(n.p.), (n.p.), [1973-1974]. Handwritten diary and photo album of a journey on the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam south to Saigon in 1973-74 by a North Vietnamese war correspondent and photographer, Le Minh Truong. Approximately 120 pages of writing and photos, many with evocative thumbnail pictures in place of text, or supplementing it; approximately 216 photos in all. Le Minh Truong was one of the most highly regarded and celebrated photographers in Vietnam from the 1950s until his death in 2012. In 1969 and 1971 he won first prize in the national photography exhibition. He was noted for his black-and-white photos, which all of these are, and his work was included in the 2002 National Geographic book Another Vietnam: Pictures of the War From the Other Side and in the gallery exhibition at the International Center for Photography that opened in concert with the book's publication. The photography critic for The New York Times, Margarett Loke, described him as a "photojournalist who used aesthetics as a universal language and who had the widest range and the most consistently superb eye" of all the photographers collected in that book. Another writer for The Times, Seth Mydans, wrote that he "took up photography after he was wounded fighting the French in the 1950's, then discovered beauty everywhere he looked." At the time of his death an exhibition of 100 large prints of his work spanning 50 years was on display at the Vietnam News Agency, his employer for all those years; the comparable scenario in the U.S. would be something like having a one-man show at the Smithsonian Institution. He also appeared in the documentary film that accompanied the book: Vietnam's Unseen War: Pictures From the Other Side. The photos in this diary -- over 200 of them -- are all carefully and artistically composed pieces, and the writing is neat, almost calligraphic. The photographer viewed his work as Socialist Realism, and his camera as the weapon with which he could participate in the nationalist struggle. That being said, his photographs lean more toward inspiration – the sense of a transcendent beauty worth fighting for – than didactic ideology or dogma. Subjects of the photographs in this album vary widely: the author was part of a small convoy traveling from North to South that stopped along the way at various spots, possibly including the sites of earlier battles. Other photos include portraits of fellow soldiers; a number of photographs that appear to be a girlfriend and/or family members; a small group of photographs of flowers; several photos of armed troops, some of which appear to be staged and others appear to show the photographs being staged; one appears to be have been taken in a cave. Several of the photos are of the author, sometimes with other members of the convoy, sometimes taking a picture; a couple show him writing at a table, possibly in this journal. Text in Vietnamese, with a significant portion of it -- approximately 16 pages -- written in verse in six-line stanzas. Laid into this is an Air Mail letter from Paris, addressed to Le Minh Truong in Hanoi. A unique manuscript work of art and over 200 original vintage prints by one of the most critically acclaimed Vietnamese photographers and a major cultural figure. 5" x 7", expanded in width by time and the thickness of photos; otherwise near fine. [#029840] SOLD