Author: Ethan Chua

  • Landscape Photography for Beginners: A Complete Guide to Light, Composition, and Camera Settings

    I once spent a long while watching light move across a single leaf. Nothing dramatic happened. No storm rolled in and no sunset flared. The light simply shifted, and the leaf changed with it: brighter, then softer, then almost flat. That small moment taught me more about landscape photography than any grand view has. Before…

    Written by

    Ethan Chua
    A tripod-mounted camera with a small monitor stands on a mountainside, framing a wide river valley and distant peaks under soft daylight, with pine branches in the foreground.

  • Singapore at 1 PM: In Defence of “Bad” Light

    At one in the afternoon, the light outside a kopitiam can feel almost rude. It falls straight down, catching the silver edge of a table, bleaching the concrete pavement and leaving a hard shadow beneath every plastic chair. Someone walks past carrying a packet of kopi, and for half a second the white plastic bag…

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    Ethan Chua
    A café-lined covered walkway in Singapore with harsh midday sunlight, bright concrete pavement, deep shadows, tropical trees, and a person walking in the distance.

  • Depth of Field Demystified: A Beginner’s Guide to Depth of Field for Food and Cafe Photography

    There is a particular kind of photograph I often notice in cafes: the coffee is sharp, the table disappears gently behind it, and somewhere in the background there is just enough suggestion of the room to tell me where I am. Nothing feels accidental. That, more than an aggressively blurry background, is what good depth…

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    Ethan Chua
    Photographer using a DSLR camera to capture a tabletop meal with seafood, leafy vegetables, mushrooms, dipping sauces, bowls, and a tabletop grill.

  • The People Behind Singapore’s Coffee Shops

    Why do I keep photographing coffee shops when the coffee itself is rarely the most interesting thing in the frame? It is the people. Singapore’s coffee shops are built around small, repeated movements. A cup placed on a table. A kettle lifted from the counter. Someone wiping down a table before the next customer arrives.…

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    Ethan Chua
    Sunlit café table by a window with two wooden chairs, a cup of coffee, a pastry, and an open book, while a bartender works in the softly blurred background behind the bar.

  • Battery On Flight: Battery Must-Knows and Must-Haves for Air Travel

    The first time I nearly lost a shoot before it began, I was standing at a boarding gate with a bag full of spare batteries in the wrong place. Nothing dramatic happened. No alarm, no drama. Just a quiet moment of doubt when airport staff at a security checkpoint glanced at my roller bag and…

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    Ethan Chua
    Black vintage camera and film canisters on top of a folded world map, with a small landscape photo showing a person in a red jacket standing on a mountain overlook.

  • The Beauty of an Ordinary MRT Journey

    Why photograph an MRT journey when millions of people make the same trip every day? Perhaps that is exactly why. Singapore’s trains are rarely treated as places worth photographing. They are practical spaces—platforms, escalators, fluorescent lights, tired faces, hands wrapped around phones. We move through them without really seeing them. But photography has always asked…

    Written by

    Ethan Chua
    A spacious underground transit hallway with polished floors, a large circular ceiling light, pillars, and people walking toward distant signs and ticket gates.

  • The Photo Essay: How to Tell a Story With Photographs

    One strong photograph can hold you on its own. You stop, you look, you feel something, and that is enough. But a photo essay asks a different question. What happens when several photographs are expected to work together, and what does a story told primarily through images rather than words look like? A photo essay…

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    Ethan Chua
    A sunny outdoor market street lined with tall palm trees and shops selling goods, with shoppers walking along the wide walkway between storefronts and signs.

  • Photographing Singapore’s Void Decks: Stories Between the Buildings

    Why photograph a void deck? It is easy to walk past one. The concrete columns, fluorescent lights, tiled floors, and rows of plastic chairs seem too ordinary to deserve a camera. But spend enough time beneath a block of flats and the place begins to change. You notice the uncle reading the newspaper, children cutting…

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    Ethan Chua
    Under a covered concrete walkway, a person sits on the floor reading a paper, surrounded by empty plastic chairs; a bicycle leans against a column near the right side.

  • Best Camera Lens for Street Photography Beginners in Singapore

    The photo that made me fall in love with prime lenses was taken with a borrowed one. A friend had left his 40mm prime camera lens on my mirrorless camera body by accident, and I spent an afternoon in Chinatown with it, not knowing any better. No zoom lens. Just my feet. I walked closer,…

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    Ethan Chua
    Close-up of hands holding a professional DSLR camera with a large lens, with the camera strap and controls visible on a desk, in a softly lit indoor setting.

  • A Failed Photo Walk That Taught Me Something

    I came home with almost nothing. The memory card was full, but the photographs felt empty. I had spent an entire afternoon walking through Singapore convinced I was chasing good light. Chinatown. Everton Park. A few quiet streets where I usually find something worth noticing. I kept pressing the shutter because it felt like I…

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    Ethan Chua
    Narrow street in an urban heritage district with red-brick shopfronts and awnings lining both sides, street lamps and planters, and tall apartment buildings in the background under a blue sky with clouds.