Ed Ou (b.1986) is a culturally ambiguous Canadian photojournalist who has been bouncing around the Middle East, former Soviet Union, Africa, and the Americas.
He started his career early as a teenager, covering the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and the fall of the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu, Somalia while he was studying in the Middle East. He first worked for Reuters and the Associated Press, covering a wide range of news stories in that region. He was also an intern at the New York Times and went on to work for them frequently in the years since. After university, he moved to Kazakhstan, where he documented the tragic consequences of Soviet nuclear weapons testing in Semipalatinsk. In recent years he has covered the wave of uprisings that has rocked the Arab World, in addition to the 2013 Gezi park protests in Istanbul.
Ed has been the recipient of a Global Vision Award, World Understand Award, and Photographer of the Year Award from POYi; a 1st-place Contemporary Issues award from World Press Photo; and other recognition from the Overseas Press Club, Ian Parry Scholarship, Best of Photojournalism, PDN Photo Annual, UNICEF, and more. He has been selected for a Getty Images Editorial Grant, PDN 30 Under 30, and took part in the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. He was also awarded the City of Perpignan Young Reporter Award at Visa Pour L'Image and the Young Reporter Prize from the Prix Bayeux-Calvados Award for War Correspondents. In 2012, he was selected for the TED Fellows Program.
He speaks English, Arabic, Mandarin, and gets by in Hebrew and French.
