Vietnamese ‘Matrix of boats’ entry wins international photo contest

The "Matrix of boats" by photographer Nguyen Vu Cao has won the $15,000 General-Colour category prize at the HIPA photo contest.

"Fishermen's boats lined up neatly when anchored to avoid super typhoon No.9 - the strongest super typhoon to hit Quang Ngai (my hometown) in 30 years that completely destroyed 325 houses and damaged more than 140,000 houses," HIPA's official fanpage cites the photographer as saying.

The second and third prizes in the category went to Colorful Lifestyle by Nay Soemoe (Myanmar) and Workers by Rahat Bin Mustafiz (Bangladesh), respectively.

The Hamdan International Photography Award (HIPA) was initiated by the Crown Prince of Dubai Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in 2011 to honor the creativity of photographers around the world.

The theme of the 2022 contest was "Nature". Contestants submitted their photos by November 30, 2021 and the winners are being announced in turn from mid-2022 onwards on the official fanpage and then posted on the website.

The contest has a total annual prize money of $400,000. The Grand Prize winner gets $120,000. In the smaller categories, the winner receives $15,000.