Hey everyone!

Today, we are excited to share with you one of our latest projects: our very first self-published photobook!

Actually to be honest – we have been printing photobooks for a while, but those were always for our own collection. This time, we felt that it was time to launch our own photobook and in deciding on the theme and vision, we had no difficulty in choosing one: Singapore’s very own Dragon Playground.

The Dragon Playground: Capturing Moments on Polaroid is our latest project and we committed to capturing the iconic Dragon Playground with only Polaroids. Naturally, we had a wide variety of film medium to choose from, but we felt that Polaroids by its nature were esoteric, vintage and suitably apt for capturing a playground which has been a stalwart in the Toa Payoh neighbourhood for over 30 years.

A Brief History

To give a bit of context, the Dragon Playground was part of an innovative drive to design unique playgrounds, introduced in the 1970s. This resulted in a series of animal-themed playgrounds, some of which can still be found today. In fact, we have visited some of these playgrounds and captured photos with them over the years. This includes the Dragon Playground at Toa Payoh and the Dove Playground at Dakota Crescent.

Apparently the Dragon Playground at Toa Payoh is one of the last few playgrounds made in this manner; the metal rings which acts as a bridge, and which rests on stony pillars, would probably never be used for any modern playground in Singapore. Further, the Dragon Playground has reached new levels of interests, with its likeness being incorporated into products such as door stoppers, magnets, pins and miniature toys.

Further, the Dragon Playground “survived” attempts at modern rejuvenation of the Toa Payoh estate; while the surrounding flats were reacquired by the government to be demolished and rebuilt, strong public support resulted in the Dragon Playground to be preserved for the interim, and it still stands tall to this day.

Throughout this post we have shown how our photobook looks like from the outside.  Here’s a small sneak peak of some of the contents inside:

Naturally, there are different photos featuring the iconic Dragon Playground (and the surrounding neighbourhood), including one of our favourite Polaroid photos shot with the Intrepid MK2 8 x 10 camera! We hope that these perspectives would resonate with our readers, who at some point in their life encountered a playground (though it may not be shaped like a dragon!).

To this end, we have printed a limited run of ten (10) copies, and each copy is personally signed by us! We would like to thank all our followers for supporting us over the years, and if you would like to purchase your very own limited edition signed copy of our photobook, you may contact us personally or visit our online Etsy shop!

Till next time,

Damianwithsandra