In today’s age of digital photography, the craft of personal portrait painting is fading fast. Tu Hoa Loi is one of the few remaining practitioners in Ho Chi Minh City.

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Photography has, in many ways, become a medium of the masses. Cameras are now built in to nearly every cell phone, and many of them take fairly high-quality snapshots. As a result the once prolific art of personal portrait painting, a craft with one foot in the world of photography and the other in the art world, has nearly slipped into oblivion. Tu Hoa Loi is trying to prevent it from disappearing completely.

Loi realised he had a skill for painting around the age of 11, but his parents forced him to study medicine when he entered university. After one year he decided he had had enough and enrolled in the Hanoi Fine Arts University so he could pursue his true passion.

After graduating in 1959 he worked for the Central Circus Federation, painting advertisements as the troupe toured northern Vietnam. Eventually he grew tired of moving around so much and decided to open his own personal portrait painting shop in Hanoi’s Old Quarter at a time when the art form was venerated. But after running his shop for a decade Loi noticed his health was declining. His sister convinced him to move to Saigon for the weather, and 21 years ago he made the move south.

Loi has been working at a small shop in District 10 ever since. He sits on the sidewalk with an easel and his equipment and paints every weekday. He maintains steady focus and appears to completely block out the din of the traffic on busy Dien Bien Phu and the roaring of circular saws in the shop next door. The genteel 76-year-old has never smoked and doesn’t drink alcohol. Loi says since his work requires sharp eyes and concentration he doesn’t do anything that would hurt his ability to paint.

Loi’s talent is prodigious, as evidenced by the incredibly life-like black and white portraits on display in front of his shop. Understandably, though, he is worried about the future of personal portrait painting. “Young people don’t have the patience to do this anymore,” he says.

Despite the bleak future facing his profession, Loi says he has no intention of slowing down. As a widower who has never remarried and with his three children enjoying successful careers in Hanoi, painting is his life.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the proliferation of computers and digital technology, Loi still has plenty of customers. He says the majority are people who want portraits of their parents or grandparents who lived before cameras were widely available in Vietnam. Some people bring damaged photographs to him, hoping he can recreate the image in a way that digital restoration cannot. Sometimes Loi can base his paintings off of an older, faded portrait, but occasionally he has nothing to go on but descriptions of facial features from relatives.

He recalled one story in which a high-ranking, 90-year-old military official from Cu Chi arrived out of the blue and described his father, who had died four decades earlier. Loi asked about his eyes, nose and mouth then worked at his easel for four hours. When he presented the finished painting to the official, the man wept. “He was amazed at how much it looked like his father, and the fact that he was crying really moved me,” Loi says.

It takes an average of three to four hours for him to complete a painting, though larger pictures can take up to six. And the work seems to suit him. With a razor-sharp mind and shock of black hair that would make men 20 years younger envious, he constantly interupted to add more anecdotes and thoughts on his craft.

When asked about the possibility of retirement Loi laughs and says, “I have never even thought about that, since this is my happiness.” He says his children worry about him because he lives alone and is reaching an age when most people start to rely on their families. But his only response to their concern is, “I am stronger than them [others his age].”

In this digital age, Loi is a stark reminder of the analog past. His business cards are hand-written, and there isn’t a single electronic device in his work area. Even though he is part of a dying craft, his passion burns stronger than ever. He has mastered personal portrait painting, and as Saigon continues to change around him it seems that his little spot on Dien Bien Phu will remain a testament to a once-prized medium.