Da Nang’s Golden Bridge wins top prize at online photo contest

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – Tran Tuan Viet of Vietnam picked up the top prize of US$1,000 for his image of Cau Vang (Golden Bridge) in an online photo contest.

The contest is held by Agora, receiving more than 10,000 photos from all over the world. Viet'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 Huong River in central city of Hue.

"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 Viet.

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

Cau Vang was launched in 2018 and has quickly become a major tourist draw at the Ba Na Hills resort in the central city of Da Nang. 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 Nui Chua, regarded as the most beautiful mountain in Da Nang.

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

Earlier, Viet 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 Mui Ne sand dunes.

Tran Tuan Viet's top prize-winning photo at Agora's Fun 2020 contest.

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

"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 USD to fight the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam.

Viet has been making headlines in Vietnam 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./.