Owen Ziliak

About Me

Owen Ziliak (he/him) is an honors fourth-year photojournalism and political science student at the University of Missouri- Columbia. He hails from Chicago, Ill. 

Since arriving at MU, Owen has completed a myriad of photo assignments for one of Columbia’s local papers, the Columbia Missourian. Assignments range from children's Halloween parades to 21 straight hours of presidential election coverage to wildfires. In the summer of 2022, Owen was the news intern at the Sioux City Journal in Sioux City, Iowa. Owen was tasked with writing articles, taking photos and capturing video in and around Northwest Iowa. In the spring, Owen was one of ten students selected from across the world studying photojournalism at the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX) in Aarhus, Denmark.

This past summer, Owen was a part of the Chicago Sun-Times photo staff as the paper's full-time photo intern, completing assignments in and around Chicago from late June to mid-August. 

Now, Owen is back at the Columbia Missourian as a photo editor and photographer. At the Missourian, Owen directs "Friday Night Sights," the paper's weekly visual coverage of high school football in mid-Missouri. Each week Owen selects which photographers to send to what games and briefs a group of 6-10 on expectations, advice and logistics on game days. Once the photographers return, Owen leads a team of editors to put together a comprehensive gallery of the best features from that Friday night. 

Owen is also an undergraduate assistant at the University of Missouri Journalism School. As an UGA, Owen advises grading on visual assignments and presents basics on camera function and visual storytelling to both undergraduate and graduate pre-newsroom classes. 

In September, Owen attended the 75th Missouri Photo Workshop as one of forty professional photojournalists that went on to make stories for a week in Sedalia, Mo. 

Owen’s work has appeared in the Associated Press, New York Times, San Antonio Express, Lincoln Journal Star, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Kansas City Star and many other news outlets.

Call +1 847-691-7638 or email ziliakphoto@gmail.com with questions or interest.