Hoai Vu Bender: From Limburg to Hanoi "familiar yet strange"

VOV.VN - She is a photographer who has won many international photography awards such as the Excellence Award in the maternity photography category 2020, 2021, 2022 of AFNS; First prize in the children's portrait art category of the AFNS award system 2021, 2022, etc.

Photographer Hoai Vu Bender is known to the audience and the photography community as one of the fresh, prominent faces of newborn, children, maternity and family photography. A former translator and journalist for the English program of the Foreign Affairs Department, Voice of Vietnam, Hoai Vu Bender currently lives and works in Germany.

Photographer Hoai Vu Bender - Photo: Jenny Hanh Nguyen

With her passion for photography and constant efforts to learn, she has won many photography awards such as the Outstanding Award in the maternity photography category 2020, 2021, 2022 of AFNS; First prize in the children's portrait art category of the AFNS award system 2021, 2022, etc.

After many years of traveling back and forth to Vietnam, Hoai Vu Bender and his friend (Jenny Hanh Nguyen, a Vietnamese-born photographer currently living in Italy) founded a new photography community in Vietnam in 2018 - the Newborn and Vietnamese Family Photography Group, abbreviated as VNNP (Vietnam Newborn Photographers). Returning to Hanoi this time with an invitation to participate in the Creative Design Festival in Hanoi, as well as to carry out a new project, Hoai Vu Bender was interviewed about his activities.

Hoai Vu Bender's fine-art portrait of his daughter won first prize in the AFNS children's photography category.

PV: Hello photographer Hoai Vu, your schedule of activities for this return to the art of photography seems to be quite dense, especially activities related to Hanoi. Hoai Vu Bende r: This time back to Vietnam, I am one of the co-organizers of the Newborn and Vietnamese Family photography workshop sponsored by Sony, held on October 18 in Ho Chi Minh City. I also participated in guiding a workshop in Hanoi. Actually, this is a photo-walk, meaning that participants will join me to explore some streets in Hanoi such as Nguyen Tri Phuong, Phan Dinh Phung, Thang Long Imperial Citadel and take photos of people they meet on the street. Actually, this is part of my personal project called Far Yet Near, Strange Yet Dear. I have been carrying out this project in the city of Limburg where I live, and in Hanoi. “Familiar yet strange” because Hanoi is a place that has been very close to me during my youth. I studied and worked here for ten years before moving to Germany. And Hanoi is very familiar to me. But every time I return, it is still Hanoi, but it feels a little more strange. As for Limburg, the city I am living in Germany, I have a similar feeling: it used to be a strange place but now it is my own hometown. I think both places are intertwined with that strangeness in a very vague way but bring a lot of emotions.

Hanoians today, through Hoai Vu Bender's lens in October 2024 in Hanoi.

This project is combined with the activities of the Hanoi Open Art Project (organized by Art Culture Hanoi - p/v) from October to November 2024, including 9 workshop tours to explore different streets and areas in Hanoi, while also guiding creativity and co-creation using open media. The Hanoi Open Art Project has a combination of many domestic and foreign artists. After that, there will be the Hanoi Open exhibition, an event of the Creative Design Festival held from November 9 to 17, 2024. And I am also very honored to have contributed a small part to this very memorable event of the capital Hanoi. PV: What will the participants of the Hanoi street photography tour with you in this upcoming time learn? Can you tell me a little bit in advance? Hoai Vu Bender : The walking and shooting tour that I will conduct is on the streets of Hanoi. I will guide the participants on how to approach the character, how to choose the character. Among the many people walking out there, why do I choose this girl and not that guy... Second, I will have to choose the background (background frame). What story do I want to tell about this character? As for the lighting at that time, it is also completely possible to be proactive. PV: It is known that in the activities in Ho Chi Minh City, the Vietnamese newborn photographer community will have a third talk show, then a photography contest dedicated to newborn photographers and Vietnamese families? Hoai Vu Bender : In Ho Chi Minh City, the newborn photography community that we have built, organizes a talk show every two years, inviting famous speakers in the industry across Vietnam. This year, we also invited Malgorzata Sulewska Czarnecka - a Polish photographer, who is very famous in the world for her photos of children. We organized a workshop for her after the talk show. Reporter: As one of the two founders, can you share how this photography community was formed? Hoai Vu Bender : I am very happy to be able to develop a newborn, maternity and family photography community in Vietnam with my friend Jenny Hanh in Italy. Why did we intend to build this photography industry in Vietnam? Because at that time, in Vietnam, this photography industry was not yet developed, only wedding photography was still developing. Jenny Hanh was the first person to bring newborn photography workshops to Vietnam. She was the first person to teach newborn photography in Vietnam. And then I also collaborated with my maternity photography teachers to bring maternity photography techniques to Vietnam.

A beautiful pregnant woman in the sunset at La Caletta beach of the paradise island of Sardinia, Italy. - Photo: Hoai Vu Bender

At that time, I thought that the maternity photography, newborn photography, and family photography industry in Vietnam was still developing very fragmentedly, scatteredly, and did not really have a leader. But in fact, young people in Vietnam are very creative. They learn very quickly, but do not have access to international resources. That is a huge disadvantage. There are many very talented people but cannot speak English, for example. The possibility of them going abroad to learn from such a workshop is very difficult. Therefore, we decided to invite international photographers to Vietnam to teach and organize workshops in Vietnam so that photographers in this field have the opportunity to learn and be exposed to the most trendy trends in the world. Previously, each city only had a few people taking newborn photos, not many. But now it has developed a lot. PV: As you shared, art projects like "Far familiar, near strange", which was shot in Hanoi this time, are personal projects. Do you often carry out personal projects like that? Hoai Vu Bender : These art projects are just personal projects. That's because I do what I like. I always have a certain source of income to ensure my financial life. But I always set aside a certain amount of time to maintain my creativity. That's very important, because it's an investment in myself. I spend that time, so that I feel like I can be creative, to do what I like. So that's why the photo lines, like classic fine-art photos, or art projects, are things I do for myself. That is to maintain my own creativity, so that I don't get stuck in a rut, so that I always have emotions when I hold the camera. Thank you photographer Hoai Vu Bender for this conversation and I look forward to your new works.

Vov.vn

Source: https://vov.vn/nguoi-viet/hoai-vu-bender-tu-limburg-toi-ha-noi-xa-quen-gan-la-post1127512.vov