SINGAPORE — When he was very ill, he knew what it was like to have nothing else matter in life except to be with the people closest to him, namely his family.

So when people had to stay home and face their family for lengthy days and nights during this time of the Covid-19 pandemic, he reached out to friends and mutual contacts, picked up his camera and starting shooting their portraits thorugh video calls on chat channels Zoom and WhatsApp, in order to capture these somewhat historic moments.  

Mr Nicky Loh, 38, a commercial photographer and film director, managed to photograph 76 families in their homes within 10 days. They were the families of his friends and mutual friends as well as other families he approached after doing a call-out on Facebook. 

He would have a video conference call with the families, help to position them within the frame of the web camera, and use his camera to photograph them off his computer screen.

The photos were posted on his Facebook account on Monday (May 11). 

Mr Loh said that he truly realised the importance of being with his loved ones when he was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer (cancer of the blood) in October last year. 

“After my diagnosis, work didn't really mean anything when I thought that I was going to die. Only my loved ones mattered,” he said. 

“I see this as a precious time — my way of trying to tell people that these are very tough times, but we still have our loved ones around us.”

Mr Loh, who is a volunteer with the Covid-19 Migrant Support Coalition — a collection of non-governmental groups supporting migrant workers here — had wanted at first to photograph these workers at their dormitories, but it was not advisable for him to do so.

Although he is a cancer survivor, he would be considered as being vulnerable to the coronavirus infection.

“So I wanted to do something meaningful in another way,” he said.

Inspired by the event Sing Together Singapore on April 25, when Singaporeans were encouraged to sing the popular National Day theme song Home from their windows, Mr Loh knew what he wanted to do.

“I wanted people to remember that during this circuit breaker, we were together as a family and we made it through together,” he said, referring to the April 7 to June 1 circuit breaker period designated by the Government for social and business activities to be restricted to arrest the spread of Covid-19.

“It might not seem like much now but maybe 10 years down the road, it will be a very precious memory,” Mr Loh said.

For the photoshoot that began two weeks ago, the families were told to wear whatever they wanted and to dress up if they wished. 

Mr John Chua, 76, who is a consultant in the wine business, and housewife Teresa Chua, 75, were a couple that Mr Loh photographed. 

The couple used to take family photos with their four daughters and extended family members using different themes based on movies such as Star Wars and Frozen. So they were game to have their photos taken  in place of these yearly “themed” family portraits.

They dressed up the way that Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai did in the Hong Kong movie In The Mood For Love directed by Wong Kar Wai. 

Mrs Chua wore a blue cheongsam while Mr Chua wore a white shirt and tie.

“We believe in enjoying every moment and in having fun, so this was something fun that we wanted to do too,” Mr Chua said. 

Each portrait took about 15 minutes and the photos of families with young children were taken within one to two minutes because they would get distracted if it took longer.

Business consultant Calvin Soh’s family was one of those photographed by Mr Loh.

Mr Soh, 52, agreed that the photo will help them to remember this time where they have the opportunity to become closer. 

“This is a fantastic time for the family to spend quality time together even though we are in the midst of uncertainty,” he said.

“We also decided to try it because it was something interesting and something we normally wouldn't have done.” 

Mr Soh and his family have been cooking together more and he has been helping his 13-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son launch their own kickstarter projects. 

On the quality of photos taken off computer screens, Mr Loh said: “I knew it would be very pixelated pictures depending on their video quality, but I was okay with that.”

The pixelated quality could be a symbol of the fragmented relationships with family members before the circuit breaker, he said, when everyone was largely leading their own separate lives. 

“But it’s only after being stuck together during this time when we have to stay home that we realise we have more time to appreciate others around us and to spend time with our children,” he said.

Mr Loh intends to discuss with other photographers to create a photo book with the 76 photos he took as well as other series of photos specific to this stay-home period. 

“It’ll be like different photographers coming together to show their different projects and putting them into this book. I think that will be very interesting.”