Picto Opens New Brooklyn Space with Laffont and Ferdous Shows

The historic French photo lab Picto, founded in Paris in 1950 by Pierre Gassmann, has opened a new location in Brooklyn at 77 Washington Avenue, near Navy Yards. Picto had been in New York since 2015. The opening featured two exhibitions: Jean-Pierre Laffont's black-and-white series 'Ali vs. Frazier' and Ismail Ferdous's color series 'Sea Beach'. Laffont, co-founder of agencies Gamma and Sigma, documented the March 8, 1971 'Fight of the Century' at Madison Square Garden between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. He recalls being denied full press access as his agency was new, only allowed to photograph VIP arrivals. In 1974, with better access, he captured the famous image of Ali pointing a finger during a weigh-in before their rematch, which Ali won on January 28. Ferdous, a VU agency member, presents photographs of Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, the world's longest natural beach. He describes the beach as a cultural melting pot where all social classes vacation, contrasting it with Pattaya or Goa. The 96-mile coastline along the Bay of Bengal shows tourists approaching the shore like pilgrims. Ferdous, who grew up in Dhaka, captures both connection and disconnection with this familiar yet surprising landscape.