Trinh said had informed Lao Dong of their mistake but they had not responded.

He said he had several times reminded VAPA leading officials of his request but had been “ignored.”

The black and white picture was taken October 10, 1954 after the capital was liberated from the French.

It shows the new Hanoi mayor, Dr. Tran Duy Hung waving at the crowd from an official car.

When the photo first appeared in Lao Dong’s print edition on October 5, 2007 it was credited to Dao Trinh but the paper ran a correction a week later saying a different photographer, the late Nguyen Duy Kien, had taken the shot.

A month later the Ho Chi Minh City Association of Photography certified that Trinh owned the negative of the Hanoi Liberation Day photograph.

VAPA President Chu Chi Thanh said the association was not going to get involved in the dispute.

“I think it would be better if Lao Dong newspaper dealt with the case,” Thanh said.

Thanh told Thanh Nien, “We recognize the photo was taken by Trinh” because he is the certified owner of the negative.

“And everything should just stop there. We’re not going to step in as a judge to announce anything because it’s not a debate yet.”

He said the association had not received any comment or evidence concerning the photo from Nguyen Duy Kien’s family. Kien died in 1979.

Trinh, however, said VAPA’s refusal to intervene was unfair because the association had recently made copyright statements about another important photograph, when two lensmen Minh Loc and Tran Lam both claimed to have shot the picture of President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum that was auctioned off for US$1 million last November for charity.

The association intervened and announced that Lam, one of its members, took the photo of the mausoleum.

Trinh said, “I think there’s no fairness here.

“We are equal members of the association, but they help resolve Lam’s case but keep silent on mine.”

Thanh, however, said Lam’s case was different because both photographers sent their petition to the association.

Trinh started taking pictures in 1950. The photo of the capital’s liberation appeared in his name in many newspapers at the time and was attributed to him in a Hanoi exhibition on the tenth anniversary of the capital’s liberation.

The photo of Dr. Tran Duy Hung (standing) taken on October 10, 1954. The Vietnam Association of Photographic Artists (VAPA) has decided not to intervene in a year and a half long dispute over the copyright of this historic photograph.

Reported by Quang Thi – Luu Quang Pho