Photographer Nicolas Cornet. Photo courtesy of Nicolas Cornet

French reporter and photographer Nicolas Cornet has published several photo books exploring Việt Nam. His Chùa Việt Nam (Pagodas) has been republished in bilingual Vietnamese – English and Vietnamese – French editions.

Việt Nam News reporter Nguyễn Bình interviewed Cornet about his books. 

You have published five photo books about Việt Nam, while your work in other Asian countries has resulted in only two books, one on Cambodia and one on Thailand. Why has Việt Nam become such a prominent focus of your work?

When you spend more time living in a country, opportunities present themselves. It takes a lot of good photos to put together a photo book. Since Western magazines commissioned me to do a lot of photo essays in those countries, it’s easier to produce books.

I have a lot of photos from India and China, but those countries are vast and practically impossible for a single photographer to cover in their entirety. I’ve proposed books based on specific itineraries, such as Gandhi’s India, since I’d done several photo essays on that subject, but when it comes to coffee table books, publishers are very cautious and often publish only very general works.

What role does photography play for you, both professionally and personally?

For me, photography serves several purposes. Professionally, it allows me to make a living from this art, particularly through travel, which is sort of my trademark and also my passion.

Personally, photography allows me to express myself, to write with images. Through this form of storytelling, I can create photographic narratives; my wanderings take shape in images.

When I worked for magazines, I would propose story ideas for subjects that I would then go on to photograph. We’d present a subject or a community, or focus on an event.

For the German magazine Mare, I featured places and the people living there, all connected to the sea: a floating village in Hạ Lo