Although better known and admired for his seascapes, Yip Cheong Fun also took a lot of other award-winning photographs depicting different facets of Singaporeans' life with keen observation and a humanistic understanding of the people and events around him.
In 1984 he was awarded the Cultural Medallion for his outstanding achievements and contributions to photography, for his work "identified with the Singaporean society and mirrored the nation's way of life and history".
As Vice-president of the Photographic Society of Singapore from 1966 to 1974, and as adviser to the Kreta Ayer Community Center Camera Club since 1976, Yip played an active role in inspiring and guiding many young people in the art and techniques of photography.
On 16 September 1989 he collapsed on an MRT train at around midnight, after taking pictures of the Lantern Festival at the Chinese Garden, clutching a loaded camera on his hands as usual.
In the early 1950s, working with a mere handful of contemporaries, Yip Cheong Fun faced many difficulties, as described by Choy Weng Yang, former curator at the National Museum of Singapore.
"Rowing at Dawn", Yip's most locally and internationally recognised photograph, was taken at Tanjong Rhu, where many Chinese junks anchored during this period.
Yip took a sampan with his friend in the heavy morning mist and captured this special moment using the camera Super Ikonta he bought after the Japanese Occupation.
Bridget Tracy Tan, Director of Gallery and Theatre in the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore, commented on Yip Cheong Fun's child portraiture: "Yip was known as a child-portrait photographer in his time, made famous by his many images of children, some dark, some compelling, some uncannily exhilarating, and others still reserved, impenetrable....
Dr. Kelvin Tan, president of the Singapore Heritage Society, said Yip Cheong Fun's documentary photographs are "a powerful reminder of a way of life that is probably gone for ever."
Yip recorded a wide range of activities that constituted a large part of Singapore's cultural landscape in its early days.
Indeed, we might see another Singapore when we look at a Taoist priest leaping through a wall of flame amid a flurry of "Hell Notes", or the silhouette of a woman heaving a cart through a torrential downpour, or an opium addict surrounded by waves of smoke, as described by the Straits Times journalist Corrie Tan.
Dr. Kelvin Tan, president of the Singapore Heritage Society, defined the documentary photography as having the specific aim of recording a present reality for future generations.
Ken Kwek, a leading feature writer of the Straits Times, wrote about the need to revive the waning art form of documentary photography and expressed his concern that "Singapore is forgetting the photo artists who spent their lives capturing a cultural landscape that would be rapidly effaced in the name of economic progress."
Ang Chwee Chai, the 1983 Cultural Medallion recipient, said: "Yip loves capturing the spirit and emotions of people in different moods, as well as the atmosphere of dawn.
Photographers such as Tan Yik Yee and Mr. Low Soon Leong, who taught at the SAFRA camera club, were also influenced by Yip's works and teaching.
As a veteran columnist with Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao, Chong compiled a book of essays to preserve his memories of the Chinatown where he grew up.
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.
Chong especially emphasised one photograph taken by Yip that consists of a silhouette of a woman heaving a cart through a torrential downpour, seeing the person in the straw hat =as a fitting symbol of Singapore, more apt than even the Merlion.