Alden giv­ing Grand­pa Ngat, 90, his photo.

360 Nomad

Hey, I’m Alden Ander­son (360 Nomad). Pho­tog­ra­phy is a means to doc­u­ment my inter­ests in His­to­ry and Cul­tur­al Anthro­pol­o­gy. I’m cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Viet­nam, work­ing on a cul­tur­al pho­tog­ra­phy project “Viet­nam The Peo­ple” with my part­ner Trinh Nguyen. Amongst oth­er projects, we are work­ing to doc­u­ment the 54 Eth­nic Groups of Viet­nam through per­son­al sto­ries and por­traits of peo­ple from each eth­nic group.

When not trav­el­ing around Viet­nam doc­u­ment­ing the eth­nic groups we can often be found in the ancient town of Hoi An work­ing on our cul­tur­al pho­tog­ra­phy project Hoi An The People.

I worked in the Film and TV indus­try in Los Angles for about 10 years. In 2016 I left Los Ange­les to trav­el the world. I came to explore Viet­nam and haven’t real­ly left. The friend­li­ness of the peo­ple and the diverse eth­nic cul­tures are two good rea­sons for that. And of course, there’s the food.

Orig­i­nal­ly this web­site was a place I could write about my trav­els and post in-depth guides to the places I vis­it­ed. More recent­ly it is shift­ing to focus on my cul­ture and sto­ry-dri­ven pho­tog­ra­phy projects in Vietnam.

Vietnam The People

A Story-Driven Cultural Photography Project

Viet­nam The Peo­ple is a sto­ry-dri­ven cul­tur­al pho­tog­ra­phy project to doc­u­ment the peo­ple and the beau­ty of Viet­nam’s many eth­nic groups. We slow down and real­ly get­ting to know the peo­ple we meet and learn about their lives and cul­ture. Every pho­to is very per­son­al and has a sto­ry from the per­son in their own words.

In addi­tion to doc­u­ment­ing our mis­sion is to raise the aware­ness of the cul­tures and share it with Viet­nam and the world.

Inte­gral to “Viet­nam The Peo­ple” is giv­ing back and help­ing the peo­ple that we meet. We do this by print­ing and deliv­er­ing pho­tos, giv­ing peo­ple care pack­ages, food, cloth­ing, and/or finan­cial sup­port. It’s not a for-prof­it project and is most­ly self-fund­ed. Any dona­tions or mon­ey we receive from sell­ing prints go right back to the project and to the peo­ple. When we meet some­one who is in need we give what we can to help them, whether that’s food, sup­plies, clothes, med­i­cine, or finan­cial support.

Some exam­ples of this can be found on Insta­gram @360nomad. If this is some­thing you’d like to sup­port you can pur­chase prints or join us on Patre­on here. Every bit counts.

You can hear me dis­cuss Viet­nam The Peo­ple in an infor­mal Zoom discussion/presentaion below.

Hoi An 360

Photography Tours & Workshops in Vietnam

Trinh and I also do pho­tog­ra­phy tours and work­shops in Viet­nam with a focus on the peo­ple and cul­ture. From a few hours to mul­ti­ple weeks, through Hoi An 360 Pho­tog­ra­phy Tours and Work­shops, we con­nect trav­el­ers with the peo­ple of Viet­nam and pro­vide detailed, per­son­al­ized pho­tog­ra­phy instruc­tion. If you are trav­el­ing to Viet­nam and want to con­nect with the peo­ple while learn­ing pho­tog­ra­phy our work­shops are per­fect for you.