Tag: street photography
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Eating houses in Singapore | Our public living room
14 August, 2015 One of the most beautiful traits of the coffee houses (or eating houses) in Singapore is that anyone can come in and feel at ease over a hot meal or drink. There is no gender divide: women are just as welcome as men. There is little class consciousness: in fact, strangers across social…
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Markets in Siem Reap (Cambodia)
We enter the mystical world of Siem Reap, a city in the north of Cambodia and home to the legendary Angkor Wat (“Temple City”) built in the 12th century that hosted around a million inhabitants in its time, making it one of the largest cities in the world before the Industrial Revolution. In the 1970s,…
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Fast Lane
Shirley stood out in bright pink while working amidst motorcycles and vehicle equipment. How did she enter this trade? “My grandfather sold bicycles, my father sold motorcycles, my brother is doing repairs, and we also make license plates. My son talks to the dealers.” I asked whether she rides a motorbike and she shook her…
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Dry Season
Ah Xin began working in the provision shop as a sprightly 10-year-old, enthusiastically helping her parents. Fast forward fifty years, and her vibrant spirit still shines through as she stocks her cozy little store with an array of dried and preserved goods: dried red chilli, dried fish, dried mushrooms, dried chrysanthemum flowers, dried tofu… you get…
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Housework
“This shop was started by my father-in-law. When I got married, I started working here with my husband. 38 years already. But now, no new customers, all from before.”
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Intense & Intimate
I don’t always get a chance to chat with the traders. For instance, just as I took this photo, a flock of older Chinese and Malay women surrounded me on all sides and essentially nudged me from the scene so that they could pick through the vegetables while firing an endless bullet of questions to…
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The early bird catches the… fish!
Mr Ang has been selling fish at the Jurong East market in Singapore for the past 50 years (he’s 75 years old), following after his father who also sold fish. However, he advised his son not to pursue the business, especially with his higher education, so his son now works “in an air-conditioned office”. Mr.…
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![15 minutes in a hawker centre in Singapore [Part I]](https://shopkeeperstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/15.jpg?w=1024)
15 minutes in a hawker centre in Singapore [Part I]
Urban Runway While drinking a mug of sugarcane juice, I took out my camera to document the people walking by in the exact same spot. This set of photos captures the mix of the crowd from “suits” to “slippers” to “stylish seniors” on bikes. Welcome to the tropics of Singapore! You can see Part II of the…
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Little Red Dot
Get ready for Singapore! An island, a city, a state, a nation. When the nation was mocked for being a “little red dot” because you can hardly see its territory on the global map, Singaporeans took this mockery in stride and transformed the moniker into a fashionable brand name: “Little Red Dot”. One might even…
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Kopi-ng with change
Singapore has been ranked the most expensive city in the world, yet there are few modern cities left in the world where you can get a strong and shiok (awesome) cup of coffee for less than a dollar at hawker centers located in almost every corner, with each cup of coffee customized to your exact desire with…
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Not all that glitters is gold…
“We are brothers!” Lahij is a small village on the Caucasus mountains in Azerbaijan, and it is one of the country’s oldest human settlements. The village is renowned for their skills with copperware, as we see in this shop. Nasir (foreground) was hard at work with his own copper art when we met him. Copper…
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What do you sell, O ye merchants?
The markets offer a close and fierce intimacy with the traders who sell their wares. This 19th century poem captures the thrilling encounter with objects foreign and familiar while strolling through the colourful chaos of a bazaar. In The Bazaars of Hyderabad What do you sell, O ye merchants? Richly your wares are displayed, Turbans of crimson and silver, Tunics of…
Shopkeeper Stories 