It’s been many years since I last applied for a job. I don’t know if people still pasted a passport photo to their application forms, or do they just email a digital form to their prospective employers nowadays.
This is a negative of one of my passport photos. I wonder if kids born in this century even know what a negative looked like.
I still have in my possession several small envelopes containing passport photos of me taken years ago. The youngest photo was probably taken in primary school. Growing up as a kid in Singapore, we needed to go to a studio every now and then to have our passport photos taken. The studio would hand over the photos in a small envelope like the ones shown below together with the negative; in case we needed to order more copies later.
1) Golden Palace Photo Studio in Queenstown. I blogged about it previously here. Notice that they specified, “Opposite Margaret Drive Queenstown Library”?
2) Peking Color Photo Studio at Balestier Road and Toa Payoh. Some readers mentioned this studio here.
5) New Columbia Studio at Alexandra Road.
Studios like these played an important part in our lives. At key milestones of our lives, such as graduation, or wedding, we would go to the studios to have our portraits taken. Other times, it could be just to take a family portrait. But I recall that my sister and our female cousins did go to the studios occasionally to have their photos taken.
If you look at the words in the envelopes you would notice that one or two emphasized “air-conditioned”. This means that not all studios had air-conditioning in those days. Without air-conditioning, it could be quite uncomfortable for the customers. The men could be formally dressed in coat and tie whilst the ladies had their make-up. Such photography sessions could be quite long and the bright studio lights added to the heat.
Below is another of my negatives. This one was taken during my university convocation. It was held at the National Theatre and the university commissioned a studio located at Block 112 Depot Road called Ideal Colour-Photo Laboratory Pte Ltd to take all the shots of us receiving our scroll from the guest-of-honour. At that time, I didn’t even know where was Depot Road.
I doubt any of the above-mentioned studios are still around today. Would my readers know?
1 Response
wow…what a legacy and heritage these old photo studios leave behind…
Posted on May 6th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
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