Ed Alcock (b. 1974, UK) is an Anglo-French photographer based in Paris and the recipient of the Prix Niépce – Gens d’Images 2025. Working in editorial photography and personally motivated documentary work, his practice explores family, transmission, and identity, examining how narratives are constructed and inherited.
Alcock’s long-standing editorial career remains central to his work. After receiving Best Student Photographer of the Year in 1999 from The Guardian and The Independent, he moved to Paris in 2000 and became a correspondent for The New York Times. He now collaborates with publications including The Economist, Elle, Le Monde, Le Nouvel Obs, and El País, and has been a member of the MYOP agency since 2011. This engagement with current affairs and portraiture informs his personal projects.
His recent project, Buried Treasure (2025), emerged from discovering a foundational family story - an alleged fatal mining accident - had been fabricated. The work explores the transmission and erasure of narratives and the fragility of collective memory in post-industrial Britain. Other major series include Home, Sweet Home, a four-year study of Brexit’s upheaval, and Stérile, chronicling life during the 2020 pandemic. Earlier works such as Hobbledehoy (published by Terrebleue with a story by Emmanuel Carrère), Love Lane, and The Wait explore adolescence, family relationships, and inherited trauma.
Alcock’s work has been widely exhibited. In 2025, mid-career retrospectives will be shown at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and Jeu de Paume, curated respectively by Héloïse Conesa and Quentin Bajac. In 2024, Zones à risque was shown at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (La France sous leurs yeux), then at the Musée Nicéphore Niépce and Hôtel Fontfreyde – Centre Photographique. His portraits were selected for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2022, 2023, and 2025, and his work has appeared at Rencontres d’Arles, Circulation[s], Galerie Château d’Eau, KT&G Sangsangmadang, GoEun Museum, and Lentos Kunstmuseum.
BOOKS and CATALOGUES
[1] Hobbledehoy. Ed Alcock, with a short story by Emmanuel Carrère. Éditions Terre bleue (2013);
[2] Love Lane. Ed Alcock. self-published (2015);
[3] Family/family. European Prospects (2015);
[3] Home, sweet home. Ed Alcock. Myop Éditions (2018);
[4] Time/Lapse. Myop Éditions (2019);
[5] Sine Die. Myop Éditions (2020);
[6] The map is not the territory. GoEun Museum of Photography (2022);
[7] Back to Black, Myop Éditions (2024);
[8] La France sous leurs yeux. Bibliothèque nationale de France Éditions (2024);
[9] Quelque-part en France. Myop Éditions (2024);
[10] Mes Yeux, Objets Patients - MYOP 20 ans d’une histoire en mouvement, Hoëbeke (2025).
EXHIBITIONS
[1] Hobbledehoy, Myop in Arles, during the Rencontres d’Arles (2014);
[2] Hobbledehoy, Monat der Fotographie, Berlin (2014);
[3] Family/family, (with Julien Magre, Ilka Kramer and Arja Hyytiäinen), Galerie Chateau d’Eau, Toulouse (2015);
[4] The Wait, Seen Fifteen Gallery, during Photo London, (2015);
[5] Love Lane, Myop in Paris, during Paris Photo (2015);
[6] Rabenmütter, (with Tina Barney, Louise Bourgeois, Larry Clark, Rineke Dijkstra, Lucian Freud, Gustav Klimt etc), Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz (2015-2016);
[7] Entre chien et loup, Festival Photo La Gacilly (2017);
[8] #Stéphanoisfiers, Quartier Manufacture, Saint-Etienne (in partnership with La Comedie de Saint-Etienne et l’EPA-SE (2017);
[9] Entre chien et loup, Festival Photo Baden (2018);
[10] Home, sweet home, Myop in Arles, during the Rencontres d’Arles (2018);
[11] Home, sweet home, Festival Circulation(s) (2019);
[12] Entre chien et loup, Myop in Arles, during the Rencontres d’Arles (2019);
[13] Home sweet home, (with Martin Parr, Gillian Wearing, Edmund Clark etc), Les Rencontres d’Arles (2019);
[14] Ombres et lumières, Galerie Nicolas Silin, Paris (2019);
[15] See EU later, Festival Portrait(s) Vichy, (2020);
[16] Back to Black, Myop in Arles, during the Rencontres d’Arles (2021);
[17] Sterile, International Journalism Festival, Couthures-sur-Garonne, (2021);
[18] See EU later, Les Promenades Photographiques de Vendôme (2021);
[19] Entre chien et loup, NOP Grand-Est, Nancy (2021);
[20] Back to Black, Stimultania, Strasbourg (2021-2022);
[21] The map is not the territory, GoEun Museum of Photography, Busan, Korea (2022);
[22] Notre Dame, Fisheye Gallery, Paris (2022).
[23] Travel notes from a disunited kingdom, Myop in Arles, during the Rencontres d’Arles (2022);
[24] The map is not the territory, KT&G Gallery, Seoul, Korea (2022);
[25] Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, Londres (2022);
[26] The Taylor Wessing Portrait Award 2022, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh (2023);
[27] They were but a few, MYOP x Les Rencontres d’Arles (2023);
[28] The Taylor Wessing Portrait Award 2023, National Portrait Gallery, London (2023);
[29] La France sous leurs yeux, La Bibliothèque Nationale de France (2024);
[30] Demain est un autre jour, Musée Nicéphore Niepce in association with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (2024);
[31] La France sous leurs yeux, L’Hôtel de Fontfreyde - Centre Photographique, Clermont Ferrand, in association with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (2024);
[32] Mes Yeux, objets patients, MYOP – 20 Years of a history in movement, Rencontres d’Arles (2025);
[33] Ed Alcock - Prix Niépce 2025 - La photographie à tout prix. Bibliothèque Nationale de France (2025);
[34] Ed Alcock - Prix Niépce 2025. Jeu de Paume - Tours (2025).
