Interviewed by Uthra Chandrasekhar | Captured by Archi Saxena, Kashif Ali and Sagar Thamminedi | Directed & Edited by Archi Saxena
Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1989, Ismail Ferdous has always been fascinated by people and their stories in unreachable communities. His family envisioned him to become an accountant or a banker, following the family tradition but Ismail had other plans. Growing up, Ferdous often played with his father’s old Russian camera, memorizing the exposure settings. But, it wasn’t until his early twenties, while pursuing his under graduation in business at East West University, that he became serious about pursuing photography as a profession. Living most of his life in Dhaka, its only during his education at East West University, that he traveled through various countries in Asia, Europe and North and South America. He learnt photography majorly through travelling and exploring.
As a documentary photographer, Ismail mainly covers social humanitarian issues. His recent projects, The Cost of Fashion, is a photo and video advocacy project that began after documenting the Rana Plaza factory collapse, the worst industrial disaster the world has ever seen. Post this, he continued working on same issue with After Rana Plaza project. The project continues to spread awareness about the fashion industry and its negative effects on the workers in Bangladesh.
He has extensively contrbuted to the NYTimes Magazine, National Geographic Channel, Le Monde, Stern Magazine, Washington Post, GettyImages global etc. He is currently working as a photojournalist for National Geography.
