Three Workers

Lip Seng

One of my more successful international salon pictures was taken in the ’60s. The Outram prison in Singapore was being demolished then. This was not a set-up image: I just managed to capture the three workers going back to work after their morning tea break. This image illustrates the importance of being at the right place and time to capture a good image. I montaged the original trans with a piece of positive film to create the bias relief effect. This transparency won a plaque at the 16th Worcestershire International Salon, UK in 1968. This is one of the National Gallery, Singapore, Permanent Collections.

A Rough Journey

Lip Seng

This is another image from my FRPS pictorial panel in 1970. It was also the Gold Medal winner of the 6th Como International Salon of Italy in 1969.

I have applied Diazochrome Derivations technique onto this image. This time the original was montaged with a piece of violet diazo film. The location of the picture was at Changi, a site planned for development at that time. The worker (Samsui laborer) was set up to create the picture that I visualized.

Final Heat

Lip Seng


The South East Asian Athletics Meet at the Singapore National Stadium in the early 80’s provided me with an opportunity to capture this decisive moment image.

In this day and age, you may think that I might have used the motor drive to take a series of exposures (and then chose the best picture). Actually, I had only one shot of this right moment. For such a picture, your timing really had to be right on the dot. Incidentally, this image was the Grand Prize winner of the Canon Photo Contest, 1984. The prize included a Canon new F1 with motor drive unit and two lenses with focal length from 50mm to 210mm. On top of that, I enjoyed a free stay at the Mandarin Hotel with my family.