Photo Gallery – What I Saw Without Words
When You Didn’t Grow Up There, You See Differently
Because an adoptee doesn’t photograph like a tourist.
They search for traces in every image.
The photos you’ll see here aren’t made to sell a country.
They’re not taken to charm.
They’re not meant for Instagram.
They’re taken with a heart returning without knowing what it’s returning to.
📷 Ordinary alleys that made me cry
📷 Faces unaware they were being photographed
📷 Details that, to me, mean more than a landscape
What You’ll Find in This Gallery
📸 Photos taken in Vietnam, unfiltered and unstaged
👁 Glances, places, visual silences
🖼 Fragments of memory, for those who didn’t grow up here
🌿 Simple images, yet heavy with meaning
This Gallery Is My Personal Archive
I didn’t grow up with baby photos of myself.
I don’t have family memories in Vietnamese.
But today, I’m creating my own album.
These photos are the missing pages of my file.
They explain nothing. But they say everything.
How to Use This Gallery
👁 To feel what a return can stir
📤 To share an image that speaks without words
🧾 To accompany a text, testimony, or reflection
💬 To nourish your own journey, even if it has nothing to do with adoption
Do You Want to Contribute to This Visual Memory?
You can send me:
📷 Your own photos from your return to Vietnam
📝 An image + a caption you’ve carried with you all your life
🖋 A photo memory you want to share here
Collections to Discover
Forgotten Neighborhoods of Saigon
Silent Altars, Absent Families
Tết Colors Seen for the First Time
Return to an Empty Orphanage
