Tan Lip Seng, born in Singapore in 1942, is one of the world’s foremost exponents in slide photography. Picking up his first Kodak box camera at the age of 12 and shortly venturing into the darkroom after that, he has singlemindedly pursued photography as a career, eventually joining the National University of Singaore as a medical photographer. This was a position he kept until retirement in 2006. Alongside his professional duties Tan also developed a worldwide reputation as a travel photographer. His works, which he describes as “paintings in light and shadow”, have been published in important magazines and exhibited around the world. In 1985, Tan received the Cultural Medallion for his contributions to photography in Singapore.

Tan Lip Seng got started in photography at the age of 12 at the tail end of his time in primary school. His school would organise excursions for the students and wanting to record these excursions, Tan brought his brand new Kodak Box along with him to take photos.

Tan’s first forays into professional photography were intertwined with the early development of the Photographic Society of Singapore. During the 1960s, he actively promoted the art form and participated in numerous workshops and exchanges with sister photographic organisations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia. He worked on the basics of composition, lighting and darkroom processing techniques, and was influenced greatly by the work of senior Singapore photographers such as Wu Peng Seng, Lee Lim and Yip Cheong Fun.

In the 1970s he experimented with and perfected a distinctive colour-derivation photomontage technique, which has come to be a trademark of his style. His growing reputation as an exponent on slides and photomontaging led to invitations around the world to conduct workshops and mount exhibitions. In 1978, he pioneered the visit of a group of photographers to China, initiating a long-term exchange project that would be beneficial to photographers from both countries.

In 1985, Tan received the Cultural Medallion for his contributions to photography in Singapore.

Tan has described his style as “painting with light and shadow”, and his works are known for their highly graphic elements—often stunning in composition, colour and subject matter. A frequent traveller, he has taken his camera and returned with award-winning shots of majestic landscapes, hidden communities and abstract features of life at large. He has recently been working with digital photography and manipulation.