작가 : Don Hong-Oai Profile

1929년에 중국 광동성에서 태어났고, 대학은 대만에서 다녔으며, 21살 때부터 베트남 예술 대학에서 사진을 (배운 것이 아니라) 가르치기 시작했다는군요.

그리고 1979년에 베트남에서 탈출, 지금은 미국에서 살고 있다고 합니다.

Born in Canton, China, the youngest of twenty-four children, Don Hong-Oai was taken to settle in the Chinese community of Saigon after the sudden death of both parents.

Don Hong-Oai began studying photography at an early age and apprenticed at a Chinese photo and portrait shop where he was encouraged to learn each phase of making photographs from the masters at the studio. On his own time, Don photographed landscapes and began experimenting with combining negatives. He did not want his photographs to have the flat appearance of Chinese painting, so he added perspective.

At seventeen, Don left the masters and began teaching general studies and literacy, eventually graduating from Vietnam National Art University in Saigon. He was desperately poor and friends helped him buy film and supplies. Working odd jobs, he saved $48.00 to buy his first camera.

In 1974 he joined a former teacher already well established in France. When the teacher died, he traveled to Malaysia to photograph for the Red Cross. In 1978 or 1979 he was able to get to the United States where he knew no one and settled into the Chinese community in San Francisco where he lives today.

Every few years Don saves enough money from print sales to return to China where he continues to make his photographs. Much of his work is composed through the combination of several negatives. The process and the varying uses for an individual negative makes each print unique. ''Anyone can make a nice photograph in China,'' Don says, ''but 1 want to do things differently. There would be no value if they were all alike. What gives my pictures value is that no one else can do them.''

Don Hong-Oai has exhibited throughout the world and won numerous international prizes in competitions in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, France and Mexico.