Azuan Tan, NDP 2022’s Crying Man

It has been just over 24 hours since Azuan Tan’s teary-eyed face appeared all across our social media timelines. Whether in the form of a poignant reflective post by Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, or in the form of a meme, you probably have seen this image more than once today.

Courtesy of the MP for Pasir Ris East, Sharael Taha, we have since learnt that the man in the picture, 41-year-old secondary school teacher Azuan Tan, is a community volunteer at Pasir-Ris Punggol GRC.

Azuan also once acted as a police officer in an episode of Incredible Tales, a local television series on paranormal encounters.

In his media interviews, Azuan has maintained that he only learnt that he was on camera after NDP 2022 was over when it was brought to his attention by a fellow attendee.

In an interview with 987FM which was hosted by his former student, Natasha, Azuan shared that this was not the first time he got emotional while watching the National Day Parade

“I am the guy who, when I watch the National Day Parade on TV, when the National Anthem plays I will stand up. For the pledge, I will clench my fist, put it on my chest and do it.” – Mr Azuan Tan

Although many were fixated on Azuan, some, like the 2 comments you see at the bottom right of the image above, were also interested in the eagle-eyed cameraman behind the shot.

Ishak Jamid, the cameraman who filmed Azuan Tan crying

This comment by Shervon, asking for more credit to be given to the eagle-eyed cameraman who spotted Azuan Tan amidst a sea of thosands of faces, garnered more than 800 likes.

Inspired by Shervon’s comment, we too published a call for the cameraman behind the shot to be credited and given a pay-raise.

Thanks to the effort of those in Wake Up Singapore’s comments section, we were able to get in touch with the man behind the man of the hour, 49-year-old cameraman Ishak Jamid.

Ishak, is a freelance camerman with more than 2 decades of experience. He agreed to speak with Wake Up Singapore about his now-viral shot of Azuan Tan.

“This one hard to explain” – Ishak Jamid

The first question that we posed to Ishak, which is the same question on the minds of many Singaporeans, was in relation to how he spotted Azuan Tan’s face amongst a sea of thousands of attendees.

Ishak replied by saying that, as he has been doing shoots for almost 25 years, it has become “second nature” for him to “keep looking around to find a good angle or subject” to shoot.

He added that, “sometimes, you just can sense that something is about to happen – This one hard to explain?”.

When he learnt that his shot had gone viral, Ishak was very happy. He shared that in the industry, they call such shots, “money shots”.

This is not the first shot that Ishak has taken that has gone viral. He shared this clip below with us from NDP 2015, which he shot live, that later gained some traction as well.

@sgviralvids

Ishak Jamid MVP cameraman #NDP2022 #singapore #ishakjamid #azuantan

♬ We Will Get There (Sing Singapore2002 Theme Song) – Sun Yan-Zi

On those who think that the shot was “staged”

Ishak candidly shared his views about those who may harbour doubts that the shot was authentic:

I think a lot of times people will say that it is planted. I have been doing this for many years. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But I guess, this time I won. Its the moment.

We hope this puts an end to rumours that the shot was staged. Rather, let us give credit to Ishak for his vision and timely instincts.

Finally, we leave you with some advice from Ishak to budding cameramen:

Always find an angle or shots that normal people’s eye view can’t see, and think about how to tell a great story from your shots.

I think we can call agree that Ishak has told a beautiful story from his shot, and it is most certainly not a story that we will forget anytime soon.

Since you have made it to the end of the article, follow Wake Up Singapore on Telegram!