Influence
Yip has many disciples and taught at both the Photographic Society and the Kreta Ayer Camera Club for decades. The former Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mr. S. Rajaretnam studied photography with him. The former Chief Architect of the Housing and Development Board, Mr. Tony Tan was also noted to be his disciple. Photographers like Tan Yik Yee and Mr. Low Soon Leong who taught at the SAFRA camera club were also influenced by Yip’s works and teaching.
Yip has influenced not only the people who were enthusiastic about photography, but also the people who were interested in the preservation of Singapore’s memory of the past. Chong Wing Hong, for example, was one of them. As a veteran columnist with Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao, Chong compiled a book of essays to preserve his memories of Chinatown where he grew up in. Blooms in Glimpse: Story of Kreta Ayer is a 179-page book containing 34 essays in Chinese and 22 black-and-white photographs by Yip Cheong Fun. “He (Yip Cheong Fun) managed to crystallize my memories of Kreta Ayer in his pictures,” Chong said. Chong also emphasized one photograph taking by Yip that consists of a silhouette of a woman heaving a cart through a torrential downpour specially. He said that the person in the straw hat was a fitting symbol of Singapore, more apt than even the Merlion. Chong said, “The picture represents how Singaporean once braved the storms to build up this country, and it still represents our fighting spirit today.”
Read more about this topic: Yip Cheong Fun
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Women stand related to beautiful nature around us, and the enamoured youth mixes their form with moon and stars, with woods and waters, and the pomp of summer. They heal us of awkwardness by their words and looks. We observe their intellectual influence on the most serious student. They refine and clear his mind: teach him to put a pleasing method into what is dry and difficult.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“They tell us that women can bring better things to pass by indirect influence. Try to persuade any man that he will have more weight, more influence, if he gives up his vote, allies himself with no party and relies on influence to achieve his ends! By all means let us use to the utmost whatever influence we have, but in all justice do not ask us to be content with this.”
—Mrs. William C. Gannett, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 5, ch. 8, by Ida Husted Harper (1922)