Featured Photographer : Kengyi Kwek

I am a fifteen year old student from Singapore (in School, you can see her uniform) I’ve played with film ever since unearthing an old point-and-shoot Canon in one of my parents’ many drawers, but it wasn’t until I discovered Holgas that I truly began to love doing so. Fittingly, all of the pictures I’ve submitted were taken with a Holga – the 135BC.

The black and white photographs were shot in a cemetery on an important date in the Chinese calendar; 清明节 or the Tomb Sweeping Festival. On this day, crowds swarm cemeteries to give the graves of their loved ones a good sprucing up, hence the name. Sombre as it sounds, people usually treat it as a holiday and some actually turn it into a money-making opportunity (Ice Cream!)
Surviving depicts a pair of karang gunis. These rag-and-bone workers are a common sight in Singapore where they go about houses to purchase old newspapers and unwanted electrical goods before selling them to recycling companies for a meagre profit. What is unique about these two, is that they are a couple. It was heartwarming to see them work together in comfortable silence.
Lastly, Vandals shows two of my friends. The title of this picture is a joke as they definitely weren’t vandalising the postbox but rather, participating in a competition meant to build up hype for the upcoming Youth Olympic games. I personally like the double exposure here as it seems like my friend’s soul is evaporating from her body.