“I don’t think it would be fair to make a living selling photos without trying to help the people that I photograph,” says travel photographer Réhahn. Graeme Green speaks to the man on a serious mission to give something back.

“I’m a ‘people person’,” says French travel photographer Réhahn. “I always spend a lot of time with the men and women in my pictures before taking their photo. Without them, of course, there wouldn’t be any photos.”

It’s this appreciation of the people in his pictures that lies behind his ‘Giving Back’ philosophy. Originally from Bayeux in Normandy, France, Réhahn has been living in Hoi An, a town on the central coast of Vietnam, since 2011, and become famous for his colorful portraits, taken in his adopted homeland and around the world.

Sometimes referred to as ‘the photographer who captures the soul’ of his subjects, his photos have earned him an impressive international following, including 483,000 Facebook followers. He’s published three books of his photography, including two on Vietnam, and his work is exhibited around the world, with shows from Singapore to France.

But he believes photography shouldn’t be a one-way process in which only the photographer benefits. And that’s why Réhahn has chosen a different path.