Original Identity — Lâm Xuân Tùng in Hanoi
A Hanoi photographer who moves against the speed of modern image-making, using light and shadow to isolate quiet figures from the noise of the city and recover what he calls "original identity" — the self that exists before the labels.
Welcome
Welcome to Issue 08 of Streets & Stories. This week we return to Hanoi — not for the noise, but for what happens when you subtract it.
In a city that moves at the speed of motorbikes and algorithms, Lâm Xuân Tùng photographs what is left behind when you stop keeping up. His images are slow, deliberate, and full of empty space. They are about people not as social figures but as shapes passing through light — briefly visible, briefly themselves.
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Lâm Xuân Tùng in Hanoi
In an era where photographs are produced, consumed, and forgotten at an unprecedented speed, Tùng’s practice moves in the opposite direction. His work is slow, introspective, and filled with deliberate emptiness. Rather than showing Hanoi as the bustling motorbike-clogged capital that most cameras seek out, he approaches the city as a portal — a gateway into what he calls the “parallel world of the mind,” where street photography becomes not an act of capturing a moment, but of momentarily disconnecting from the flow of algorithms and social labels.
His visual language is shaped by a striking contrast between light and shadow. Dense areas of black create negative spaces that define the position of each subject within the frame. Figures are isolated from the rush and chaos of the city, preserved in silhouette or caught at the threshold between visibility and disappearance. The result is a body of work that feels closer to poetry than documentary — images where what is absent matters as much as what is present.
Street photography is an attempt to momentarily disconnect from the flow of algorithms and social labels, in order to rediscover layers of original identity drifting within the hurried rhythm of urban life. Lâm Xuân Tùng
Tùng’s exhibition work reflects the same philosophical core. His personal show Nhân dạng gốc (“Original Identity”) explores the tension between who we are beneath the surface and the identities we construct for public consumption. His art book Nội (2023) pursued similar themes through the printed page. A new collaborative book, Phố tan tầm, is due in July 2026, bringing together the work of four photographers around the rhythms of Hanoi’s streets at the end of the working day.
His photographs have been recognized in the 35Awards 9th edition catalogue, the 1x Awarded Photographer programme, and exhibitions by Noirfoto Gallery. He has collaborated with Sony, Canon, Sigma, and Ricoh. But the awards are secondary. The work itself is the point — a quiet, persistent record of a city that keeps moving while Tùng stands still long enough to see what it leaves behind. Follow him at @tungxuanlam_street.
What we’re watching
Links worth your time
- @tungxuanlam_street — Tùng’s Instagram — His ongoing visual diary of Hanoi in light and shadow — silhouettes, negative space, and the quiet edges of a city in constant motion.
- Hanoi — Vietnam Streets city guide — Our editorial guide to shooting in the capital: the Old Quarter, the Long Biên bridge, the lakes, and the light that cuts through the narrow alleys.
- Get featured in Streets & Stories — Apply to be our next photographer spotlight. We review every submission.
