Joanna Dong and Zachary Ho
Singer/Actress and Theatre Practitioner
Joanna Dong and Zachary Ho met doing physical theatre. As their long-term friend, I took photographs at their wedding, and Joanna was the emcee for my wedding. Joanna agreed to come with Zachary for a portrait session as she wanted more portraits with Zachary. Without my prompting, they started doing improvisations together. I thought that they were performing for my Drama Mama series, but Joanna explained that they do this all the time at home. And this is how these photos are truly exchanges between friends who trust and respect each other
Joanna: “Well, here we are just about the same
Foggy little fella, drowsy little dame.
Two sleepy people by dawn’s early light,
And too much in love to say goodnight.”
— “Fats” Waller and His Rhythm, “Two Sleepy People,” 1938
These are the lyrics to a song that was playing in Ngiap Heng’s studio the first time he photographed me. I was fresh from a breakup, and the song triggered memories and tears. Ngiap Heng was too kind to say it, but I was hard to photograph that day.
Yet, the song may well have been prophetic. More than a decade later, I would return to commemorate the closure of the studio with someone who is everything the lyrics describes. Ngiap Heng says we were easy to photograph that day.