Hello,
First, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my biography. I was born in An
Giang Viet Nam and jointed the army of Viet Nam South in 1970. Most of the time in the army, I stayed in the front lines: mountains, jungles and rice fields, and I had seen a casualty almost every day. For the memory of the soldiers in my division, I tried to photograph the soldiers’ activities. In order to take their pictures, at first, I read several instruction books, and learned about photography from other photographers who had more experience, then the more pictures I captured the more I excited and enjoyed. Later I just found out my life was committed in the photography field.
After 1975, all were gone, but photography is always in my mind. I left Viet Nam in August 1980 and stayed in the Songkhla refugee camp, Thailand (where I met my wife) for about six months then I came to the United States.
Boston, Massachusetts was the first place I came to the America. I still remember one early and very cold Friday evening, Jan. 15, 1981, when the airplane was almost ready for landing, sitting from TWA airplane and looking through the window, I saw the city was lighting up, in the fogginess, it looked like so many visible stars down there. I was so nervous and anxious for what would come up although I got told an IRC agent would pick me up at the airport. Mr. Than, a Vietnamese, an IRC agent, picked me up at the airport and dropped me off at a townhouse in Dorchester where the IRC agency had rented for four or five Vietnameses who had been there. Before getting in the house, Mr. Than gave me a bag containing a blanket, a pillow, a draft and $5.00 dollars for two days’ food Saturday and Sunday and he asked me to come up to the IRC office on Boston Street next Monday for the paper work.
This was where and how I started my life in America. I would like to thank the IRC agency and Mr. Than who helped me at the beginning.
Once I was committed to photography, I could not give it up. I had a dream about photography, and I was eager to photograph people. Finally, I had to go for it. Just for a while when I finished my paper work, I left Boston and went to Virginia where I was going to get a full time job, an assistant photographer. I worked on a day time and went to college part time in the evening for my major in photography. While I was being “rock and roll”, I just found out in my background: learned in the job for last several years, which I was the amateur photographer or it was nothing when I compared to what I worked and studied now.
In 1986, I graduated AA two years degree in photography, and I really liked to continue my higher education for complete 4 years degree in photography, unfortunately, I had no time for it.
For several years hard work and study, in most of my works, I usually focus on your excitement, feeling, elegance, beautiful aspects, and between light and darkness, which I believe the most color full of your images at your glorious moment.
Again, thank you for reading my biography.
