I am kinda responsible for Brian Ng Fatt’s career as a photographer, though opportunity only opens a door. Brian chose to walk through with courage.


In 1989, I was asked to evaluate the Guardian’s photographic department by Alwin Chow and to run some training courses for the editorial department. Anyone who wanted to learn something about photography was invited to attend.Quite a few people did, but nobody took it as seriously as Brian.

Photographers Karla Ramoo and Jennifer Watson with Brian Ng Fatt. Photo courtesy Karla Ramoo.


At that point in his career, he was a freelance journalist with the paper, which meant that he was knocking around the newsroom, hoping to pick up assignments and often getting the stories that were the very ass-end of the daily assignment roster.

He was a deceptively quiet sort of fellow. Prone to looking at the floor or appearing aimlessly thoughtful, but he became quite serious about taking photos to go along with his stories. Doing that doubled their chances of getting published in the paper, and therefore of him getting paid for both, but now there were two sectors of the editorial department who viewed him with suspicion, the other freelance writers and the other freelance photographers.


Soon after those coaching sessions came to an end, I was hired as the Guardian’s first Picture Editor. By June of that year, I’d managed to persuade Therese Mills to let me have a crack at the Sunday Guardian Magazine, and I began putting together a little crew to do the makeover. Dexter Lewis, officially an office boy, but one who had turned his chair around to learn the unused Macintosh computers behind him was one.


Dexter was the person who showed me how to navigate the Macs and how to use both Photoshop and Quark Xpress.
Marlon Rouse was a promising photographer who had signed up for the photography classes I was teaching at the John Donaldson Technical Institute.
He was working at Colsort Mall, selling electrical bits.


Our first issue, something of a design disaster, was on the printing press on the evening of July 27, 1990 and was never released to the public (along with the rest of that Sunday’s paper).
It was a small mercy amid the senseless violence, because it gave us a few months to figure out exactly how to do the thing we wanted to do and correct the most egregious design errors.


Right from the start, Brian was part of the project. He’d do photography assignments, write to support other photographs, and pitch in to make every issue just a little bit better.

Sporting coverage by Brian NgFatt in SG Magazine.


Reviewing past issues, I was struck by just how much he contributed to our short 19-month run on the magazine. He contributed reporting to fill pages, accompanied Marlon on most of his fashion shoots, writing the accompanying story and photographed assignments inventively and with spirit.


You wouldn’t know it to look at him. His calm, almost somnolent manner led people to overlook him, even forget about him, even as he worked at his craft. Hell, among the SG crew his nickname was Shaolin Sleeping Dog.

  • A slideshow of Brian’s December 02, 1990 story on Paramin
 


I remember the first photo essay he created for the SG Magazine, impressionistic photographs and a story about Lopinot. I always suspected that there was a young lady up there who had commanded his attention, and he certainly never complained when I pointed out angles I wanted him to explore and sent him back.


After I left the Guardian, both Brian and Marlon joined the photography department of the Guardian, and both would eventually become chief photographers at the paper, albeit years apart, serving in the role for far longer than I had.


Beyond that time, we would not see much of each other and I regret that. Brian kept to himself and his unwillingness to impose on others was legendary.

Brian’s coverage of this TriniMatch event was typical of the high-energy images he captured quietly on assignment.


Of his many photographs, I recall two, both of which were unquestionably upsetting to take. In one, a patient at the Port of Spain General Hospital is plunging past the second floor of a wing of the hospital a split-second from a fatal landing.


In the other, a lawyer, annoyed that Brian was taking his photo as he entered the court to answer charges, spat at him. Brian’s unflinching photo captures the man, his face puckered into a grotesquerie as he launches spittle at the photographer.


I remember those two photos and our far too few conversations as he worked to lead the photographic department as indicative of a man who did not always enjoy what he was called on to do, but who did his duty despite his distaste for the subject matter.


Remembering his time working with Brian, Marlon Rouse sent the following note: “We started full time at the paper at the same time (October 1991). Before, we were both freelancers, he being a writer and longer in the industry than me.”

The SG outing to a major surfing event in 1991. Brian is partly hidden next to Mark Lyndersay (centre) and Dexter Lewis. Photograph by Marlon Rouse.


“At first, he struggled with the idea of that type of commitment but persisted and grew as a professional photographer.
Brian was dependable and he produced all that was asked of him. A health issue forced an early retirement.
Brian was also a private person. Very quiet but a keen observer of the world around him. Beauty did not escape his attention.”


“A humble individual and while not known for angry outbursts he did at times passionately share with me his frustration and disapproval with the lack of professionalism [in the department].
Brian was well-informed, a reader with realistic views on humanity. A gentle soul.”
Brian NgFatt passed away on October 17, 2025.

  • Mark Lyndersay, December 25, 2025.