Techniques
Orchard Road empties from the top down. By a quarter to midnight, storefronts have started pulling their shutters, glass gone dark over displays that glowed all day. Escalators still run. A few people drift toward the Somerset MRT with shopping bags softened at the handles, while red tail lights smear across the wet glass outside.…
Finding Apollon AM-Bar on the First Floor The first floor of Orchard Plaza’s dining oasis is quiet in that way old shopping centres go quiet at night. The bright shops of Orchard Road felt far away by the time I found unit #01-29. Inside, there isn’t much room. A counter, a handful of seats, staff…
It’s past eight, and the lingering heat warms the pavement. A grill flares beneath bare bulbs, smoke rising as a vendor fans the coals. Satay skewers sizzle, coins exchange hands, and the queue shifts, a fleeting moment in the vibrant night market in Singapore. Most visitors miss this dynamic scene. They arrive ready to photograph…
6ix 6ix After Midnight Cuppage Road goes quiet after the dinner crowds thin out. The shophouses along Cuppage Terrace dim, Cuppage Plaza rescinds into darkness, and the street holds only the low hum of a few late cars and the occasional figure walking home. Then there is 6ix 6ix, spilling warm light onto the pavement…
The first time I tried to photograph nigiri at a proper counter, I ruined the piece. I fussed. I tilted the plate. I leaned back for a better angle, checked the screen, tried again. By the time I actually ate it, the rice had cooled and the fish had warmed, and that careful balance the…
I nearly walked into Cuppage Plaza by mistake. That’s the thing people get wrong about Al Capone’s. It’s not inside the plaza at all. It sits a short walk away at 37 Cuppage Terrace, along that covered open-air stretch where the tables spill almost onto the walkway. I found it by following the sound first.…
I went looking for air, not dinner. It was late, the kind of late where Orchard Road empties out and the malls go soft and grey. I wandered up to the second floor of Orchard Plaza, located at 150 Orchard Road #02-56, and there it was, lit and open, a little Vietnamese store that doesn’t…
Orchard Plaza after dark is a strange kind of quiet. The shiny malls down Orchard Road buzz with crowds, but up here the corridors hum under old fluorescent light, half the shutters down, the air still and slightly worn. I almost walked past Tha Siam Thai Kitchen. If not for the faint thread of Thai…
The first nasi lemak picture I ever loved was a failure. It was past midnight, under the harsh fluorescent stall light buzzing overhead, and I had shot the plate straight down the way everyone tells you to. When I looked at it later, everything had melted into one flat surface. The rice, the sambal, the…
The first time I tried to photograph a bowl of ramen at Cuppage Plaza, I nearly gave up. My broth had a shiny white blob on it, the egg looked grey, and the whole shot felt like a hospital cafeteria food photo. I sat there frustrated, soup going cold, wondering why my food photography never…