Christmas Special: We Take A Peek Into Joanne’s Store!

How many people actually remember what it’s like to snap a photo without being able to look at it immediately on the LCD screen behind the camera? How many people still remember how to insert a film into a film camera? How many people still have the patience to wait at least a day or two after sending the film for developing, to finally see the photos? With the rampant advancement of technology, everything has been made to our convenience; taking photos has become easier, and if you didn’t get a good shot, you can always take it again. Sometimes, not much thought is put into taking photo because you can review it almost instantly.

That said, analogue photography is slowly dying not just in Singapore, but around the world. But one analogue photography enthusiast in Singapore wants to make sure the art form doesn’t become obsolete here. Joanne Lim founded Peek!, a store that can be found on Armenian Street along a row of whimsical refurbished shop houses. The store was opened in 2010 to serve the local analogue photography scene with its wide array of products such as film cameras, films, and camera bags, as well as services ranging from photo developing to teaching the basics of certain cameras that they have lined up in store.

Positioned as a multi-label photography store, Peek! serves as a distribution house for brands such as the Red Army Camera, The Impossible Project, Superheadz and the refurbished and highly sought-after Olympus Trip 35 Cameras from Europe. Just recently, Peek! has been appointed as the official Impossible Project Partner Store for Singapore, meaning the task of spreading the love and passion for instant photography to the local scene is in their hands!

Many people have the misconception that Lomography is the same thing as analogue photography. But Joanne brings to light this popular misonception, by stating that the actual art form is called analogue photography, and that Lomography is just one of the brands of these products. The branding of Lomography is so rampant to the point that it becomes a household name for this hobby, instead of being just the name of a brand.

The aim for setting up the store was to gratify the growing demand for the various types of photography, as well as to relight the fiery passion for analogue photography and to bring back the romance for this art form. We speak to the founder of Peek!, Joanne Lim, to gain some invaluable insights to analogue photography and why she started up this business, as well as her plans for Christmas this year.

How and where did your fascination for cameras start?
I think it was just before I entered University. I was chilling with a girlfriend of mine, and she brought this pocket camera. She taught me the basics of editing and stuff. When I went overseas, that’s when it went into full bloom because I travelled a lot, and visited a lot of countries, so, that’s when the camera thing because important because I wanted to catalog everything that I saw. It was during one of those trips when I met a dear friend of mine, and he introduced me to a film camera; a Diana.

Oh that was my first film camera too!
(laughs) So I thought, “That looks interesting”. It’s light, and you can move around with it with ease. He mentioned that he didn’t get the camera in Singapore, and I started hunting down this elusive camera. At that point of time, Lomography wasn’t so rampant and you couldn’t really find it anywhere unlike now. When I came back to Singapore, I tried to find the Diana, but to no avail. But I managed to find another film camera, The Blackbird Fly, which was my first film camera, at The Corner Shop at Far East Plaza. So that’s how it all happened.

It was very exciting when we first opened because this was my first camera. Superheadz, the whole company, came down for our opening and, I got the founder to sign this (she took out her Blackbird Fly). It was a very strange moment at that point of time (laughs). We talked about collaborating and doing something together. I thought they were going to send me marketing collaterals or something, but they all came down for the opening. That’s how it all started. It was a very good opening.

Where did you get the rest of your film cameras?
We bought them directly from all the brands instead of going to the distributor or the manufacturer. The story behind working with Lomography, is when I flew down to Hong Kong, where Lomography Asia is based, to speak with them. I contacted a few other brands in Singapore.

We tried to find all the different brands which you wouldn’t be able to find in Singapore, and brought it under one house. I mean, as a buyer/collector, there were a lot of blogshops floating around and there was a delivery charge, and then there were smaller shops as well. I couldn’t even touch the product because they were already in their cases. I wanted a different experience. 

When I went up to New York, I visited the Lomography store there. I thought it was a great in-store concept, where they put all the products on the table for you to play with; which is what I wanted for my store. As a consumer/collector, I wanted to have that kind of experience.

The main pushing factor to open this store was your love for photography, and how you wanted to consolidate all the different brands of film cameras under one house, right? Was it also because of a lack of a Lomography store here as well?
At that point of time, Objectifs was their gallery store. In fact, Objectifs carried a full range and they ran a few activities. It wasn’t so much because of a lack of a Lomography store, but I think as we built the team, we realised that it wasn’t just about the products. It’s a different game altogether because we’re a multi-label film camera store. We wanted to make sure that if a customer that’s interested in film photography or Superheadz products, they would be able to find it all under one house. We wanted to build a community, classes, after-services.. all this had to come in together. It wasn’t supposed to just look like a store. We wanted to provide everything; a one-stop store.

So you’re looking to restore the love for analogue photography. Why so?
It’s an art form that we cannot afford to lose. I mean it was always a concept that photography, or for this case, analogue photography, was a way of viewing things. Different people have different interpretations for it. Before we started Peek!, we wanted to test the market; to see how much people knew about analogue photography and which products would sell.

So in May or June last year, we rented a space at a flea market at *scape. The thing that I found scary, was that it wasn’t the younger ones that didn’t know how to put the film into the camera. There was this 30 plus year old lady with a kid who wanted to buy a film camera. She was fumbling around with it, and then she said, “I forgot how to put this in? How does it work?” 

I thought to myself, “If somebody who grew up in the analogue photography age didn’t know how to put in a film into a camera, can you imagine the younger generation?” I found that quite alarming, and I felt that we had to do something. I wanted to make sure that if someone wanted to pick up analogue photography, there would an avenue to learn; and that became the core essence of what makes up Peek!

You hold workshops right? Are they on the cameras itself, or..
We do it on an everyday basis in that sense where people can come in and learn; we’ll sit down with them and run through the basics step-by-step. We’ve got our online platform where Robyn blogs about new products and how to use them. But in terms of  formal classes, we are working on that. In fact, in December, we’ll be doing something with a toy customiser named Phu. Of course there will be classes that would cover the technicalities of analogue photography, but we also want to put in other elements as well. With Phu, we want to teach people how to “zhng” their cameras. Hopefully we can continue the relationship with Phu to conduct more classes in future. 

Custom Cameras - A Peek! X Phu Collaboration

We’re currently working towards having a more technical kind of class that will most probably happen next year. We’re quite picky on who’s teaching and the topics that will be covered during the workshop, so it’s quite hard to find someone.

Are you looking to implement analogue photography into the school curriculum?
Of course! That would be wonderful! (laughs) That is pretty much our grand plan. We have worked with schools before and we try to engage the students on analogue photography. We don’t have actual classes yet and integrating it into the curriculum is still far-fetched. It’s important to get it right before we educate the younger ones.

We’ve worked with School of the Arts (SOTA) before; we held a competition and we were supposed to hold a talk which didn’t get through, because of the timing and scheduling of classes. We’ve also worked with Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) and launched a couple of products. Schools are definitely within our purview, but it’s just a matter of what angle we want to work on. 

How has sales been since the opening last year? Is it meeting expectations?
It’s been very encouraging. For the first year, with Facebook ads and marketable content and resources for online platforms, we found out that we’ve been growing a community out of Singapore that’s following us, despite targeting the Singapore market. A few customers came down and mentioned that they’ve heard a lot about us. Peek is famous in the Philippines! (laughs) And it’s picking up in Indonesia as well. 

What should one look out for when starting out in analogue photography?
Start off with a very basic camera. I would recommend a Holga or a Blackbird Fly because it’s very simple to use. Some cameras use 120mm film which are very tricky to work with. Go for an easy camera that allows you to get used to the idea of analogue photography because if you pick something that is very complicated at the start, you might just give up, which is the last thing you’d want.

You’d want to use a camera that would continue to pique your interest to find out more. That’s the first thing. Next, would be to do a little bit of studying on the different kinds of films available. Basic things like knowing what the bulb mode and the normal mode is.. these are the kind of things that would affect your photos. I mean it’s a hobby, so you need to go through the whole trial-and-error process. Keep experimenting!

In your own words, what is analogue photography?
Analogue photography is a personal journey. It’s not so much about what you capture, really. It’s more of the person behind the lens. I think that is what essentially makes up analogue photography for me because you can’t see what you’ve captured immediately. The person who can understand the photograph the most is the photographer himself. I think he will treasure the moment much more than if it was shot with a digital camera. 

It really is a journey; right from the point of choosing a camera, what film, checking the weather and where you plan to go. You can tell the mood of a photographer just by looking at his roll of film. 

Peek! is located at 36 Armenian Street #01-04, and is opened from 12pm to 8pm from Tuesdays to Saturdays, and 12pm to 7pm on Sundays. They are closed on Mondays because they’re usually out shooting. For more information, visit their website, Facebook page, or follow them on Twitter!

Image credits: Jonathan Lai