Naked truth: nude photography in Vietnam

“Vietnamese nude art is like a neglected and malnourished child,” says famous local photographer Nguyen Thai Phien, author of Vietnam’s first nude photo book and calendar, and potentially the country’s first nude photo exhibitor.

Clinging to traditional Oriental values, Vietnamese people have tended to evaluate the beauty of women through their character, not appearance, and consider Eve in her birthday suit an unsuitable image. Therefore, Vietnam’s nude photography was born into silence as illegitimate, and has yet to be officially recognised and treated the same as other forms of arts, Thai Phien believes.