Taken during the National Day Parade rehearsal on 1 August 2026, this was one of the evening’s more vivid sequences. Bursts of red and gold filled the sky above the National Stadium, turning the familiar skyline into a celebration of light and colour. After my earlier, more restrained edit, I wanted this photograph to retain all the warmth and energy of the moment, a fitting companion piece in red and gold.
A recent weekend staycation at the Andaz gave me the opportunity to wake up early and explore the area around Bugis. Being a Sunday morning, I was greeted by a relative quietness and peace that you don’t often associate with this part of the city.
I’ve always found this area architecturally rich, with plenty of opportunities to play with patterns, lines and composition. Looking up between the DUO towers, I caught the “Gotham” building in the distance, perfectly lit by the early morning sun.
I like this image particularly for the perspective and the way the morning light falls on the building. Even the contrails in the blue sky seem to add something to the composition.
For World Photography Day 2026, I went back 23 years to this photograph taken at Lower Seletar Reservoir in 2003 with my first serious digital camera, a 4-megapixel Canon PowerShot G3. Dad posed for me in the beautiful morning light, and the picture became part of a series I called At Work. Looking at it today, I’m struck by how well those four megapixels have held up. The photograph feels especially poignant now. Lower Seletar would become one of Dad’s favourite photographic haunts in his later years, and several of the images he made there are now on show in Tan Lip Seng: A Life in Colour at Objectifs.
A photograph from the beginning of my digital journey, of Dad doing what he loved, in a place that would eventually become part of his own photographic story.