Wedding photography is, with virtually no exception, a must for couples tying the sacred knot. Some matrimonial pairs would just settle for simple shoots by friends or relatives whilst a significant proportion engages the services of trade professionals at some point or other. In the last three decades or so, pre-wedding shoots – once a taboo event because of the elders' belief that one should not don a wedding dress more than once – had gradually proliferated to the point that they have now become an acceptable and established ritual in the lead up to the Big Day itself.

Professional and semi-pro photographers cater to this huge and recession-proof (well, almost) consumer market in either or both of the two sub-segments in capturing for posterity, the bride, and to a smaller extent, the groom's major crossroad in the two individuals' journey through life. Pre-wedding and Actual Day photography together constitute a significant part of the rites of getting hitched. Some people might skip or just shorten the former, but the actual day itself will definitely be captured (on celluloid till recently) in “bits and bytes”

Professional Photographic Associations

Besides being the essential tool of the trade for the pros, cameras – especially so since the advent of the currently ubiquitous digital variety – are omnipresent in the everyday life of the masses. Numerous photo clubs of varying sizes and facilities catering to the ever-mushrooming legions of hobbyists and so-called "prosumers" are thriving in many corners, curves and straights of our Little Red Dot.

However, as at this moment, there are only three outfits that serve the professional interests of the people and organizations in the photographic world. The almost 50-year old grand doyen that is the Singapore Photographic Association - SPTA - counts equipment traders, photofinishing providers and wedding studios as their mainstay.

From a twenty-year pre-history of a few abortive attempts, the morphosis of the Professional Photographers Association (Singapore) finally came about in1991. PPAS is now a strapping eighteen year-old youngling that comprise commercial & industrial photographers as the primary force

The crawling baby of the three is of course WPAS or Wedding Photographers Association (Singapore); constituted on 12th November 2007.

New Kid on the Block

How WPAS got started

Sometime in mid-2007, consummate wedding photographer David Lim, who is the founding and current WPAS Honorary Secretary, responding to light bantering – on online forum ClubSNAP – on the dire need for a legal entity to cater to their specific interests, posted a serious suggestion to look into forming an association.

Albert Chua, founding Treasurer and current Assistant Secretary rose to the challenge and the two intrepid lensmen set about garnering a few like-minded brethrens to brainstorm ways to go about it. So it was that a week later in the evening, at David's Studio in a historical part of eastern Singapore, six photographers; namely David, Albert, Chan Wai Peng, Cyrn Lim, Jonathan Chan and Jude Seah sat down together with Henry Tan (lifetime Honorary Member and erstwhile founding Secretary of PPAS, and also a three-term former Committee Member of SPTA), who was roped in to contribute his two silver halide crystals, and virtual bytes' worth of humble advice.

Suggestions and ideas were thrown about and discussed among the Protem Committee. Finally it boiled down to two alternate paths. An easier and initially favoured way forward was to join PPAS en-mass; forming a loosely independent chapter within; specifically for wedding photographers. However as resolutions on the status of desired photographer members were firmed up, that (joining PPAS) was clearly not constitutionally possible.

The Protem Committee had decided to accept part-timers who partake in a minimum of six paid wedding shoots a year whereas PPAS can only take in full-timers who derive the majority of their income from photography. Therefore after much deliberation and debate, it was unanimously decided to go about drafting a working constitution for submission to the Registry of Societies for later approval. Basic details were agreed upon and would be firmed up in as few subsequent meetings as possible.

The Protem Committee gathered for the second time at Jude's studio in the inner fringe of town a month hence. An important aspect of that meeting was the final appointment of protem office bearers. New attendee Winson Lan (who serves photographers through his printing firm), though not a photographer was “volunteered” as President, a position he was lassoed and arrowed into; with no quarters given.

Against his initial vehement objections, he was summarily convinced, confused and finally conned into the tenet that the embryonic association needs a neutral person, an established entrepreneur and a respected pillar of society to lead it from the short period of gestation to the difficult pangs of childbirth. The positions of Hon Sec and Hon Treasurer were taken up by David and Albert respectively. Other Protem Committee Members, as listed in the submission to RoS, were Wai Peng, Cyrn Lim, Edmund Leong, Jared Wong, Hong Keng Leng, Aloysius Chua and Alphonso Chan.

The next few monthly meetings at various venues were devoted to finalising the draft Constitution, drawing up by-laws and a Code of Conduct, setting up a website, strategising membership recruitment, and a phalanx of other nitty gritties while awaiting approval of the Constitution and registration by RoS. That came in November 2007, and then the preparations for the 1st AGM in March 2009 rolled in.

Forty-six members and potential members attended the 1st Annual General Meeting on 25th March 2009. Guest speakers who had kindly agreed to grace the occasion were well-established professionals Tan Eng How and Chris Ling.

Members of the Floor also raised queries and contributed insights and opinions. The Meeting subsequently came to a close with the election of the current 1st Committee.