means—was a good thing, guiding me to travel more like how a sane person would. Having a larger budget probably also helped as it allowed me to travel more comfortably and explore more food options—And I must say, some of them genuinely impressive, and that’s coming from someone who is surrounded by good food back home in Penang. Though that also meant spending almost 3x more than I did on my first trip.
I also managed to visit both the northern and southern parts of the island that are curated for tourist—an easy way to spend time and also experience the island differently. The only downside of such a diverse experience also meant not having enough time to really “take in” the real environment for more compact frames. Something that I do practice a lot when visiting a new location as this allow you to look pass the curated tourism images and more like a local. If anything, it does help having zero plans, zero expectations, and just simply shoot with the flow or the location vibe. Also these days, I only photograph what I see or find interesting. Because there is more than enough work from the others that repeating the obvious frames felt pointless as I am no longer new to photography.
Despite not being objectively photographic driven for this trip, I managed to squeeze out an hour on two mornings, with a few minutes of shooting in the afternoon on the day of arrival. Despite not having the best weather, I am thankful that it did not rain and I have manage to yield a total of 320 images and selected only about 30 favourites across the whole trip. Though that’s relatively little for me, and honestly quite rare. On second thought, it does feel like a reasonable number given the locations I visited. Probably because I have moved past the visual anxiety of wanting to capture everything and the obvious cues.
While these collection of images are diverse in style, there is some crossover in my approach and subject matter which is expected, given the location. Looking at this set of images now, they do feel slightly more "mature" as there are fewer “obvious pretty pictures” and are more abstract driven, allign with the story I want to tell. Also notice how most of the frames are vertical? Probably because it's such a vertically motivated environment—in an environment full of tall buildings, it is just harder to compose horizontally.
In creation of this set, I used the Leica CL paired with the Leica 18mm f/2.8 TL. This combination has surprisingly stayed with me for over 2.5 years now, especially considering how quickly I usually move through gear. The tactile shooting experience, compact size, and image quality keep me coming back. That said, it’s still a rather boring camera and not ideal for anything that requires tracking, although its shutter response is fast enough.
I also brought along a Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f/1.4 ZF adapted to L-mount, mainly for shots that required more compression. But to be honest, I barely used it as with such limited shooting time, I find it difficult for my stream of consciousness to flow smoothly between two lenses. Some images were also shot on my iPhone 14 Pro—it was simply faster to pull out and shoot without interrupting the moment I was sharing with my partner.
Although I wasn’t able to visit as many places as before or churn out images, I felt I was able to see Singapore from a broader perspective and understand its culture a little deeper which indirectly shifting my initial perception of Singapore and honestly left me with a mix feeling. What if the success matrix we use to measure financial success and security are flawed? On one hand debt is created to leverage money and time from the future—which isn't bad as it keeps the economy flowing, but on the other hand it is actually a form of modern slavery with the ideology of dream chasing. So long as there is a dream in achieving something using debt, it will keep people working, selling their labour to serve those above them and most importantly finance the debt. What if all the polished architecture, promised opportunity, comfortable and safety living was just an environment created so people will work for their entire live. There surely has to be a balance somewhere right?
Lastly, I have also finally fulfilled one lingering regret from my first trip: seeing the Merlion which was under renovation back then. It felt like a sensible thing to do, given that it’s such a defining landmark of Singapore. Though I almost couldn't make it as there was an ongoing marathon on the first morning that blocked access unless I took a long detour on foot, which I didn’t have time for. I also managed to tick off several items from my architectural wishlist—Parkroyal Collection Pickering, CapitaSpring, Jewel, the reincarnation of Pearl Bank Apartments, and a few other buildings I had been wanting to see. Hopefully, I’ll be back again soon—to make more intentional frames.
If you fancy any images that you see from this series, they are available on prints by request.
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