Joy of life: A photo in the award-wining collection Le Hoi Trau Rom Bo Ra by Pham Anh (above) and a photo produced by Le Viet Khanh during a photo tour to mountainous provinces (right) are among the best entries on display at the ongoing exhibition.

HA NOI  (VNS) — A photo collection featuring a festival in the northern province of Vinh Phuc by veteran photographer Pham Anh received the Special Award for Photo Collection – the highest prize of the Heritage Photo Awards.

The collection, titled Le Hoi Trau Rom Bo Ra (Festival of Straw Cows and Buffaloes), captures festivities in Dai Dong Commune of Vinh Tuong District, Vinh Phuc, during a festival to pray for a bumper crop and healthy cattle herd.

The prize winnings included two round-trip Vietnam Airlines tickets to any destination in Northeast Asia and a professional Olympus camera.

For the Best Single Photo Award, the jury failed to find a winner amongst the nearly 200 entries, saying that none of them met all of the award's tough requirements.

Organised by Vietnam Airlines' inflight magazine, Heritage, this year's photo awards was themed, "Journey through Heritages", and attracted 50 photo collections submissions from photographers across the country.

To offer applicants the opportunity to shoot quality photos, the organisers and partners from Viet Nam World Heritage sites and Ford Vietnam organised photo tours in June and September.

Photographers travelled to mountainous provinces of Yen Bai, Nghia Lo and Son La and also to heritage sites in Ha Noi, Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa and Quang Ninh provinces.

On Monday, alongside the awards ceremony, an exhibition was organised to highlight some of the best entries. It will remain open to public until December 21 at the Viet Nam National Museum of Fine Arts, 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street.

The organisers also launched the fourth year of the Heritage Photo Awards, for which they will accept entries from January 15 through October 31. — VNS