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Photographer Thomas Billhardt – Photo: NVCC
Opened on the night of October 3, the exhibition attracted many people, especially young people.
The author of realistic and lyrical photos about Hanoi during the war years and subsidies from 1967 to 1975 was not present at the opening of the exhibition due to COVID-19. But he went online to the press conference just before the show opened.
He is now 83 years old and the time to come to Vietnam is more than half a century ago, but Thomas still remembers his first trip to Hanoi in 1967 and 5 trips from then until 1975.
The 1967-1975 Hanoi exhibition attracted many domestic and foreign spectators – Photo: T.DIUU
“The compassion and tolerance of the Vietnamese people at that time was very great. The emotional human love, love and mutual support are something that can be easily seen,” shared Mr. Thomas Billhardt at the press conference.
Thomas Billhardt continued to return to Vietnam in the years 1999, 2018, 2019 with a “deep respect and deep love” for Vietnam.
The exhibition attracts many young people to visit – Photo: T.TUONG
Feeling very fortunate to have had the opportunity to get close to war, to the Vietnamese in a very special period in the country’s history, Thomas felt it was his responsibility to bring Vietnam into it. For a photographer, “the camera is a tool to combat the darkness that exists in society.”
And his lens was directed towards the suffering and misery due to poverty and war as well as the courage, optimism and miraculous vitality of the Vietnamese at the time, images “very strange to the world.” “.
Not only does he capture the devastation of war, his photographs also tell stories about people. There are always faces of women and children that shine in the midst of difficulties and pain.
Returning to Vietnam in 1999, Thomas Billhardt found his character in a photo he took of Doan Trang in 1975.
In the exhibition, there is a video showing the confidences of Mr. Thomas Billhardt.
In it he said that he “registered with pain, sympathy for the people of Vietnam, for the victims of the terrible war.”
In recent years, having the opportunity to return to Vietnam, he has witnessed a new Vietnam, a beautiful and vibrant country.
Share more with Youth online, He spoke passionately about a miraculous renovation of Hanoi, a city full of vitality that made him want to love and embrace the changes of this city.
He was very different from Hanoi when he first met him in 1967, but he was still the same old Hanoi.
Thomas Billhardt’s book of photographs from 1967-1975, Hanoi, will be officially released to readers in October – Photo: T.DIUU
Arriving in Vietnam with a crew from the German Democratic Republic in 1967, the first thing he saw in Vietnam was the devastation of the war.
Before his eyes were new bomb craters in the airport, the windows of the airport buildings were broken. Hanoi is dark.
He stayed at the Hotel Metropole, but there “there are more rats than guests.” Because tourists want to go to a city at war. Then the sirens sounded.
He decided to run out into the street in the middle of the siren. Photos of bomb shelters were born in the streets, innocent faces of children peeking out of the bunkers.
The photos he took in Vietnam changed him forever, to make him a world famous photographer with images that awakened human consciousness.
Thomas returned to Hanoi in 1999 to try to find Vietnamese faces that have followed him around the world.
With the help of photographer Tran Viet Duc and his Vietnamese friends, he found his two characters, Doan Trang, in the daily photo, chosen as the cover for the launch of this photo book; and Ms. Hong Ly is a female character with a beautiful face in the photo she took in 1975.
This search for Vietnam was recorded by him and his colleagues in a documentary, about to be shown as part of the 1967-1975 Hanoi exhibition.
Some impressive photos are displayed in the exhibition. Hanoi 1967-1975:
Old Hanoi and propaganda paintings
The children go to the painting school in the open air, wearing a straw hat and a cotton shirt.
The young Thomas Billhardt captured in 1975 that he rediscovered in 1999, named Hong Ly
Bicycles, hats and bra medals are very easy to see on the streets of Hanoi in the 1970s, but few people record
Hanoi was a time of love and hardship.
Smiles always shine between poverty and war – Photo: Thomas Billhardt
Photographic exhibition “Love in war”
