Ismail Ferdous – Sea Beach – PhotoBook Journal

Review by Hans Hickerson ·

Ismail Ferdous’ Sea Beach echoes Martin Parr’s seaside photographs. Both photographers have an alert eye for human forms and foibles, zeroing in and isolating telling details, with Ferdous favoring more straight-on views and Parr wittier, busier compositions.

But you will never imagine you are looking at a Martin Parr book when you open Sea Beach. You are not in England, or in Europe. You are in Bangladesh. For starters you notice the color palette is different. And then you turn more pages and see a man with his beard and hair dyed bright orange and you wonder if you have landed on another planet. People are enjoying the water, but no one seems to be wearing a bathing suit; everyone is dressed and there is little bare skin. You see men on the beach in business suits and dress shoes and women in the water wearing traditional robes. Vendors are selling shells, cotton candy, and peacock feathers. A group of cows wanders freely.

Unlike the typically invisible and stealthy Parr, Ferdous is often an open, engaged observer. In many photographs his subjects pose for him. Ferdous grew up in Bangladesh, so it is unsurprising that he would be comfortable interacting with people there.

As in other successful photobooks, in Sea Beach Ferdous’ 95 photographs function as an interlocking ensemble telling a story, working together to paint a picture, rather than as a collection of autonomous images. A number of them are of isolated details that, viewed individually, could be considered trivial, but in the context of the book their accumulated specifics anchor the viewing experience.

Examples of details include:

a crab in a net,
someone holding a small fish,
flowers the same color as a shirt,
a man wearing a suit and striped tie, holding a planner,
a stack of inner tubes,
a shell on the beach,
a row of beach chairs,
a red flower in a woman’s hair,
sandbags,
an airplane flying by.

Ferdous also catalogues people and their activities:

family groups,
individuals,
a couple, holding hands,
parents with children,
two young girls, dressed the same,
photographers,
people looking for seashells,
people on cell phones,
people playing in the water,
fishermen with a net,
lifeguards,
a man on a horse, his wife in a burqa alongside him, holding a handbag,
robed monks,
a man covered with sand up to his neck, smoking,
police officers,
a soldier.

As a physical object, Sea Beach is well-crafted. Its two text sections are each on different colored paper, and Ferdous’ statement explaining his relationship to the beach, in English and Bengali, is, interestingly, in the middle of the book. The layout is varied and sustains the eye without becoming predictable. Amazingly, the finish of the tipped-in cover photo sparkles.

Photobooks can share experiences and take us places, and traveling with photographer / guide Ismail Ferdous to a beach in Bangladesh is a special treat.

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Hans Hickerson, Associate Editor of the PhotoBook Journal, is a photographer and photobook artist from Portland, Oregon.

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Ismail Ferdous – Sea Beach.

Photographer: Ismail Ferdous (born in Bangladesh in 1989)

Language: English & Bengali

Design: RELATED DEPARTMENT

Printing: Shanghai Anfeng Print Co., Ltd.

Hardbound cloth cover with tipped in cover photo; 95 color photographs; sewn binding; ISBN 978-3-9822439-4-8; 156 pages; 20 x 28 cm

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