May 2024 was a busy month, which is why I was looking forward to a short escape and time-out with the extended family who were gathering in the town of Segamat in Johor for our uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration.

My last trip to the town that my mother’s side of the family called home, was almost a decade ago. Trips back to Segamat have always been nostalgic with good childhood memories of my grandparents house near Kg Gubah, and that all familiar smell of red laterite soil, and burning coal and coconut husk from the kitchen of kampung houses.

But much has changed, the half wood and brick house that my grandparents lived surrounded by banana, rambutan and tapioca trees has been demolished, replaced by a large house made of bricks, and surrounded by a concrete porch. The large double storey house next door, where a promintent family in the town lived, has become a care home for the elderly.

The town’s renown Eastern Studio – where family and friends gathered to take photographs every time they got dressed for a wedding, an outing or just for the fun of it, in the days before everyone owned a compact camera (and now handphones) – has closed for good. The owner of the studio had passed on a few years ago, said the current tenant who runs a boutique ‘Mariam’ which sells traditional baju kurung, kebaya and women’s blouses.

Eastern Studio was still in operation when I visited about a decade ago, but it was a shadow of what it once use to be a place where families gathered to take photos together, where young men on a night out stopped to take a shot of themselves with their drainpipe pants and skinny ties, where young women posed with stylish new dress they had sewn, and where young men and women of the town posed for that photo that was going to be sent to the community matchmaker or sweetheart who has moved out of town for work, study or other reasons.

It was THE spot where people when to get photos after their wedding, graduation, first child shots, child’s first birthday shots – cake, bush jacket and all, graduation shots, and everything else in between. Not forgetting the ‘IC’ (Identity Card) and passport photos for documents, applications and the works.

Later when, compact cameras were more affordable and everyone had one, these studios still had a role to play – selling film rolls and proving processing and printing services – with mini photo albums and all. This was a time when you had only one or two chances to get the shot right with your compact camera (no multiple shots with a second chance to adjust lights and colours). Am sure most Gen X-ers will also remember collecting printed shots from the shop, hoping those incriminating photos slipped past the shopowners attention (unually not the case).

This is one piece of the past that we will never be able to forget – more so because the watermark of this studio is etched at the bottom of almost every other photo in our family album.

These Eastern Studio watermarked photos adorn the walls of homes all over the country, and am quite certain – in various parts of the globe too.