Darren Soh

b. 1976, Singapore

Darren Soh is one of Singapore’s foremost architectural photographers, whose works have been exhibited worldwide. He is the winner of numerous photography prizes and has published a number of books, including Before It All Goes – Architecture from Singapore’s Early Independence (2018).

A sociologist by training, Darren Soh started working as a photographer in 2001 and uses photography as a way to understand the world. Darren’s personal works are an extension of his curiosity about how we live and the spaces we create as well as leave behind.

For work, Darren mostly photographs new pieces of architecture, but he leads a double life documenting places and spaces that are in danger of disappearing. He has a particular obsession with modernist and vernacular architecture that are deemed too banal or insignificant to be noticed.

“Though the images are still and their subjects are inanimate, Mr Soh’s photographs of the spaces Singaporeans work, live, and play in tell multi layered stories of the country. His pictures also serve to document the rapid changes in our local landscape, brought about by urban growth and redevelopment,” says Koh Yuen Lin for AlumNUS. 

Darren has shot for international magazines such as Wallpaper* and Monocle. His works have been acquired by the National Museum of Singapore and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) as well as by corporate and private collectors from around the world. In 2017, his photographs of public housing in Singapore were showcased at the Singapore Pavilion of EXPO 2017 Astana (now Nur-Sultan) in Kazakhstan, as well as at the St+Art Urban Art Festival in Mumbai, India. His now-famous picture of the reflection of an HDB block also made him the only photographer from Asia among the 10 global winners of Apple’s inaugural #shotoniphone Challenge in 2019.