Ismail Ferdous

Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1989, Ismail Ferdous has always been fascinated by people’s stories in unreachable communities. His family dreamt that he would be an accountant or a banker, following the family tradition. As a child, Ferdous would play with his father’s old Russian camera, memorizing the exposure settings. But, it wasn’t until his early twenties, when studying business at East West University, that he became serious about pursuing photography as a profession. He lived more than half of his life in Dhaka before traveling through various countries in Asia, the Middle East and North and South America. He learned photography by doing it.


As a documentary photography, Ismail covers social humanitarian issues. His most recent project, The Cost of Fashion, is a photo and video advocacy project that began after documenting the Rana Plaza factory collapse, the worst industrial disaster in history. The project continues to spread awareness about the fashion industry and its negative effects on workers in Bangladesh.


In Bangladesh he has also documented the effects of global warming and HIV/AIDS on local communities since 2011. He has also photographed violence against women in Guatemala, refugees along the border of Turkey and Syria and human trafficking in Southeast Asia. He has worked for many NGOs, agencies and news organizations such as the Associated Press, Showtime, the World Bank, SIDA-Global Reporting and the Ocean Conservancy.


In 2014, Ismail presented at Tedx Maastricht and his article about photojournalism was published in Harvard Magazine In 2014, he has also won NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism award. Other significant awards include the Alexia Foundation Award of Excellence in 2012, World Bank Young Artist award, WHO award, Commonwealth Gold award, Save Water, Young Portfolio (Kmopa), InterAction Grand prize and many more.
Ismail’s work is exhibited in the 25CPW Gallery New York, the World Bank head office, the Powerhouse Museum and Rio de Janerio-UNICEF. His work has appeared in New York Times Op-Docs, New Yorker Magazine, National Geographic- Germany, Global Reporting Sweden, OmVärlden magazine, Washington Post, Time Magazine Lightbox, New York Times Lens blog, Wall Street Journal, InterAction Magazine, MIPJ journal and many more.

Photo: Jonas Bendiksen