Free taking eye-popping portraits of food and drinks for drinking and eating establishments in Da Nang is the way Le Nguyen Van Happy, also known as Happy Le, residing in Hai Chau District, has joined efforts with such establishments to partly overcome COVID-triggered difficulties.

Happy Le (left) taking food photos for a local food store. (Photo was taken before the COVID-19 resurgence in Da Nang)

Recently, due to the influence of COVID-19, drinking and eating establishments in Da Nang have been increasingly becoming familiar with food delivery and takeout services. However, not all businesses can have quality images of their products.

With the desire to support the city’s Food and Beverage (FnB) industry to overcome their pandemic-sparked difficulties, Happy Le has carried out the ‘Supporting the Danang FnB industry during pandemic’ project.

Up to now, the male native of Da Nang has embarked on taking free nice photos of food and beverage products for 15 FnB establishments, thereby significantly contributing to introducing such products to more customers. The images of food and drinks with full of sparkling and exhilarating freshness and charm are shaped to stimulate the taste buds, thereby helping the establishments to reach a large number of customers as well as improve t their business situation.

According to the 31-year-old food photographer, with more people stuck at home due to the COVID-19 outbreak, there has been a surge in demand for food delivery services.

He said “I used to work in the FnB industry and my current job is also directly related to this industry, so I understand the pandemic-sparked difficulties and hardships of businesses, especially the reduction in the costs of communications. After observing the Danang FnB industry for more than a year, I decided to implement the project with the desire to make a small contribution to help local businesses overcome their current hardship”.

Opened in 2020, the Sinagpore Yummy tofu restaurant earns stable revenue, averaging 3 to 5 million per day. Most encouragingly, the restaurant has opened 3 branches in the city after only one month of operations.

Nguyen Van Duong, owner of the Sinagpore Yummy tofu shop, said that his shop has gradually switched to a 'living with COVID-19' strategy, so he has focused on promoting the advertisement of its products on technology ordering platforms.

“During the recent resurgence of the COVID-19 outbreak in Da Nang, I was very lucky to meet Happy Le and understand about his project. Thanks to beautiful and professional photos captured by the young talent, my restaurant has attracted more visitors, contributing to increasing our revenue and customer numbers", Mr. Duong said excitedly.

Also being supported by Happy Le, Ms. Tuyet Pham, the owner of the NuDo Kitchen, commented “I admire Happy Le's professional way of working. His photos have helped to promote our products to diners but also affirmed the brand identity of products.”

Through the process of supporting photography, Happy Le also hopes that people will better understand about food photography, thereby highly appreciating the values of quality food images when doing business in the FnB industry.

“With food photography, I always want to convey the spirit of each dish to the viewer. It is first and foremost the deliciousness of food, and then stories behind each photo…”, Happy Le excitedly.

Before working as a professional food photographer in 2018, Happy Le have been doing a lot of asteroid work recently. Since being a senior high school pupil, Happy Le has had a great passion for photography.

While attending the 4-year university, he tried his best efforts to do many part-time jobs to save money for buying a mechanical camera. Since having his own camera, Happy Le has wandered everywhere through cities and rural areas nationwide to capture beautiful moments in life.

That zig-zagging path brought Happy Le to his latest passion: taking eye-popping portraits of food. Currently, he wants to inspire young people about food photography, thereby hoping that food photography will act as a bridge to spread the FnB industry closer to everyone.

Reporting by NAM BINH - Translating by M.DUNG