When Mom was waiting to be discharged from the ward during one of her earliest hospital stays, a nurse asked Mom whether she would miss her. Mom replied, “I won’t miss you, but I will remember you.”

Few people understood what she really meant with that but I knew she said that because she didn’t want to go back to the hospital and if she had said that she missed the nurses, she feared that she would return. So while she didn’t go to school, Mom learned enough English to be able to communicate, and in this case, very clearly.

This is my little tribute to a warrior, a braveheart, a comedian, and my dearest Mom.

On 3 October 2021, my partner Helen started feeling feverish. She was also sneezing a little. The symptoms were mild and came and went. On 5 Oct, suspecting that she might have Covid, we did a home ART test and was not too surprised to see that it was positive. Immediately, she went to the GP near our house and asked for a PCR. The next day, the positive result was confirmed. I quarantined myself immediately while waiting for the official Quarantine Order to be served. It was mayhem from this point on.

Every artist has his own city. Mine is Singapore. That it is the city of my birth and that I have spent most of my life here have not made photographing it easier. In the constant struggle to decide between what’s exciting and what’s boring; what’s real and what’s fake; I have also been cursed with the burden of having to discern what is picturesque and what is unphotographable. How do I convince a man that his sunning of pillows along the corridor is worth recording, when he has been doing it for years? How do I explain to a commuter in her bright red stockings that her legs are a visual treat? There seems to be no immediate answers, only more questions. I shall continue to believe in photography and not words.