Boxe and Bazaar

Madison Square Garden, New York City, March 8th, 1971. Boxing champions Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, both undefeated, fight for the title of “Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World”. The two champions met again in the years to come and photographer Jean-Pierre Laffont was there to cover the fight, the boxers’ characters, and the magnificent crowd who paid thousands of dollars for the front seats. Dandies and drug dealers, swag and furs.

Cox’s Bazar, at the southern tip of Bangladesh, is the seaside location where people from every social class in the country can afford a vacation. Photographer Ismail Ferdous, who has known the beach paradise since his youth, turns that feeling of familiarity into a stage, using a cinematic visual language to photograph tourists, vendors and kids. “They stand like pilgrims at the end of a journey”, he writes. “ There's an inherent understanding that something greater than their individual selves is unfolding in this magical place.”