August 17, 2017, 02:50 PM 
One of Us is a video series featuring regular people in Singapore who are out there pursuing their passions and dreams. Some have already made it, while others are still fighting the good fight to realise their goals.
We hope that through this series, Singaporeans can realise that finding success or making a small mark in this world is not something reserved only for a select few.
This is Daren Yap, Joshua Tan, and Brian Don’s story.
The trio, like many of us, face this dilemma -- to eat at the hawker centre or to dabao (pack) the food back home to eat.
On one hand, it is more comfortable to eat indoors, away from the humidity and grime, but on the other hand, most dishes become soggy and less appealing when packed.
The three friends then toyed with the idea that dabao-ed food wouldn’t look or taste as good as it does at the hawker centre itself, and started thinking that there must be some way to make it appealing.
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The trio, who run a small production company, Casual Media, spend the bulk of their time doing videography and photography work for clients. That was when it hit them -- they could try to exaggerate elements of hawker food and make it ‘sexy’ using their photography and production expertise.
This inspired the three friends to start @Dabaogram, an Instagram account that brings new light to familiar local food.
Just check out some of their posts:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRDJouhg5xa/
A passion project
Dabaogram is something the trio refer to as a “passion project”. In order to keep their creative minds engaged and tickled, the trio dedicate some of their time to Dabaogram as an outlet for themselves to experiment with different areas of production work.
When asked how they find the time to do it, especially since Casual Media is in its infancy, Josh simply replies that they naturally make time for it because they enjoy doing it so much.
Besides having fun with their online food styling portfolio, they also see Dabaogram as a way to hone their skills in photography.
Amusingly, when discussing about the lack of time, Daren mentions that it is one of the most important factors when it comes to shooting food. If left outside for too long, it changes colour and texture, which is something they always need to keep in mind.
Adding more meaning to what they do
As hawker food lovers, the three friends also use Dabaogram as a way of spreading their love for local dishes to everyone.
They notice that people these days, especially younger ones, don’t go to hawker centres as much anymore.
Dabaogram to them, is a way to “sell” hawker food to the young hipster crowd who prefer cafes with Instagrammable dishes and surroundings to hawker centres.
As such, they make it a point to geotag their photographs to the hawker centres and stalls that the food was bought from, to direct traffic and business there.
Through this novel way of keeping the hawker culture alive, they hope that more people will be reminded of how good the humble hawker fare is.
You can watch the video of Dabaogram’s story here:
One of Us is a collaboration between Mothership.sg and the Singapore Tourism Board. We believe that the people of Singapore have some of the best stories to share with each other, and with the world.
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