Shooting Home Youth: The Story Behind

By Jamie Chan on August 4, 2016 • ( Leave a comment )

Shooting Home Youth Award

It is that time of the year again! The annual ~~Junior~~ Shooting Home Youth Awards is back! Yes, the program was called ‘Junior’ back in my time; which brings me to the horrible realisation that it has been 5 years since I attended the workshop and had my work shredded and pieced back together over the course of 5 days!
Although looking through Objectif’s plan, the current workshop seems to be better paced out than when I attended; which is fantastic as there is now more time to develop your work and consult (not insult) your mentors! Something which I found very hard to do as I had to juggle school, the daily shoots, consultations, and workshops.

I am extremely grateful to the workshop as it gave me opportunities to grow and opened doors for my career.
After the workshop, I was chosen by the National Arts Council to represent Singapore in Indonesia for the 2011 ASEAN Youth Cultural Camp. That camp changed my life and how I see the arts in general, particularly in Southeast Asia; it opened my eyes to how interconnected everything is and that if we overlook the labels, we are just looking at art and expression in its purest form.
It also gave me friends whom I’ve kept in contact with all these years and is perhaps one of the main reasons why I am working and studying arts management at the moment.

So spread the word for the youths out there as the next edition of the Shooting Home Youth Awards will take place from 12 Nov – 2 Dec 2016. Submission deadline 30 Sep 2016.
If you are of age and interested in photography, don’t hesitate to sign up.

Objectifs’ Youth of Shooting Home exhibition

Objectifs has very kindly sponsored a reunion show for 10 of the alumni (me included) from the workshop.
We are showing our works at the Library at Orchard till the 31st of August.

More details can be found here:
http://objectifs.com.sg/shya/the-youth-of-shooting-home/

After all the PR rah-rah, here is the work I shot 5 years ago which I had never shown on my blog.
I could have sworn that there are chunks of text missing but they are stored in a hard disc somewhere…
So enjoy one of my earlier essays from the archives where I was still young and innocent:

The Story Behind

“Mutts and Mittens is an animal shelter, boarding kennel and cattery, which I had the opportunity to document during Junior Shooting Home. When I first started, I went in with the mindset that I should focus on the plight of the rescued animals and how sad it must be for them to live out their lives in a cage.

However, I soon discovered that the animals are not as sad and depressed as I first imagined them to be, as they are under the care of some very dedicated workers and volunteers. I was very impressed by the people who work there as they have such dedication and knowledge for the individual nature that each animal has.

Animals do not ask for anything much except companionship; this piece, hopefully, gives you an insight as to what happens daily at Mutts and Mittens.”