Kevin Lim, The Straits Times

Born in 1982, Kevin Lim grew up wanting to be a fire-fighter and then a zoo-keeper. Things took a turn academically and he graduated as a journalism major from Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information in Nanyang Technologically University. During his course of study, Kevin belatedly picked up the DSLR and developed an interest in news photography. He seeks inspiration from the works of Marcus Bleasdale, Alex Webb and Chien-Chi Chang.

Kevin Lim joined The Straits Times as a photojournalist in 2009. On top of shooting general news and sports for the newspaper, he has also covered the Malaysian Elections and Typhoon Haiyan's aftermath in Tacloban in 2013, Indonesia's legislative elections in 2014, and the AirAsia QZ8501 disaster in 2015.

In the same year, he received the 36th Society for News Design Award of Excellence for Photography/Single Photo Portrait and Singapore Press Holdings' English/Malay/Tamil Media (EMTM) Feature Picture of the Year. One highlight of Kevin’s career is the coverage of the 2016 Rio Olympics in Brazil. There, he captured Usain Bolt’s golden swan song, a Neymar-led Brazil’s charge to their first football gold medal and Joseph Schooling’s triumph in the pool to win Singapore’s first ever Olympic gold medal.

A versatile shooter who enjoys his news and sports coverage, Kevin also dabbles in the use of multimedia in his story-telling which takes the form of photo essays published both in print and online. Even in a changing media landscape, Kevin retains the belief that photojournalism can educate and provide a voice in society.

Patrick Brown

Australian photographer Patrick Brown has lived and worked in Thailand for nearly 20 years. Born in Sheffield, England, Patrick spent his childhood moving to the Middle East and Africa before his family finally settled in Perth, Western Australia.

On leaving school, Patrick taught himself photography while working as a set builder for theatre and ballet where he honed his photographic skills capturing the action on stage. However, he found himself increasingly drawn into documentary photography and 1994 Patrick decided to return to Africa. He spent six weeks in Malawi documenting the work of a remarkable Australian surgeon Robert Weedon who had once saved his own life. Returning home, his photos soon became a major exhibition and won him the Australian Kodak Photographer of the Year award.

Inspired by this success Patrick left for Asia in 1999. He has since made Thailand his base, devoting himself to documenting critical issues across the Asia region often ignored by the mainstream media. His major project on the illegal trade in endangered animals won a World Press Photo award in 2004 and a multimedia award from POYi in 2008. Continuing to work on the subject, his book ‘Trading to Extinction’ was nominated in the 10 best photo documentary books of 2014 by AmericanPhoto.

Patrick is the recipient of the 3P Photographer Award, World Press Award - a 3rd place, Days Japan Award, Picture Of The Year Award, and NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism Award for his work. His work has been exhibited at the International Centre of Photography in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo, and Visa pour l’Image in France.

His photographs have appeared in The New Yorker, TIME, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, National Geographic, Mother Jones, Stern Magazine, Der Spiegel Magazine, Marie Claire, New York Times, Aperture, GEO Germany, International Herald Tribune. He has also worked with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The Red Cross, Unicef and World Vision.

Patrick has been represented by Panos Pictures since 2003.

Masfiqur Sohan
 

Masfiqur Sohan is an Award winning photojournalist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh represented by Anadolu Photo Agency, Turkey and Nur Photo, Italy. He started his journey with photography since 2012 and significantly covered Rohingya refugee exodus at the border of Bangladesh-Myanmar. He has been awarded for several international and national accolades. His works have been appeared in Guardian, TIME Magazine, the Telegraph, CNN, BBC, New work times, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal and many other media outlets worldwide.
 

Mark Cheong, The Straits Times

Mark Cheong has been a photojournalist with The Straits Times since 2012. He picked up the camera as a skateboarder in his late teens while dabbling with black and white film at Temasek Polytechnic’s School of Design, which was also when he developed his interest in news photography. During his time at the papers, he has covered everything from football to festivals, and robberies to riots, both locally and regionally.

Mark Cheong will share stories of the wide-ranging assignments he has covered in the past year, both locally and overseas. This includes the aftermath of the Lombok earthquake in August. He will also talk about operating as a multimedia photojournalist and how the newsroom has moved to visual storytelling.

Lim Yaohui, The Straits Times

Lim Yaohui worked as a horticulturist at the Singapore Botanic Gardens after graduating from the National University of Singapore in 2007. In 2012, he left to pursue photography full time. After freelancing more than three years, he is now a staff photographer with The Straits Times. He has an interest in pursuing nature and heritage stories.

Lim Yaohui will speak on nature photography and talk about the nature-related projects he's been involved in this year like tracking the hatching of the critically endangered hawksbill turtle and going undercover to chase a story on the illegal wildlife trade in South-east Asia. Yaohui will share the session with Mark Cheong.