Streets & Stories 008 — Featured Photographer

Lâm Xuân Tùng

  1. 01The work
  2. 02Who they are
  3. 03See more of his work

To rediscover layers of original identity, drifting in the hurried rhythm of the city.

Based in
Hanoi, Vietnam
Works in
Street photography
Focus
Light, shadow, one figure
Streets & Stories
Issue 008
Lâm Xuân Tùng — Hanoi
01Lâm Xuân Tùng — Hanoi
01 — The work

Hanoi, with most of Hanoi taken out

Lâm Xuân Tùng photographs Hanoi by subtracting it. The frames run mostly to black — dense negative space with a figure somewhere inside, isolated, often in silhouette, caught at the edge of being visible at all.

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.

From their feature — Streets & Stories 008
Hanoi — a uniformed man behind a window washed in blue and green neon, the glass streaked with light — Lâm Xuân Tùng
02Hanoi — a uniformed man behind a window washed in blue and green neon, the glass streaked with light
Hoàng Cầu, 2025 — a figure in a conical hat walks past a brilliant green wall lit by a single shaft of sun, deep shadow either side — Lâm Xuân Tùng
03Hoàng Cầu, 2025 — a figure in a conical hat walks past a brilliant green wall lit by a single shaft of sun, deep shadow either side
Ranh giới — night reflections of orange and green light broken across the surface of a dark lake, Hanoi — Lâm Xuân Tùng
04Ranh giới — night reflections of orange and green light broken across the surface of a dark lake, Hanoi
Đồng Xuân, 2024 — a bare concrete stairwell, its wall cracked and stained, with a small red-lit doorway at the far side — Lâm Xuân Tùng
05Đồng Xuân, 2024 — a bare concrete stairwell, its wall cracked and stained, with a small red-lit doorway at the far side
Hanoi — a woman in a conical hat and red top at the foot of stone steps, market umbrellas crowding above her — Lâm Xuân Tùng
06Hanoi — a woman in a conical hat and red top at the foot of stone steps, market umbrellas crowding above her
Nhất thể — green and red light trails written across black by a moving camera — Lâm Xuân Tùng
07Nhất thể — green and red light trails written across black by a moving camera
Công viên Thanh Xuân, 2024 — bare winter trees behind a white park fence in black and white, a cyclist passing below — Lâm Xuân Tùng
08Công viên Thanh Xuân, 2024 — bare winter trees behind a white park fence in black and white, a cyclist passing below
Trịnh Hoài Đức, 2025 — a rider silhouetted against a yellow wall, his shadow thrown large beside him — Lâm Xuân Tùng
09Trịnh Hoài Đức, 2025 — a rider silhouetted against a yellow wall, his shadow thrown large beside him
Hoàn Kiếm, 2026 — a dense black-and-white lattice of scaffolding with small figures climbing inside it — Lâm Xuân Tùng
10Hoàn Kiếm, 2026 — a dense black-and-white lattice of scaffolding with small figures climbing inside it
02 — Who they are

Subtraction as a method

Portrait of photographer Lâm Xuân Tùng

Lâm Xuân Tùng photographs in Hanoi, and titles his frames rather than captioning them — Ranh giới, Nhất thể — which tells you the work is closer to a series than a record.

The method is consistent enough to be a position: expose for the light, let everything else go to black, and wait for one person to walk into what is left. It is a way of photographing a very crowded city that refuses to show you the crowd.

03 — See more of his work

The series, in full

These nine frames are drawn from a continuing body of work. His own site holds the series; Instagram is where new frames surface.

Vietnam Streets features Lâm Xuân Tùng as a community photographer. We are not an agent and take no commission — everything here links straight to them.

Next — Streets & Stories 012

Paul Evan Green

A barefoot child in a green shirt runs at night across a plaza inlaid with dark swirling scrollwork, casting a long shadow — Paul Evan Green
Photographs © Lâm Xuân Tùng Read Streets & Stories 008 →