The Bangladeshi photographer Ismail Ferdous is based in New York, but he has returned often to his home country, in particular to photograph at Cox’s Bazar, the longest natural sea beach in the world. In recent years, the beach has become familiar from news bulletins as the site of one of the largest of all refugee camps, housing 1 million Rohingya people, forcibly expelled from neighbouring Myanmar. Ferdous has worked as a photojournalist telling that tragedy, but he has also been moved to reflect on a more personal and timeless aspect of that Bay of Bengal coastline, in a series that features in the annual photography festival in the French town of Saint-Nazaire.
Like most Bangladeshis, as a child Ferdous would go to the beach for holidays – and in the last five years he has been taking pictures that reference that past. In order to find the light he remembers, Ferdous always photographs people on the beach in the winter months and at noon. His images have a delicate pastel palette – even this high-contrast picture of the beach trader in his pink shirt, clutching his tree of candy floss.
Traditionally families, rich and poor, would go to Cox’s Bazar not to sunbathe or swim but to dress in their best clothes and promenade on the sand. These days there are stretches of the beach devoted to surfing, but the older habits persist. Speaking of his pictures, Ferdous says: “After living in the United States for a number of years and returning to Cox’s Bazar, I see my own memories reflected in the beachgoers collecting shells, making sand sculptures, or viewing newlywed couples on the shore. This series of photos represents both the connection and the disconnection I feel.”
