amanda rivkin, photographer

American Photography 26 will launch November 11th.

“American Photography presents the best images by established and emerging photographers selected by an outstanding jury from thousands of entries. The collection, gathered from books, magazines, promotional and personal portfolios, offers an informed view of photography today, with images that resonate through their clearly individual point of view. American Photography is a time capsule in the making.

American Photography offers a who’s who in photography, with images by Luc Delahaye, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Jean Paul Goude, Lauren Greenfield, Brigitte Lacombe, Vincent Laforet, Annie Leibovitz, Martin Parr, Paolo Pellegrin, Spencer Platt, Martin Schoeller, Stephanie Sinclair, to name a few. Work by today’s masters is interspersed with pictures by photographers just beginning to make a name for themselves…

American Photography, founded in 1985, is the leading juried annual and advocate of contemporary photography in North America and the world. Regarded by creative professionals as the number one source for today’s finest image makers, American Photography is the premier showcase for editorial, advertising, fine art and experimental work. With a history of presenting the most cutting-edge images, its pages have honored work by Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton and William Wegman and has proudly promoted the early careers of Sally Mann, David LaChapelle, Elinor Carucci and Steven Maisel.

The books, designed with defiant irreverence, are themselves objects of beauty and debate and have been recognized by every top design competition, including the AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers, The Art Directors Club, The British Design & Art Direction, I.D., Communication Arts, How, The One Club and Print Regional Design.”

Included in American Photography 26 is an image that appeared on page A1 of The New York Times on January 30, 2009 with a story titled “Blagojevich Makes a Day of It on Way Out” by Monica Davey. Online an audio slideshow, “One Final Day in Office,” with Amanda Rivkin’s images, Rod Blagojevich’s narration and Monica Davey’s reporting accompanied the story.

Important changes in the visa regulations at Heydar Aliyev International Airport via the German Embassy in Baku

Dear Members,

we would like to inform you about important changes in the visa application procedure: effective immediately, all non-Azerbaijani citizens applying for a visa upon arrival at the airport will be able to obtain a visa only for a seven days. Turkish citizens are exempt from the new regulations, as they will continue to obtain a 60 day visa.

Visa Regulations:

* Private Visitors have to submit an invitation issued by an Azerbaijani citizen or a foreign citizen residing in Azerbaijan. The invitation must be registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
* Tourists must submit a booking confirmation of their hotel as well as a return airline ticket.
* Business travelers must submit an invitation issued by a legal entitiy registered in Azerbaijan.
* Passenger in transit who will be traveling up to 7 days through the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan to a third country must submit their valid visa for the third country.
* Diplomats and those traveling on official government missions must submit a Note Verbale…

In addition, the following documents have to be submitted:

* Passport (passport must be valid at least three months after the expiration date of the visa).
* Completed application form
* 2 Passport Pictures (3×4 cm), pictures must be glued on the application form).
* Paying in slip of the visa fee… The Embassy does not accept checks or transfer orders. Official and diplomatic visa are exempt from the visa fee.

The Embassy recommends to apply for a visa at least one month prior to travelling [sic].

If sumbitted [sic] by mail, the documents have to be accompanied by a duly stamped self-adressed [sic] envelope, since the passport can otherwise only be picked up personally during the consultation hours of the embassy.

From President Ilham Aliyev’s Twitter acount:

Azerbaijan is one of the most rapidly developing economies in the world. Only within last five years Azerbaijan almost tripled its GDP. 5:23 AM Sep 29th via web

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UPDATE: According to an article published by Eurasia Net, “Azerbaijan Scraps Airport Visa Service,” published October 15, 2010, that same day the country no longer permitted travelers to obtain visas for a nominal fee at the Heydar Aliyev Baku International Airport. Travelers must obtain a visa in advance from the local Embassy of Azerbaijan by submitting a letter of invitation. Visitors from the Commonwealth of Independent States are still on a visa waiver program and can stay for 90 days.

The kicker in the Eurasia Net story says it all:

Asked to explain the reason for the visa changes, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs consular department representative, who asked not to be named, answered that: “The purpose is that the president ordered the changes.”

Bruce Riedel‘s recent recollections of Alex von Tunzelmann‘s book Indian Summer reminded me of a famous photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson of Lord and Lady Mountbatten and Nehru. Looking at Cartier-Bresson’s image with my papa, he said it made Nehru look like a buffoon. Von Tunzelmann’s scholarship suggests a different theory, namely that it is Lord Mountbatten who was cuckolded. And all this from the human atrocity of Partition, talk about a torrid sideshow.

The destruction of the 1940s ended with walls and partitions for half a century or longer, most concretely in Europe, the subcontinent, and the Koreas. On a system’s level the partitioning of ideologies occurred on a global scale, dividing the world accordingly between Soviet and American principles. After Germany’s official reunification in early 1990, new discussions and monuments began to appear in the newly reunified city of Berlin. The government of West Berlin moved from Bonn, the government of East Berlin moved from East Berlin to the Reichstag, one of the most historically fascinating architectural treasures in continental Europe. Then newer discussions began yet: how many monuments to the crimes of the state? Where will they be placed? Who should the streets be renamed after? And critically for this archival image from 2007 of the Holocaust memorial on Hannah Arendt Strasse: is it appropriate to mourn one’s victims?

Partition, albeit not on the subcontinent, was the reason I was in Germany to report and research an article, “Germany’s History Problem” for e-politik.de, about Erika Steinbach and her efforts on behalf of Germany’s Federation of the Expelled, a quasi-German nationalist organization with a great deal of controvery attached to its postwar history, to build a Center Against Expulsions in Berlin.

Finding Reality, Through a Lens
By KERRI MACDONALD AND AMANDA RIVKIN
September 29, 2010, 3:23 pm

The Brooklyn-based photographer Mustafah Abdulaziz, 24, was born in New York City. Mr. Abdulaziz, who works as a contract photographer for The Wall Street Journal, has been a member of the photo collective MJR since 2008. His work focuses on people and cultures in transition. In 2009, Mr. Abdulaziz was named one of Magenta Foundation’s Emerging Photographers, and this year he was nominated for young photographer at the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Awards. His conversation with Amanda Rivkin has been edited and condensed for space.

Q. How was this picture taken?

A. The Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia commissioned me to do a series of portraits during the installation of a mural on the side of a methadone clinic in North Philadelphia. People who were on methadone worked on the mural — some contributing poetry and writing for the muralist, James Burns; others putting it together in the basement of the clinic.

This portrait of Peggy was taken in the alleyway outside the clinic, in front of paper taped to the wall where she had helped tell her own story of addiction and recovery. I ended up talking to Peggy for hours, shooting more Kodak film than I’d planned. I made this photograph after she had recounted how she once told her children to look away while she shot up. She began to cry and I asked her if I could give her a hug. Afterward, when she looked into the camera, the decision to press the button was involuntary — a reaction to that fraction of a moment she gave the viewer.

I don’t remember taking this picture because I wasn’t looking through the lens. I was looking over it, directly at her.

Q. How has this image changed the way you work?

A. This transformed my perception of the power of raw, minimalist portraiture using documentary-based storytelling. I’m now fascinated by the reality of what is photographed: its believability, and how close it comes to representing the reality of a moment while creating an undeniable bridge, through composition and form, between the moment it was created and the moment it’s viewed.

Refining this process, through self-awareness and a constant focus on how these tools can tell stories, is how I believe I will elevate my photographs to a new and far more dynamic level, both visually and intellectually.

Inspiration: Richard Avedon
Image: Clarence Lippard, Drifter, Interstate 80, Sparks, Nev., Aug. 29, 1983.

Q. When did you first come upon this image? How?
A. I came across this photograph in Mr. Avedon’s book “In The American West,” my first experience with photography and what started my interest in making pictures. I was in college for journalism and came across it by chance at a bookstore, just because it was bright and caught my attention. I kept going back to see it. To this day, I don’t have a copy. It is still magic and you can never really own that.

Q. What do you like about this image?
A. For me, this diptych illustrates what is truly unique and remarkable about photography. It has an ability to interact with reality while harnessing the camera to communicate a sensation. His clothes and worn skin are the real captions, while Avedon’s visual presentation breathes this moment into an immortal, frozen state. He is forever gesturing and looking at the viewer. Forever alive.

Q. How has it influenced your work?
A. It made me want to make pictures. Of anything. It really is what started me down this path. I was influenced by the clarity of using the glow of white and the images that can result when approaching an idea or subject matter with intimate, engaging portraits.

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“Turning Point” is an occasional series featuring images by young photographers. The column was conceived by the 26-year-old photographer Amanda Rivkin.

Previous Turning Point Columns:

Wednesday, Aug. 4
Amanda Rivkin, 26.
Inspired by Dorothea Lange.

Wednesday, Aug. 11
Aga Luczakowska, 29.
Inspired by Stanley Greene.

Wednesday, Aug. 18
Robert Caplin, 27.
Inspired by David Alan Harvey.

Wednesday, Aug. 25
Yana Paskova, 28.
Inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Wednesday, Sept. 1
Ayman Oghanna, 25.
Inspired by Alex Webb.

Wednesday, Sept. 8
Newsha Tavakolian, 29.
Inspired by Naser al-Din, the shah of Iran (1848-96).

Wednesday, Sept. 15
Maja Hitij, 26.
Inspired by Kevin Carter.

Wednesday, Sept. 22
Ed Ou, 23.
Inspired by Finbarr O’Reilly

In today’s New York Times, my friend Xu Zhiyong, “a public interest lawyer whose organization has investigated black jails,” is quoted in the story the story, “China Investigates Extralegal Petitioner Detentions” by Andrew Jacobs:

“The Anyuanding affair [named after a security company which allegedly operated black jails inside of China] is so sinister and damaging, it appears that the public security authorities were left with little choice but to intervene and investigate,” Mr. Xu said.

What the article did not mention was that just over a year ago, Xu found himself disappeared when guards pulled him from his apartment early one morning in August 2009 before resurfacing in a Beijing jail where he was being held on the pretext of tax evasion charges. Earlier this year, I wrote about the experience of uncovering the news that he was missing for Foreign Policy in an article entitled “Raging Against the Machine”:

Xu Zhiyong was watching the 2004 Democratic convention in a shared common area at a Columbia University dormitory when we first met. After just a few words, I knew he could understand little of the speeches on television. It is so different from China, he said. Political conventions in his home country were pageants: Officials waited their turn, sat erect in their seats, and clapped only on cue and never too wildly.

Last July, my friend was the subject of a different form of high stakes political theater when he was arrested, detained, and held incommunicado for one month. As a young and extremely enterprising attorney in Beijing, he has represented a slew of disadvantaged clients in China, from a newspaper owner beleaguered by the authorities to the victims of the contaminated baby formula sold by the Sanlu company. When he disappeared, the first news I received appeared on the New Yorker’s website in the form of a headline that questioned directly, “Where is Xu Zhiyong?”

Since his release in August 2009, less than a month after his extralegal arrest and detention began, he was once again freed so he could be free to be arrested again – as was the case recently at a demonstration in Beijing:

One reason Beijing is so nervous about demonstrations is that based on past experience, “troublemakers” often take advantage of such rare occasions to air grievances regarding nondiplomatic issues, especially corruption within party and government departments. That explains why at least nine activists, according to the watchdog Chinese Human Rights Defenders, were detained or warned not to participate in the rallies in Beijing and Guangzhou. Among them were Xu Zhiyong, a lecturer at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Teng Biao, a lawyer. Xu and Teng are well-known NGO activists who have stood up for victims of official corruption.
- “Is China Afraid of Its Own People?” by Willy Lam, Foreign Policy
September 28, 2010

With the release of The Spectacular Slovakia guide I have been able to return to my personal portfolio website and update it with a gallery of images from my travel with the Romathan Gypsy Theater by bus from Kosice, Slovakia to the remote village of Banske in eastern Slovakia to perform for a primarily Roma student attended elementary school.

Previously this work appeared as an audio slide show on The Slovak Spectator’s website in a joint project with SmeTV, the digital arm of the largest Slovak national daily, “Romathan.”

In late July and early August I was traveling in Georgia, a post-Soviet state on the make, as part of my work following the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline route. Two years ago in 2008, the new nation-state was beset by misfortune in the form of invasion by its northerly neighbor, Russia. A short but devastating nine day war ensued in mid-August over the self-proclaimed independent republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia’s north and northwest.

A primary theater in the armed conflict was the Georgian city of Gori, most famous as it is the birthplace of Iosef Dzughashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin who ruled the former Soviet Union with an iron first and a mass murderous streak from 1922 until his death in 1953. In some parts of the now former Eastern Bloc like Poland, de-Stalinzation did not occur until 1957, a year after Khrushchev’s “secret speech” at the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) renouncing the Soviet crimes of Stalinist excess.

In 2008, several images from the Georgian or August War made a splash in the international photojournalism awards, garnering a World Press Photo award and Visa d’Or at the Visa Pour L’image Photojournalism Festival at Perpignan, France for Polish photojournalist Wojciech Grzedzinski.

In July, I had a few days while waiting for permissions I have yet to obtain and took a side day trip to Iosef Dzughashvili’s hometown, Gori. In June, Gori was again in the headlines because a famous statue of Mr. Stalin that stood prominently in the main square had been removed and taken to a nearby courtyard, ostensibly while room is made in front of his boyhood home, also relocated to a nearby square that rests in front of the Stalin Museum, Gori’s primary attraction. But for now and perhaps for the first time in his afterlife, Stalin must wait.

Due to the yet more recent tragic history of 2008, I revisited some of the places that had been devastated by Russian bombs to find that they had been rebuilt. My translator and guide told me in two months following the war, most of Gori was rebuilt and in better condition than when the Soviets had their turn.

Waiting and Waiting for the Perfect Moment
By KERRI MACDONALD
September 22, 2010, 5:24 pm

Ed Ou, 23, was born in Taiwan and grew up in Vancouver, Canada. He spent the last four years in the Middle East, Africa and the former Soviet Union. On June 13, his photographs of very young fighters accompanied “Children Carry Guns for a U.S. Ally, Somalia,” by Jeffrey Gettleman. Mr. Ou has been based in Nairobi as a photographer for Reportage by Getty Images and is soon to begin working as a photo intern at The Times. His remarks have been edited and condensed.

Q. How was this picture taken?

A. I was doing a story on victims of Soviet nuclear testing in Kazakhstan ["Under a Nuclear Cloud"] and I found this kid. His name is Nikita. He was 18 at the time. He can’t move. He was born with infant cerebral palsy due to radiation but he was one of the most animated people I’ve met. He could only move his head. He couldn’t control any of his muscles; nor could he talk. His family had found a way to communicate with him. They rigged up a helmet and a stick so he could very painstakingly type with his head.

He could do everything on the Internet. He plays games, he writes poetry, he writes songs, he writes stories, he’s in school. He learns Russian. On the Internet, he’s just like any other 17-year-old in Kazakhstan. Seeing how much he persists in using that computer, and how his parents persist in making his life as normal as possible, was really amazing. I needed to capture the love and determination of that family.

I sat in a corner watching him play on a computer for a while. I spent a few hours there. I wanted something more. His brother was playing with a balloon and I waited to get him in the frame. I didn’t get it the first day. Every time we would go back, I would just stay in that corner and wait for something to happen. Then for a moment, the balloon wandered up to where we were. And then I got it.

Q. How has this image changed the way you work?

A. Going through that process taught me how to be a lot more patient in anticipating or being ready for a moment. It’s O.K. to work a scene and let an image take its time. If you are patient enough, it’ll eventually come to you — in one way, shape or form.

Right before I started that project, I had been working as a wire photographer. This was my first long-term project. It reinforced in me that it’s O.K. to spend a long time on an image. If you want to take an image, you should work for it. It won’t come to you unless you’re patient and ready to see it.

Inspiration: Finbarr O’Reilly
Image: “Alassa Galisou”

Q. When did you first come upon this image? How?

A. I saw it at the World Press Photo exhibition. That was around the same time that I was getting into photography. I was really drawn to the way hard, breaking news was portrayed as art but never claimed to be art. Everyone was just so humble. They didn’t see themselves as artists but as messengers.

Q. What do you like about this image?

A. It’s a very singular photo about that particular moment and that particular famine, but it represents a larger issue. It gets people to contemplate. And then, through that photo, you start to ask more questions. And it tells a story.

Q. How has it influenced your work?

A. I talked to Finbarr and he was such an intelligent, humble and very caring person. As a photographer, you have to be a good person. Meeting Finbarr made me realize that in order to make images that make a difference or say something, you also have to be open to be able to react or see compassion. It reminds me to keep my eyes open — to always be ready to take photos.

He didn’t profess to be an artist. It’s actually almost because of that that I worked for wires like A.P. and Reuters. I have a lot of respect for wire people because they have to shoot every single day and constantly produce stuff. They’re always shooting. People don’t give wires enough credit for what they do, but what they do is on the same level as other photographers.

—
“Turning Point” is an occasional series featuring images by young photographers. The column was conceived by the 26-year-old photographer Amanda Rivkin.

Previous Turning Point Columns:

Wednesday, Aug. 4
Amanda Rivkin, 26.
Inspired by Dorothea Lange.

Wednesday, Aug. 11
Aga Luczakowska, 29.
Inspired by Stanley Greene.

Wednesday, Aug. 18
Robert Caplin, 27.
Inspired by David Alan Harvey.

Wednesday, Aug. 25
Yana Paskova, 28.
Inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Wednesday, Sept. 1
Ayman Oghanna, 25.
Inspired by Alex Webb.

Wednesday, Sept. 8
Newsha Tavakolian, 29.
Inspired by Naser al-Din, the shah of Iran (1848-96).

Wednesday, Sept. 15
Maja Hitij, 26.
Inspired by Kevin Carter.

Cuba Resets the Revolution
By MARC LACEY
Published: September 18, 2010

Spectacular Slovakia

The 2010 edition – written by American journalist Amanda Rivkin – provides a detailed look at Slovakia, its regions and its attractions through the eyes of a foreigner and also includes several new features such as sections on history, ice-hockey as well as a brief guide to Slovakia’s weather.

The new Spectacular Slovakia 2010 will help you discover not only traditional Slovak tourist destinations but also interesting attractions that are rarely featured in other travel guides.
[...]

Spectacular Slovakia provides full contact details for hotels, spas, thermal and aqua parks, ski resorts, castles, caves and many other attractions. In short, it offers you all the information you need to really explore Slovakia. It will be your trusted guide to many new adventures.

Be among of the first 100 readers to buy our travel guide SPECTACULAR SLOVAKIA 2010 and get a chance to win a WEEKEND GETAWAY* for 2 people at your choice of one of Slovakia´s historic hotels.

*Weekend getaway includes: 2 nights in a double room and breakfast. Offer valid through April 11, 2011 (excluding Dec. 20, 2010 – Jan. 9, 2011). Subject to hotel´s availability, booking required at least 10 days prior to arrival.

You can also find Spectacular Slovakia 2010 on sale within Slovakia at Interpress newsstands, Petit shop or you can order it directly from our Online Shop.

For information about advertising opportunities in Spectacular Slovakia 2011, please contact our Sales Department at +421 2 5923 3311 or spectator@spectator.sk.

Note! The Slovak Spectator All-Inclusive subscribers receive all the annual publications free, as they are published throughout the year. Subscribe and get the next Spectacular Slovakia for free.

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Price per copy:

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