Top-prize winning photo Cầu Vàng by Trần Tuấn Việt. — Photos mymodernmet.com

HÀ NỘI — Vietnamese Trần Tuấn Việt picked up the top prize of US$1,000 for his image of Cầu Vàng (Golden Bridge) in an online photo contest.

The contest is held by Agora, receiving more than 10,000 photos from all over the world. Việt's picture attracted the most votes from users of the world’s biggest free-to use photo app Agora.

The contest was launched on March 10 with photos selected as finalists including shots of the vast Buddist temple, Borobudur, in Java, Indonesia, and the Clifton Suspension Bridge near Bristol and Floating Restaurant in Hương River in central city of Huế.

"Architecture 2020 is a spectacle about the beauty that results from the interaction between light and volumes. The contrast between chaos and order, nature and the artificial, matter and emptiness," said Octavi Royo, Agora's CEO and co-founder on mymodernmet.com.

The Golden Bridge was built at around 1,400m above sea level with a total length of 148.6m.

"This architecture work impresses as it is held by two massive stone hands which represent the Mountain God's hands," said Việt.

"It has eight spans with the longest equal to 20m."

Cầu Vàng was launched in 2018 and has quickly become a major tourist draw at the Bà Nà Hills resort in the central city of Đà Nẵng. The bridge serves as a transit between a replica of a French village and Le Jardin D'Amour flower garden.

From the bridge, visitors have a paroramic view of Núi Chúa, regarded as the most beautiful mountain in Đà Nẵng.

The bridge was designed by TA Landscape Architecture and is reportedly part of a US$2 billion development project to bring tourists to Việt Nam.

Earlier, Việt also took the top prize at the Agora's Fun 2020 contest for photo entitled Simple Game. He took a photo of children playing with old motorbike tyres in the Mũi Né sand dunes.

Trần Tuấn Việt's top prize-winning photo at Agora's Fun 2020 contest.

"Many children follow their parents to the sand dunes of Mũi Né every day. They rent sand slides, sell coconuts, snacks, and fruits for tourists," said Việt.

"Even though children here don’t have much access to modern technology and have to help their parents to earn livelihoods, they still find happiness and joy in the simplest things," he said of his winning photo.

He donated the cash prize worth $2,000 to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in Việt Nam. 

Việt has been making headlines in Việt Nam as the photographer with the most photos getting recognised by international magazine National Geographic’s online photo community.

He is not a photographer by default. He earned a degree in architecture and worked for years in the IT industry. — VNS

Finalist photo of a floating restaurant in the central city of Huế's Hương River by Phạm Huy Trung.