Louie Palu was born in 1968 of Italian descent in Toronto, Canada. Having graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1991, he went on to intern for Mary Ellen Mark in New York City and began shooting professionally the same year. A six-year term followed as staff photographer at Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail. His work has appeared in numerous publications, books, catalogues, festivals and exhibitions internationally, which includes being selected for the photojournalism festival Visa Pour L'Image in Perpignan, France six times (2004-09) and also includes six nominations for the Visa d'Or in the Daily Press Award, Internationale Fototage in Mannheim/Ludwigshafen in Germany, George Eastman House, Ping Yao Festival in China, Fotografia International Festival of Rome, Voies Off Fringe Festival in Arles, France, Centrum for Fotografi in Stockholm, Sweden, The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, including additional exhibitions and festivals in Italy, Canada, Australia, Russia, Portugal, Belgium and Brazil and was selected as a featured photographer for the 2009 New York Photo Festival and CONTACT Photography Festival. Louie is the recipient of numerous awards including a Critical Mass Book Award, Hasselblad Master Award, Best of Photojournalism Award from the NPPA, Silver Medal from the Society of Newspaper Design for photography and eight awards from the White House News Photographers Association. In 2006 he was selected for Photography Now: one hundred portfolios, as one of a 100 photographers included in an international survey of photography, which was juried by curators from Europe, Japan and the United States. In 2009 he was awarded an Aftermath Grant to photograph US Veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, including the Hearst 8x10 Photography Biennial Award and Canadian Photojournalist of the Year. In 2010 he was awarded the prestigious Alexia Foundation for Peace Professional Photography Grant for his project on Kandahar, Afghanistan. Louie's recent Afghan works are inspired by the paintings of the Group of Seven's Frederick Varley and by those of the English landscape painter, Paul Nash. Over the past four years he has dedicated most of his efforts to documenting the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay Cuba. His work has been featured in numerous publications worldwide including The New Yorker, The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek, The Atlantic, The Economist, Forbes, Financial Times, Business Week, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Toronto Star, The Walrus, Virginia Quarterly Review, Geist, National Post, Macleans, NPR, The Globe and Mail and Sunday Times Magazine. Memberships and Professional Affiliations are White House News Photographers Association (WHNPA), US Senate Press Photographers Gallery, National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), News Photographers Association of Canada (NPAC). SELECTED COLLECTIONS The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Library and Archives of Canada; The Canadian Museum of Civilization; Portland Art Museum; George Eastman House, International Museum of Film and Photography; Portrait Gallery of Canada. Photographs copyright © 2010 Louie Palu. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No component of this site, including images, text, video and computer code, may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means—electronic, graphic, digital or mechanical, including photocopying or information storage & retrieval systems—without the prior express written permission of Louie Palu.