hope: Vol.1

HOPE VOLUME 01

Photos by Firdaus Firlany

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FOREWORD What is hope? A simple Google search will tell you that hope is ‘a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen’.

Is hope a good thing? Or a false narrative? I asked several of my friends what they hope for and I was surprised with the different answers I received. To some, hope meant dreaming of something bigger than themselves. To others, hope is just to get by day after day.

All photos were shot on Canon FTB 35mm Film SLR Camera with expired Kodak Tri-X Pan 100, and developed & scanned by me in my own kitchen.

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To me, I guess the turning point of my life would have to be the transition between secondary school and polytechnic. Back in Secondary 4, I had zero clue as to what I wanted to do in life. Then I met a friend, Emillio, who was very excited about joining Mass Communication in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. I didn’t put much thought into it but being a follower, I decided to put the same choices. On our GCE ‘O’ Levels results day, I was accepted into Business Administration through JAE, and Mass Communication through JPSAE. Obviously I chose one over the other. How naive I was back then - following someone else’s passion and interests which eventually shaped my own. Till this day, Emillio and I are in different parts of the media industry, but we are still as close as before.

••• Aloysius is a 25-year-old Singaporean working in one of the largest eCommerce platforms in the region. As a producer, his job is to create digital content for the platform in order to drive traffic to the website. He hopes to work for a broadcast network in the region one day.

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I remember the day when I completed my National Service (Conscription). My army life was a very dark time for me.

The environment was very regimental and oppressive. It felt like my life was on pause.

I wasn’t able to work on myself or work on my goals as much as I wanted to. It was the longest two years of my life.

Honestly, the first thing I did after my last day ended was to go home to sleep. That nap was one of the best I had. I woke up feeling like I was human again.

It took awhile to get over the ordeal of NS but in hindsight, one of my biggest takeaways is coming out a lot stronger mentally.

••• Joshua is a 25-year-old undergraduate majoring in hospitality. He works part-time as a bartender and really enjoys meeting new people during his shifts. He hopes to own his own bar one day.

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Hope is a very intangible thing. Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin.

When I think of hope, a lot of emotions come rushing in. I feel like in a way, I’ve been hopeful for a long time; hopeful for good things to come into my life & that of the people I love; hopeful that everything does in fact have a purpose. You know how people always say everything happens for a reason? That’s being hopeful. Hopeful that you can make sense of the less than fantastic things that come your way.

I’m not sure if I’m a big believer of “hope”.

What I do wholeheartedly believe in: that there is a reaction with every action.

Everything you put into this world will have an outcome. Funny thing is, it took a chance encounter with a very wise Pakcik who drove my Grab one day to remind me of just that. If there’s anything I hope for, it’s that we all strive to be like that Pakcik. Wise, empathetic and very adorable.

••• Shaista is a 25-year-old freelance singer & graphic designer. She recently left her 9-to-5 job in the hopes of finding more meaning in her career. She hopes to put her talents to good use for a non-government organisation or social enterprise that supports the causes that she believes in.

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When I was in primary school, I used to film myself acting in random skits at home using an old Sony Ericsson phone. This “hobby” translated to an interest in filming & editing.

Fastforward seven years, I ended up filming a lot of random skits with my Polytechnic schoolmates just for some laughs. Eventually we did a skit for a competition and I ended up winning a $5,000 Sony voucher. I used that voucher to buy myself a Sony A7S Camera. That camera got me shooting more seriously and I eventually got lucky with gigs. I actually managed to pay off my rent and daily expenses of my two years in Melbourne from earnings using that camera.

And six years on, I’m still using that very same camera to generate income from my freelance gigs. It’s amazing in a sense that a lame hobby from pri school would evolve into something quite significant in my life.

••• Jake is a 25-year-old freelance visual artist.

He is well sought-after by musicians and creators to collaborate and create thoughtprovoking art together. Apart from creating visually-appealing content, Jake advocates for social causes and hopes to make the world a better place.

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Hope isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity that drives life and all people through struggle.

Here I am, pre-COVID crisis, coming out of an internship interview that was conducted over Zoom. It was my first time attending an interview online. I even borrowed a beauty light from a friend to make sure I look presentable on camera. Did I look okay on camera? Could they hear me properly?

Could they see my eyes darting from the webcam to the screen? It went well, I think.

I was happy. Contented. Hopeful.

The job market doesn’t look good for final year students like myself now, but I have to keep hoping, because otherwise, what’s the point?

••• Phoebe is a 24-year-old undergraduate from the National University of Singapore. This summer, she will be interning at one of the world’s leading retailers, assisting them as they set up their eCommerce platform for the Asia region. She hopes that the market will recover quickly from COVID-19 and she’d be able to spend money on shoes and bags again.

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My favourite moment with Spugs was the day we first brought him home. We placed him on the floor for the first time. And he peed. That was eight years ago. My siblings and I always argued when we were younger, but there was one thing all three of us mutually agreed on - we wanted a dog.

When the day finally came, it felt like a dream come true. We owned 10 hamsters before so how hard could it be to take care of a dog?

The moment I laid eyes on Spuggles, I knew he was mine. He was a fluffy ball of white fur with perpetually terrified eyes.

He looked so scared and helpless that you just needed to cuddle and take care of him.

My sister, on the other hand, was eyeing a beautiful Golden Retriever-Dachshund mix, but my persuasive skills managed to talk her out of it. On the car ride home, she pulled up a website of “Top Male Dog Names” and read each name out loud - and that is how Sparky officially got his name. But that was part of the deal - I get to pick the dog, and she gets to pick the name.

••• Crystal is a 22-year-old Singaporean who grew up in Hong Kong. While she may be Singaporean by citizenship, her heart remains in Hong Kong, where she made many fond memories. She hopes to go return soon to be reunited with her friends, family and her dog, Spuggles.

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Hope is a loaded word to me. I don’t feel connected to that word the way someone else would be. Hope isn’t something that a person in my position ought to be entitled to, because we are entitled to so much more. It’s weird to talk about hope, coming from a well-to-do, upper middle class, non-minority happy family. Growing up, hope was for an extra hour of time on the computer; hope was for a spanking new remote-control-car on birthdays; hope was for all the vegetables on my plate to disappear. It’s tricky, wrestling with the idea that one could have it all when so many have so little. It’s trickier, wrestling with the fact that one could be so oblivious to what’s outside one’s bubble – and when that bursts, is this real life? Or are we just inside a bigger bubble masked as the real world?

The Truman Show meets Matryoshka dolls. I guess I still don’t know till today. That’s what I hope to find out.

••• Seth is a 24-year-old creative professional.

He comes from an upper middle class family who lives in a comfortable estate along Bukit Timah Road. He enjoys writing thought-provoking pieces that often questions the status quo.

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I think hope is more of an intrinsic drive more than anything. I would think it’s closely tied to the concept of a dream where it motivates you to work a little harder to achieve a certain goal. Perhaps you can think of Dauntlus Studios as an example of how there may have been a vision to grow it into something bigger than it is. Might have been a dream but the yearning and hope of achieving it may have been the motivating drive in tough times juggling between work, school, and play.

••• Lucas is a 22-year-old NUS student. He is also a freelance producer at Dauntlus Studios, a boutique creative production agency based in Singapore. As a Global Studies major, he hopes to learn about different and unique cultures around the world by travelling to far places.

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To me, hope is getting to see my grandchildren on another day and another occasion. While working in Singapore, I leave behind my four adult children and my seven grandchildren back home in Malaysia. I see them perhaps once every two weeks? Honestly it really depends on my work schedule. Sometimes during peak periods, I can go up to two months without going back home. My children have asked me to stop working, but I don’t think I can.

Since my husband passed away nearly 20 years ago, I’ve worked hard to raise four children on my own. It became second nature to keep working. Sometimfes when I stay at home, my mind isn’t at peace. I keep wondering what are my children doing, what my grandchildren is doing, if they have eaten, or if they have enough pocket money.

That’s why I’d rather work. At least time flies and my mind is occupied.

••• Salmah is a 67-year-old Singaporean who stays in Johor Bahru, Malaysia with her family (all of whom are Malaysian citizens).

Her job here is to cook for the housekeeping staff at a hotel. She goes back to Malaysia a few times a month to spend time with her family in Malaysia.

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ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER Growing up in a generation of Freeto-Air TV & VCD’s, I wanted to be a filmmaker of some sort - to tell stories and create worlds. As time goes by, I worked my way to prove myself worthy of the title ‘producer’. I aspire to work on a Hollywood feature-length film some day, and to live a couple of years living the Hollywood dream.

I picked up film photography during my lonely days on my Student Exchange Programme in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. It was in moments of loneliness that my passion of creating stories amplified. I picked up my first (and many more after) film camera and started learning the technicalities of analog film photography, film developing, and scanning. If there’s one thing I love about film photography, it’s that the need to post-process is minimal, and thus you focus on what’s really important: your subject and their story.

For enquiries: firdaus@dauntlus.com

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@firtography

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