Ian Jin Tze
Poh
🇸🇬 Singapore
With us
5 days
Studio Name
Monk3yseendo Studios
Ian Poh Jin Tze is a Singapore-born writer and photographer whose work is defined by movement, restraint, and emotional precision. Spending close to 300 days each year traversing the globe, he approaches each destination not as a tourist, but as a quiet observer of nuance—drawn to moments where light, form, and human presence converge.
Deeply rooted in food, travel, landscape, and monochrome photography, Ian’s visual language has evolved into a study of atmosphere and introspection. Influenced by the philosophy of celebrated photojournalist Ted Grant, he embraces black and white as a medium of emotional truth—where composition reveals not just subjects, but sentiment. His work often lingers in the space between stillness and motion: a solitary figure framed by monumental architecture, a fleeting gesture suspended in time, a landscape charged with quiet tension.
While his tools adapt to each assignment, his constants remain unwavering—discipline, drama, and narrative depth.
Ian’s photography and writing have been featured in leading international platforms including Asian Food Network, Eater, Singapore Airlines’ SilverKris, Le Cordon Bleu, and The Smart Local.
He also serves as a brand ambassador for Luzerne, where his visual storytelling bridges craftsmanship, hospitality, and contemporary design.
Beyond commissioned work, Ian is the author of two coffee table books: Behind The Scenes: Lives of These Unsung Heroes, an intimate portrait of agricultural and hospitality artisans, and The Silent Song of the African Savannah, a contemplative study of wilderness and silence rendered in visual poetry.
Winning photos
A hush gathers where heat once spoke.
It rises from the unseen — not revealed, only suggested — suspended between breath and disappearance. The air moves first, cool and restless, spilling over invisible edges, tracing the outline of a presence you feel before you understand. Time softens. Sound dulls to a distant pulse.
There is a glow at the center of it all — restrained, deliberate — a warmth that resists the surrounding chill. It does not announce itself; it endures. Around it, darkness beads and glimmers, small constellations against a quiet horizon.
Scent drifts like memory: saline, mineral, faintly sweet — intimate and elusive. It invites, then retreats. Nothing is fully given. Everything is implied.
This is not an offering, but an encounter. A tension between concealment and surrender. Between what is held back and what cannot help but surface.
Lean closer.
Some secrets are meant to be tasted before they are understood.
A moment suspended between heat and hush.
Silken strands of noodles coil within a matte obsidian bowl, their pale curves waiting in quiet anticipation. Then—the pour. A ribbon of molten amber cascades from a lacquered vessel, striking with a velvet hush, pooling and glistening as it drapes each contour in liquid gold. The sound is intimate, a slow whisper, followed by the gentle sigh of rising steam.
Aromatic notes bloom instantly: warm spice, roasted depth, a faint sweetness carried on heat. The fragrance lingers, wrapping the senses in a delicate tension between comfort and indulgence. Tender folds catch the light, glossed and luminous, inviting touch as much as taste.
Matte ceramic meets glossed silk; dark bamboo lines frame a radiant saffron glow. Light grazes the scene like a stage spotlight, heightening every texture, every breath of steam.
This is not merely a dish, but an unfolding—where ritual becomes seduction and indulgence becomes art.
