Xuan Dat's collection of awards
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Photographer Cao Nguyen Xuan Dat |
In the three years from 2022 to 2025, young photographer Cao Nguyen Xuan Dat (born in 1992, currently working at the Hue Imperial City Relics Conservation Center) has amassed a substantial collection with 7 awards from Hue city and nationwide, and has been exhibited 11 times at domestic and international photo exhibitions.
Graduating from the Faculty of Literature - Hue University of Science in 2015, Xuan Dat spent more than 5 years working as a journalist. “Those years in journalism helped me a lot in my later career as a photographer. Journalism and my travels gave me many perspectives and feelings for creating artistic photographs; that is, photographs must have content, must breathe life, and must have a poetic quality…” - Xuan Dat said.
In 2022, during a trip to Ru Cha during the autumn season when the leaves turned golden, Xuan Dat was captivated by capturing the vibrant moments of Hue's nature with his smartphone. One of his photos from that trip was exhibited at the Ru Cha - Con Te - Colors of the River and Water Art Photography Contest 2022 of Hue City.
Xuan Dat travels extensively, is dedicated and passionate about his camera and capturing life's moments. He says: "Hue is an amazing photography location, from its natural landscapes to its way of life and especially its festivals that take place almost year-round. Whenever I hear about a festival somewhere, I get in my car and go, even late at night, early in the morning, or on rainy days, just to take pictures..."
Looking at Xuan Dat's collection of award-winning and exhibited photographs, one can see that he has traveled extensively and captured unique moments of Hue. These include works such as: "The Fairy Swing - The Beauty of Phong Dien Village," "The Culture of Erecting the New Year's Pole," "The Land of Zen," "The Colors of Hue Tea," and photo series like "Fishermen," "Industrial Landscapes," etc.
In October 2025, Cao Nguyen Xuan Dat was the only photographer from Hue City to have his work selected for display at the "Homeland - 80 Autumns of Independence" exhibition of the Vietnam Association of Photographic Artists, with his work: "Hue - Ancient Capital, New Opportunities".
“We are young, so we have plenty of time to travel and experience many things. The road ahead for aspiring art photographers like us is long, and we still have much to learn. The important thing is that the works we create must be authentic and evoke emotions in the viewers…” - Cao Nguyen Xuan Dat said.
Photographer of La Chu village
The name Le Dinh Hoang is already very familiar in many newspapers and national photography exhibitions. Few people know that photographer Le Dinh Hoang, born in 1993, works at the Hue City People's Committee's Electronic Information Portal and has only dedicated himself to photography for the past three years.
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Photographer Le Dinh Hoang with his work "Huong River during Hue Nam Temple Festival" - Shared Award among the 20 best works at the 3rd Vietnam International Photography Festival - Hue 2025 |
After graduating with a degree in electronics and communications, Le Dinh Hoang left Hue for the South to pursue his career. However, homesickness, especially when looking at photos of Hue's scenery and people, fueled his longing to return to his familiar hometown. At the end of 2018, he left Ho Chi Minh City for Hue, armed with an old camera given to him by a relative. The young man traveled throughout Hue's countryside, capturing peaceful moments and the everyday lives of its people. The further he went, the more he discovered the captivating beauty of Vietnam's land and people.
Le Dinh Hoang has taken thousands of photographs, but the ones from "those early, nostalgic days" in the fields of La Chu village are always the most beautiful and valuable to him. These are photos of the pink lotus blossoms in the fields around the village, and scenes of farmers carrying water in buckets with shower heads to irrigate their vegetable rows. But the photo that Hoang is most satisfied with is when he captured the moment a flock of white egrets swooped down next to a farmer sitting on a tractor during rice planting season. "It's strange that despite the noisy engine of the tractor, the egrets still swooped down so naturally and peacefully. I never saw that moment again."
With a camera gifted by a relative, Le Dinh Hoang began his journey from the La Chu fields of his hometown to the villages and towns of Hue and many other locations across the country over the years. In 2020, Le Dinh Hoang won his first photography award when he took third prize in the "Hue and the Footsteps of Discovery" competition organized by the Thua Thien Hue Provincial Department of Tourism with his photo series "Peaceful Villages of Hue". This award was a real "boost" that led Hoang to decide to pursue photography as both his profession and his career.
Over the three years from 2022 to 2025, Le Dinh Hoang continued to win photography awards in Hue and nationwide, most notably the Second Prize at the 2024 Vietnam Art Photography Competition and Exhibition organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism with his work "Recreating the Changing of the Guard Ceremony at Ngo Mon Gate". Most recently, his work "Perfume River on Hue Nam Palace Festival" won the Joint Best Work Award at the 3rd Vietnam International Photography Festival - Hue 2025.
“The art of photography is about capturing the beauty of nature and people through a camera. But to ‘capture’ beautiful moments requires perseverance, dedication, and even luck. For me, the photos of events, culture, landscapes, and heritage of Hue; the photos of La Chu village and other villages in Hue city have always evoked strong emotions from the years I first started using a camera until now. During those days, I felt immersed in familiar tranquility, in the place where the fields nurtured me as I grew up,” Lê Đình Hoàng confided.
Phi Tan
Source: https://huengaynay.vn/van-hoa-nghe-thuat/nhiep-anh-gia-9x-160363.html
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