Ismail Ferdous is a Bangladeshi photographer based in New York, and has been a member of the Agence VU’ since 2021. His work focuses on visually documenting social and humanitarian issues of the contemporary world, from the devastating effects of “fast fashion” on his home country, to the climate crisis, to the plight of refugees fleeing war and conflict. We interviewed Ismail as part of our annual collaboration with the World Press Photo contest, for which he was a winner in the Stories category of the North and Central America region in 2022. The project in question, “The People Who Feed the United States,” saw him create portraits of immigrants employed in the Midwest’s meat industry, making visible a largely unseen and often exploited population that powers America’s food industry.
