honorable mention
Michael Nguyen germany
title
On the Streets of Solitude
"I always loved the photographs by Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Dorothea Lange, André Kertész. In the year 1988 when I was often in Italy, I started making photographs. After some experiments, I decided to go with black and white photography. Life is full of colors. – Yet, many of my photos often are not in colors, just black and white, light and dark, and everything in between. I want to concentrate on the form, the lines, and the mood. Amazingly, you can convey everything with all its nuances, the streets, the cityscapes, or even people’s emotions without colors. And the grayscales gives viewers the freedom to apply their own colors on my pictures. Colors from their memory. Colors from their imagination."
Michael Nguyen has been living in Munich since 2007 and has dedicated himself entirely to art again since 2018. He is an artist, not a photographer but more a photographic poet or something he himself could not define. He moves away from the mainstream, at the same time blurs genres. Most of the time, he focuses on small, ordinary things but through the subjective lens, give them new perspectives, a new soul. Michael Nguyen’s photography is the art of showing more than you can see. Making visible – worshipping the invisible, he walks with the third eye of a wanderer through the visual adventure of life. At the Siena Creatve Photo Awards 2020 his artwork “In the darkest hours” was awarded: Commended in Category Nature & Landscape. In addition to his artistic activities, Michael Nguyen is in Editor-in-chief of the online magazine for photography and art: Tagree. www.tagree.de
Michael Nguyen about himself
Our head is round so that thinking can change direction – „a sentence by the writer and artist Francis Picabia, who inspired me as a young man interested in art and the art scene. Art broadened my perspectives and saved my soul. In the 1980s and 1990s I was a journalist, poet, photographer, cultural organizer and bookseller. After almost two decades, I found my way back to art in the dark times of my life in early 2018. Yes, once again art has saved my soul. Everywhere I go, my eyes and senses are in motion. With my camera I capture little things that we often don’t notice in everyday life. I like to observe people and photograph them in everyday situations.“
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entry description
Who says, streets are our most social lively spaces? Maybe. But they are also places of broken dreams, of empty selves, of collective solitude. Taken in the border triangle of Germany, France, Switzerland, the photographs of Michael Nguyen show gloomy cityscapes, cold and bleak: Empty benches on the sidewalks, a tired bicycle, walls covered with barbed wire. Sometimes, there are people sitting by, walking down, which doesn't make the streets livelier. The only sign of hope is children, who are pursuing their own activities without knowing what lies ahead in the future."I always loved the photographs by Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Dorothea Lange, André Kertész. In the year 1988 when I was often in Italy, I started making photographs. After some experiments, I decided to go with black and white photography. Life is full of colors. – Yet, many of my photos often are not in colors, just black and white, light and dark, and everything in between. I want to concentrate on the form, the lines, and the mood. Amazingly, you can convey everything with all its nuances, the streets, the cityscapes, or even people’s emotions without colors. And the grayscales gives viewers the freedom to apply their own colors on my pictures. Colors from their memory. Colors from their imagination."
about the photographer
Michael Nguyen has been living in Munich since 2007 and has dedicated himself entirely to art again since 2018. He is an artist, not a photographer but more a photographic poet or something he himself could not define. He moves away from the mainstream, at the same time blurs genres. Most of the time, he focuses on small, ordinary things but through the subjective lens, give them new perspectives, a new soul. Michael Nguyen’s photography is the art of showing more than you can see. Making visible – worshipping the invisible, he walks with the third eye of a wanderer through the visual adventure of life. At the Siena Creatve Photo Awards 2020 his artwork “In the darkest hours” was awarded: Commended in Category Nature & Landscape. In addition to his artistic activities, Michael Nguyen is in Editor-in-chief of the online magazine for photography and art: Tagree. www.tagree.de
Michael Nguyen about himself
Our head is round so that thinking can change direction – „a sentence by the writer and artist Francis Picabia, who inspired me as a young man interested in art and the art scene. Art broadened my perspectives and saved my soul. In the 1980s and 1990s I was a journalist, poet, photographer, cultural organizer and bookseller. After almost two decades, I found my way back to art in the dark times of my life in early 2018. Yes, once again art has saved my soul. Everywhere I go, my eyes and senses are in motion. With my camera I capture little things that we often don’t notice in everyday life. I like to observe people and photograph them in everyday situations.“
back to gallery