The various facades of the studio in the 1960s and 1970s. Bottom left: Firecrackers were used to celebrate the 9th anniversary of the studio.

The busiest time every year at the studio was always immediately after the Chinese New Year celebration, when an increase in photo print requests meant working into the wee hours at the photo studio for the Keuk family. After the doors closed at 9pm, Gin Bok would enter the dark room to develop films and prints. The dark room is perpetually humid. And with chemical solutions and water running continuously, Angela worried for her father’s rheumatism. His fingers were stained brown from the chemical solutions, which are mixtures of powder formula and water of right proportions. Films and prints are meticulously soaked in these solutions, before running through with clear water.

Angela remembered him to be an extremely hardworking father, who would work long hours to provide for his family of six. Despite his busy schedule, Gin Bok insisted driving the children to their school. There were times when he was delayed in the studio, which meant teary eyes for the children who had to wait patiently at the school gates for their father to fetch them.

Kuet Gin Bok in his studio (left) and repairing a studio spot light. Top right: An old envelope for the photographs.

Views of Changi Road from the studio in the 1960s.

Flooding in the studio.

Gin Bok voluntarily took photos for the neighbours and friends, including the kacang putih seller, who sells Indian snacks typically made of nuts and spices. He was well-liked by his customers due to his photography skills and eloquence, and thus the studio was the meeting point of friends and relatives.

“Life was simpler,” said Angela of the good memories growing up at the photo studio. Floods were common and water would overflow into the shop space. The family would prop the equipment up on tables and stilts to keep them dry. Together with her elder sister and two younger brothers, she remembered each day filled with tasks with for the family business, like drying the photos in a giant air dryer and cutting the photo borders away to the correct sizes. The studio closes on Fridays.

The Kuet siblings drying the prints.

Angela says of her childhood growing up with her siblings, “We were so fortunate that my father used to take us out for activities on Fridays or school holidays. We went swimming at the Changi seaside, visited and took photos at popular sites like the Queen Elizabeth Walk, Botanic Gardens, Fort Canning Hill, National Theatre,Van Kleef Aquarium, Mount Faber and Katong Park. We also visited our maternal grandmother at her coffee shop. Sometimes after the studio closed at 9pm, we would follow my father to send some photos for framing, colouring (for the black and white photos) or to send the clients’ cameras for repair.”

Top and bottom left: Changi Beach and Golden Palace Holiday Resort (金宫水上游乐场). Right: Kallang Park

Left: Ocean Park Hotel at East Coast Road. Right: Tan Kim Seng fountain at the Esplanade Park.

Queen Elizabeth Walk

Before digital ‘photoshop’, workers used sharpened lead to edit films and touch up prints using manual techniques. There were also times when newly weds would form long queues outside the photo studio for their wedding portraits to be taken. Photographs were almost always of happy occasions.

After retiring his photo studio business in 1987, Gin Bok turned to chinese calligraphy, a form of art he had been practising in the 1980s. Impressed and awed by his beautiful calligraphy, his studio clients would ask for his work, in forms of festive couplets and even writing requests.

Kuet Gin Bok, his relatives and friend visiting the Tiger Balm Gardens in 1952.

Gin Bok passed away in May 2014. He had left behind a huge collection of diaries which he had been writing continuously over his lifetime. Writings, like photographs, are moments captured of a certain past. In a way, that moment has ‘died’ because it does not belong to the present. The act of reading, or looking at these photographs however, transports the viewer back to these times which are considered important to the writer or photographer. For a moment, albeit temporarily, the viewer re-lives in that moment and he/she gained an experience and understanding why that moment in time is so important to the writer/photographer. It might take a while for Angela before she has the courage to read and re-live those diaries her father left behind. When she did, she will realise that they are reminders of how her father talks, moves and thinks. These moments are constantly living and it is an entry to his understanding of the world.

The shop of ‘New City Photo Studio’ is currently an eatery specialising in black chicken tonic soup, owned by an old neighbour who knew the Kuet family for a long time while working nearby the shop as a stall assistant. Angela’s daughter is now a photographer, whose interest started after receiving her grandfather’s Leica camera on one of her birthdays.

2012 photo taken at the site of the former studio, showing Mr. Kuet and his wife together with the owner of the current shop.

All photo credits to Angela Kuet and Kuet Gin Bok.
Written and edited by Tan Wei Keong

For this blog entry, we recollect one of the best days with a group of 12 volunteers joining us at Redhill. The participating volunteers were the staff of the Halogen Foundation, teamed together with students from CHIJ St Theresa’s Convent and Hwa Chong Institution. It was daunting, thinking how to coordinate 6 pairs of volunteers scattered in the neighbourhood, but we knew one thing for sure – that each of their participation will be unique with every resident they meet.

The volunteer experience at Singapore Snaps means a lot to us. We believe, for an individual who shares our vision and comes forward to work with us, every precious minute of their time counts. The best returns of volunteering will always be the learning and interaction in a social sphere where the public gathers to do good. Because of that, before we head out to the neighbourhoods to interact with the local residents, a warming-up briefing session with our volunteer team would be the key to a rewarding volunteer experience.

Each volunteer gets to introduce himself or herself in the quirkiest of ways – by recounting his or her first memory; the first thing you remember consciously. This is SG Snaps’ unique way in getting to know everyone better. This part of the session is always filled with comical moments that even the shyest volunteer would join the conversation and have a good laugh.

Simply because SG Snaps is one project which is interested in excavating memories, being acquainted with our volunteers means learning their memories too. First memories are significant to us, because it is intimate and it signifies the beginning of our consciousness as an individual. We also had the honour of some volunteers bringing their own photo albums to share with the group. Looking through old photographs is one definite way of knowing a person better.

Most certainly, the most important aspect of our briefing session is appreciating and handling the old photographs. We prepare our volunteers to receive the photographs in an array of formats – from the ones pasted into adhesive albums, to the ones inserted in sleeves or even piled up in loose sheets. SG Snaps team member and photographer Samantha Tio, shared with the student volunteers the technicalities of handling photographic prints. She also shared her views on why images created during the era of analog cameras are important and relevant to us even today.

The students started out with great energies, and with positive attitudes they had managed to encounter some amazing finds. During this particular door-to-door collection drive in Redhill, we found our first hand-coloured photographs. For many of the young participants, it was the first time seeing anything like that. Read more about studio portrait trends from the 1950s-80s in our previous post.

What was also remarkable about that photograph was the handwritten message on the back in Chinese characters in calligraphic style, dating and addressing the portrait to a beloved. The photograph was taken and developed in 1967, and was addressed to the sender’s aunt. We later noticed more photographs with such personal messages. It was a trend then, to give a copy of the photo with accompanying text to relatives and friends, just like a postcard.

One of our youngest volunteer, Edison recounts how he was so delighted when an elderly resident had invited his group into his house. He described the house to be filled with incredible antiques and the series of portraits that he had kindly contributed for the project seemed to be dated to the early 20th century.

Unfortunately not all the students managed to interest a resident to participate and contribute old photographs. Rejection is part of this learning process and it pushes us beyond of our comfort zones, humbling and motivating us continuously. We truly hope our volunteering students had learned beyond the textbooks, and benefited from their unconventional afternoon with Singapore Snaps.

Written by Samantha Tio

Edited by Tan Wei Keong

Photographs by Khee Shi Hui

Credits to Lim Sok Tin.

Credits to Lim Sok Tin.

Credits to Lim Sok Tin.

“Dark Room Photoshoppers”, as we shall call them, worked with actual film negatives and chemicals. Coupled with precise timing, Dark Room Photoshoppers manipulated the conventional film development process and came up with experimental effects that they applied to the negatives of their more daring customers.

Again, I was speaking with Jerome of thelongnwindingroad.wordpress.com, picking his brain for insights on these whimsical “frames” printed in the photographs, and we’re guessing that these frames were custom designs and each studio had their own set of designs.

Back in the day, photo studios were not as common as they became in the 1990s. Going to a photo studio was eventful and owning one was a big deal! Photo studios used to brand their studio names and contact details on all the photographs that they developed for customers.

Some studios embossed their studio logo onto the photograph.

Some simple stamped the back of the photograph.

Some times, the way they brand the photographs can actually damage the image. In this example, the pink stamp on the back of the image caused this to happen to the photograph, over time (see below).

Photo credits to Chang Chia Wei.

These are just some of the examples of amazing trends in photography in Singapore, during the 1960s-70s. I really wish we could find more of these treasures, as they represent a time that no longer exists, in Singapore, and in other countries where digital photography is prevalent.

If you have a photograph like this at home, please share them with us by telling us your story and any bits of history that the image inspires. You can do so by posting a as a comment, or emailing to us at we@SgSnaps.com