Réhahn is originally from Bayeux in the French region of Normandy, but he has been living in Hoi An on Vietnam’s coast since 2011. Operating only by his first name and known as ‘the photographer who captures the soul’ of his subjects’, he’s a previous winner of the Los Angeles Times’ summer photography competition. His work has appeared in publications from National Geographic and Conde Nast Traveller to the BBC. Inspired by master photographers such as Steve McCurry and Sebastião Salgado, he is now one of the most successful photographers working in Asia, with nearly half a million Facebook followers and three popular photography books to his name.
In Hoi An, he owns and runs the Precious Heritage Art Gallery Museum – a free cultural arts space dedicated to Vietnam’s ethnic groups and containing Réhahn’s photography, tribal clothing and other artefacts. The gallery goes hand-in-hand with his ambitious eight-year mission to find and photograph all 54 of Vietnam’s tribes. He recently found and photographed some of the final ethnic groups, with just one more to secure permits for, his project set to finally be completed in 2019. “Probably this passion for photographing older people developed since I started the Precious Heritage project, documenting the 54 ethnic groups of Vietnam in their traditional costumes,” he says. “Only elders still wear these traditional costumes, so when I enter a village, I have to look for them if I want to see and learn about these ancient cultures.”