Hoang Le Giang is an easy-going person, with a friendly smile and a gentle energy. However, to have a truly deep conversation with him, perhaps it is necessary to be in the middle of nature, where silence can speak. As he shared, language is sometimes the limit of humanity. When people are quiet enough to listen, to dialogue with nature and contemplate, the ideas in their heads begin to appear naturally. In that wordless dialogue, there is no misunderstanding, no distance, only a pure connection between people and the world around them.
After a period of silence, the name Hoang Le Giang is mentioned again. Not because of a trip across the North Pole or the Himalayas as before, but this time it is a return with the first solo photo exhibition: Bardo - The Intermediate World of Transformation.
According to Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, “bardo” is the silence between death and rebirth. For Giang, “bardo” does not lie in the metaphysical realm, but exists in the changing, melting lands, neither old nor new - where nature breathes, moves and is eroded by time. It is the intermediary between humans and the surrounding world. And it is also the place where artists no longer go to conquer, but go to listen.
Interestingly, Hoang Le Giang’s photographs are truly in the middle: not entirely photography, not entirely painting, but a fusion of two worlds, between reality and feeling, between moments and ideas. The art of photography that Giang pursues is not simply capturing images, but the way he breathes life into space and light to tell an abstract, wordless story.
When applying for a license to organize an exhibition, even though it was a photo exhibition, it was licensed as a painting exhibition. Because his photos contain many layers of ideas, creating the feeling of admiring abstract paintings. There is no main character. No narration. Only space and light like a void for viewers to enter and feel for themselves.
“Abstract” and “silence” were the first two words that came to my mind when I first saw Giang’s works. I paused for a long time in front of a photograph taken in Norway, somewhere near Tromsø – the largest city in Northern Norway, located within the Arctic Circle. There was a magical light there in March and April. When the sun was just above the horizon, all the shadows stretched out, vivid and poetic. The thin trees on the edge looked like diligent weavers, and their shadows looked like thin blue threads weaving a soft carpet. The river was also in a state of transformation, revealing a unique picture with many interwoven layers: dark rocks, patches of ice, sometimes transparent, sometimes opaque. All created a magical world, covered by a curtain of blue shadows.
The scene was thorny and lonely, but also full of warmth and vitality. I wondered how many times he had returned to this place, and how he conversed with nature to capture that vitality. Giang shared that he did not take pictures to preserve beauty, but to record the truth, fragile, brilliant, quiet moments. Before pressing the shutter, he stood still, observed, took a deep breath, and was completely silent. No hunting for photos. Just waiting. If the moment came, he would seize it. Once. There would be no second time.
It sounds simple, but in the face of vast nature, how do you know what to hold on to? Giang said that when he returns to a location, he always listens to what the landscape is trying to tell him. That is how he communicates not with words, but with his presence.
Photography is different from painting in that: photography records the truth. A beautiful scene appears, and the photographer will capture that moment among hundreds of thousands of moments experienced. Meanwhile, painting is where the artist puts his ego into the work. What appears in the painting is not necessarily the truth, but emotions, ideas, the way the artist sees and feels about a scene. The moments captured by Hoang Le Giang also cleverly create a blurred line. They are both photos and paintings; both giving Giang an answer and opening a space for viewers to dialogue with themselves.
The middle ground is where ideas are not divided by fixed boundaries. When talking to Hoang Le Giang, I noticed the natural intersection between his roles: photographer, travel blogger, tourism service provider. All coexist, develop in parallel, inseparable.
Giang's journey of exploring the world began with the questions: "Who am I?", "Why am I here in this life?", "What is the meaning of what happens to me?". After more than a decade of wandering through wild and strange lands, he has found clear answers. But now, the biggest question is: how to balance the roles of an artist and a normal person who needs to survive in this world.
Once, from the perspective of a drone, Giang stood before a scene filled with light and color. In that moment, he realized an order that he had been searching for throughout his life. His life had been a series of disjointed, seemingly unconnected colors. But that work itself suggested that from that perspective, the color bands of life and passion (emerald green), of waiting (brown soil) and of crystallization after hardship (salt white) were not in conflict. They lay side by side, blending together, each layer of color contributing to a harmonious whole.
For Giang, perhaps everything is a random arrangement. The artist's job is to steadfastly move forward. And when looking back, the entire composition of life will appear clearly, so that each difficulty or turning point will automatically have its own meaning. Personally, I really like Hoang Le Giang's contemplations. He shared that, usually, those contemplations take place in parallel with the process of taking photos. They not only have a general nature from the relationship between the universe, nature and humans, but also evoke small, private things that he calls "the beginning of life", such as the immature days of going to school with the first knowledge, the first steps of a career, a work, a love...
There is a big question that always follows Hoang Le Giang on every journey: “What is my original purpose?”. Looking back at the past, he has played many roles, experienced mistakes, sometimes got caught up in the vortex of making a living just to continue doing what he loves and then forgot the reason for starting. Every time he stopped, he asked himself and realized: “I want to be a photographer, I want to pursue photography”. That is what helps him persevere on the path he has chosen.
Whether in the role of travel blogger or travel company operator, Hoang Le Giang is always steadfast in the answer he has found. That is why, when sharing travel itineraries or taking tourists to strange lands, he rarely shares beautiful places, delicious food or travel tips but wants to use his experiences to clarify the reason why he chose to go to a certain place. He believes that when people understand that reason, they can also find the answer for themselves as to why they want to go to this place and not another.
Another photograph that left a deep impression on me was taken at the border between the desert and the salt lake in Iran. Amidst the chaos of swirls and unfinished beginnings, a single line emerged that was unbroken and undirected. Giang called it the path of the road. The tire tracks on the ground were a reminder that every successful journey is the result of a silent dialogue between willpower and grace. It is not one or the other. It is both present, supporting each other, opening a path.
Questions, curiosity about the world, about oneself, the meaning of life and the answers to those questions become the compass, keeping Hoang Le Giang confident to continue walking on the ground, not drifting between choices, not getting lost among aspirations. “Walking on the ground” is not only the act of a traveler setting foot on strange lands, feeling each geological layer, each breath of nature. It is also a metaphor for living practically, doing specific things to realize dreams. Whether on the white snow of the Arctic or in the middle of the Iranian desert, the questions and answers carry a clear awareness of the journey of life. And Hoang Le Giang is a person who is living fully with all the enthusiasm, impetuosity, uncertainty, steadiness; with the rights and wrongs and the blurred boundaries that a human life needs to experience.
