Malaysia and Singapore Photo Essay by Sarah Moylan

Today, we’re featuring a beautiful Malaysia and Singapore photo essay from film photographer Sarah Moylan. Scroll below to view the images and read about Sarah’s time in Asia…

Analog cameras and films used: Pentax K1000 (Find at KEH Camera or on eBay) | CineStill 50D (Find on Amazon), CineStill 800T (Find on Amazon), Dubblefilm Apollo 400, Cinema 800, and Pacific 400 (Find Dubblefilm ah B&H Photo)

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Malaysia and Singapore Photo Essay

by Sarah Moylan

I took a whirlwind nine-day trip to Malaysia and Singapore at the end of February, which is a bit crazy when you consider that Singapore is an 18-hour direct flight from my departure airport in New York City (and our starting location was in Penang, Malaysia, which was another hour or so flight from Singapore).

It’s jarring to be in the freezing cold dead of northeastern US winter one day and the perpetually steamy climate of the Malay peninsula the next. What I really noticed, though, more than the radically different weather, was how incredibly vibrant Malaysia and Singapore are in every single way. They’re each, respectively, home to a remarkable mixture of cultures– native Malay, Chinese, and Indian were the most apparent to me as a tourist, with a generous sprinkling of English culture and architecture as a result of the history of British colonization.

In one afternoon in Penang, you can walk from a Taoist temple to a Hindu temple to a Buddhist temple to a mosque to a Christian church, stopping for samosas or durian ice cream or Halal noodles along the way. We had the good fortune of visiting at the end of Lunar New Year, so our evenings were lit by the usual myriad of neon restaurant signs in addition to festive red lanterns.

This trip made me realize that a place doesn’t need an excuse to be beautiful. We spent hours in the National Orchid Garden of Singapore just taking in all of the lush, ostentatious blooms and greenery. I admired the immaculately maintained Peranakan Mansion in Penang and row houses on Emerald Hill in Singapore.

The Batu Caves, a series of caves and Hindu shrines outside Kuala Lumpur, was the most colorful religious sites I’ve ever visited– by far. I think we have a mindset here in America that function begets form, that a structure’s useful purpose creates its aesthetic appeal– but why can’t buildings be pretty just for the sake of being…pretty?

I would be remiss not to mention the real highlight of my trip: the people. While I am a bit shy about taking photos of people I barely know, I hope you’ll trust that the Malaysians and Singaporeans we met– from innkeepers to taxi drivers to zookeepers– were incredibly witty, generous, and friendly. Even the macaque monkeys at the Batu Caves were worthy, if unorthodox, ambassadors, posing on stair railings with their babies for a few minutes (before taking a swipe at a tourist and running away).

The life that inhabits these places– the animals, the plants, and the people– are what gives it soul. I’ll be going back.

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