Like any art, a picture is the result of a work that combines technology and creativity. In particular, the photographer must be immersed in the study area. He is constantly interacting with his subject. The result depends on his ability to feel this unique moment of shooting. In this way, each photo and each photographer are unique despite a mechanical tool.
Besides commercial assignments, Quang Lam is involved in the art scene of HCMC and founded an artspace, dedicated to fine arts photography exhibitions and prints in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Saigon. Conceptual, documentary, architecture, portrait, travel photos are curated with a great level of art .
For more information, please go to the website INLÊN Photo Gallery
When one wants to focus on the evolution of the society, it tends to history, fine arts, literature references that are spoken of. Fashion is apparently futile, but is the best indicator of the zeitgeist because it touches on everybody for many reasons.
One of today’s most talented designers in Vietnam and perhaps the most famous is Do Manh Cuong (DMC) who studied fashion in France. His credo is that “We know urban men and women in Vietnam need a fashion statement that represents their characteristic style and in a cosmopolitan way. DMC offers simple yet chic fashion, high quality clothing at affordable price. ”
To mark five years of activity, he wanted to dazzle the audience with his show “The Muse” on December 19. Preparations had put all possible superlatives into the media: the most expensive (VND5 Billion), the largest number of models (50 male models, 50 female models), a catwalk of 50-meters long, and the presence of Vietnamese celebrities.
On New Year’s Eve, the Vietnamese remain in their home, just before the transition to the new year to welcome the ancestors through prayer. On the altar they have put fruits, including watermelon and traditional cakes such as banh Chung, symbolizing Earth with its square shape.
After this rite, some people choose go right away to the pagoda to pray to their own deities at the pagodas. I have chosen to go Cholon, Saigon’s Chinatown, the liveliest and most popular area to observe these traditions.
With this photographic project of architecture and interior, I had to work on an entire luxury hotel in Mui Ne, the resort area of Phan Thiet. This region is known in Viet Nam for its sand dunes and is a 5 hours drive from Ho Chi Minh City
The Takalau Resort offers two types of accommodation. An older part is built on the model of Vietnamese traditional houses. Interior decoration is also influenced by french style. The new part has modern residences surrounded by pools.
Each room has a personalized decoration that gives the charm to the resort unlike with standardized rooms of international hotel chains
The main difficulty was to keep a constant quality during the four days of shooting and a few thousand photos taken at the time of shooting and post production. The main idea is to make the space luminous and airy while keeping the charm of the rooms and their environment.
A photographic rendering choice of “clear line” that gives a chic 50’s style especially in the pictures of the modern residences.
This article has been published in the 2013 Janurary issue of The Guide, cultural magazine of the news paper Viêt-Nam Economics News.
When I returned to Ho Chi Minh City in 2010 I was surprised by the presence of large towers standing among colonial houses as my taxi journeyed from the airport to the city centre. With a mix of both nostalgia and admiration, I felt that a new page of Saigon’s architectural history was about to be turned.
The cinemagraph is a picture in which there is a slight movement of an element of the scene and / or a change of light. It gives the illusion of watching a video sequence while having the appearance of a picture as the entire image remains static
Although this principle is quite old, it was really used in an artistic way by the photographers Kevin Burg Jamie Beck during the Fashion Week in 2011. They have also registered the term cinemagraph as a trademark.
Located off the coast of southern Vietnam, Phu Quoc was at one time a place for the exiled and imprisoned. Until recently, it took eight hours on a merchant ship to reach the island from the mainland. This remoteness, though, was instrumental in the island retaining most of its natural treasures.
For most of the people, its main attractions are its beaches and the sea, with visits to jungle waterfalls also being popular. These two elements – saltwater and freshwater – have given birth to a vital ecosystem, a porous border between the sea and the land: mangrove swamps
This fashion show was one of the biggest events of recent years in Vietnam by the means deployed and its media coverage.
The designer Do Manh Cuong didn’t choose the easiest way to build its collection named The Muse, a gothic muse with black flowers. The concept is a total show, revealing the dark and romantic side of the artist.
All top models, actresses and showbiz people are present. Some even come especially from abroad. Dandys drink cognac and women wear “haute couture”. In the backstage it is like in a club where the crows and night birds hang out.
The show begins with modern and urban clothes with hints of Shanghainese films. The second part shows models wearing extravagant hairstyles, made of flowers and leaves. The end is mystical with gigantic dresses in which the models have to walk in slow motion.
For me after height hours of shooting comes finally The, unexpected, picture.
This article whic I wrote after my trip in the mountains of Nord du Viêt-Nam has been publisged in the Guide, issue december 2012.
” I’m contemplating the mountains crossed by the stripes in geometric pattern similar to the locals clothing fabrics. These people have found refuge here, among the heights that scare both Hans and Kinh people from the lowlands. To grow rice, they patiently engraved the land into embroideries of laces that are stretched as far my eyes can see. These strata are marks of time like the concentric circles of a tree.
X5 is one of the few Vietnamese girls band who still exist commercially. As the music market in Vietnam can not live by selling CDs, the goal of the producers is to create value by incrasing the popularity and turns it into advertising contracts.
The clip tells the story of a girl who is bored on Christmas Day. These friends will make her smile holding a Christmas eve. Filming was done in one the day in an apartment. Imagine 20 people in a room of 20 m2. The atmosphere was relaxed, however, and the joy of the singers not forced.
Is the movie clip a reflection of today’s teens or an image made? No one can tell.
Fashion and art meet sometimes together but it is certain that these two worlds are copying each other. At a party organized by the online store Zalora, which for the first time allows Vietnamese consumers to buy big local and global brands in one click, I could see a presentation of clothes similar to an artist installation.
Live models standing still within a pristine white background.
Although very attractive, this show did not allow the public to really interact with the creations like a classic fashion show and kept a distance between the two worlds.
Is this a desired effect to say that fashion as art must remain ultimately unattainable?
