Sea Beach: Stories from the Bengali Coast with Ismail Ferdous

Santa Fe Workshops collection of free online events, Creativity Continues, features a special evening event in March with Bangladeshi-American documentary photographer and National Geographic Explorer, Ismail Ferdous, to discuss his body of work, Sea Beach.

Sea Beach is a photographic exploration of  Cox’s Bazar—the world’s longest natural sea beach located in Bangladesh, as well as one of the largest refugee camps in the world. Informed by his childhood holidays spent in Cox’s Bazar and later through his photographic assignments covering refugee stories, Ismail documents a distinct Bengali identity that exists outside of western portrayals of the Global South. Through its depictions of everyday life and serendipitous moments, Sea Beach seeks to uphold human dignity and celebrate humanity.

The images in Sea Beach reflect the cultural vibrancy of the beach community through Ismail’s thoughtful lighting choices and vivid color choice. In this presentation, he shares insight into his photographic process, including his experiences working with strangers to create photographs that authentically represents a culture or place, as well as the ways intentionality with technical and creative choices can strengthen a body of work to support one’s narrative voice.

Ismail’s work has been recognized with the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, World Press Photo, and grants from Getty Images, National Geographic, and the Alexia Foundation. His photographs have been exhibited internationally and published in National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, GEO, and Le Monde.

The program concludes as Ismail engages in a live Q&A with the webinar audience. For those unable to attend live, a recording is available to all registered participants.

Creativity Continues is a program that collectively develops creative voices by offering connection and encouraging expression. Because the goal is to engage all within our creative community, we encourage you to extend invitations and share Santa Fe Workshops Creativity Continues events with anyone who expresses an interest.