If you’ve been following the Arab Spring, you’ve seen Ed Ou's work. At age 25, he has made some of the most impactful photos of the revolutions in Egypt and throughout the Middle East. His photography has helped translate the ongoing uprisings for a Western audience and he continues his work on the ground there even now.
This month Ou is back in the news. A series of his photos of Egyptian youth have been released this week in conjunction with the one-year anniversary of the protests in Tahrir Square that unseated President Hosni Mubarak. The photos give us some of the most intimate looks at life in Egypt and take us beyond the photos of yelling protestors and clouds of tear gas.
“When you have a foreign media, everyone tends to shoot the same thing, everyone has the same photo in their minds or shoots whatever is right in front of them,” Ou says. “But what people forget is that while there is ‘news’ happening, there is also 99 percent of the scene you don’t see.”
Ou’s photos provide access to an Egypt that other photographers were unable to see. He followed young Egyptians as they played a crucial role in last year’s revolution and who continue to be central voices in the ongoing process of change. The photos tell a larger story about what happens after the gaze of the mass media turns away. Ou shows the quieter moments that allow individuals to stand out from the visual repetition of anonymous protesters.
In many ways, this path was a risk for Ou. He was working for daily news outlets and feared he would miss “the shot” if he looked away or followed another lead. Asking for access and drawing attention to a community that feared being targeted by the Mubarak regime was also perilous.
While the group he followed was initially hesitant, Ou said they opened up almost immediately. They related to his youth and saw him as someone who was also trying to navigate the chaos that was Egypt.
“I had my own close calls with the police, and it was such an intense experience that we all had something in common,” says Ou. “We became friends immediately and we’re friends now.”
Ou, who was born in Taiwan but grew up in Canada, said he was drawn to the story not only because of the young people's role in the revolution but also because of their intense conviction. Something he knows a bit about, having left a USC International Studies program in Jordan to take photos of the war in Lebanon in 2006.
“I was absolutely humbled by just how much they put on the line, how much everyone in Egypt has put on the line,” he says. “It gave me the resolve, it assured me that this was the story I needed to tell.”
While many Egyptians just want things to calm down, some of the people he followed are unsatisfied with the outcome of the revolution and are pushing for more change.
“Only a year out do we realize how wrong we were. [The revolution] was not the end of problems in Egypt,” says Ou. “That’s why I wanted to stay with the story after the media had left, long after attention had shifted elsewhere.”
“The same issues are still there,” he said. “Freedom of speech is kind of there, but not really. NGOs are still being rounded up, etc.”
Ou says he’d like to eventually expand the project to look at youth throughout the Middle East. Young people, he says, have been key players in all the ongoing revolutions, and he wants to try and tell their stories as well.
“What’s happening in Egypt sets a precedent for what may or may not happen in Libya or Syria or wherever,” he says. “But it is so important to keep attention on Egypt to show that it is not a happy ending.”
