amanda rivkin, photographer

Explorers Bio
Amanda Rivkin
Photographer
Young Explorers Grants, Expeditions Council Grant

Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
Current City: Baku, Azerbaijan

What did you want to be when you were growing up?
When I was very small, maybe seven years old, I told my godmother I wanted to be a crane, and when she asked what kind of crane, I said an operating crane like on a construction site. As a teenager, I thought I would be a writer, which is what led me to go to the college I eventually went to, Sarah Lawrence College, although I waited until the last possible moment of my senior year to take a writing class, because the curriculum itself was designed for writers, with no exams and independent research projects to complement the work in every course. This is what led me to journalism school, where I discovered by wonderful accident my true passion, photography.

How did you get started in your field of work?
I was studying print journalism at Columbia University when I enrolled in a short course mainly for writers who would be asked to take an occasional picture for their publications. I do not think I ever put down a camera after that.

What inspires you to dedicate your life to photography?
There are a ton of ups and downs in photojournalism and life generally, and the pay, especially when you are starting out, is often meager, but the strangest things keep me going. I remember being at the Visa Pour L’image photojournalism festival in Perpignan, France, for the first time this year and there is one café where everyone goes to drink in the evening, Café de la Poste, and often this group includes some of the world’s finest conflict photographers. This café is in a square named after one of the bloodiest battles in history, certainly in Europe: Place de la Verdun, where 300,000 men lost their lives in a senseless war of attrition that lasted 11 months in 1916, during the Great War, the war to end all wars. I wonder how many people at Café de la Poste know this history and so for me such small examples of an ironic and ephemeral value continuously serve to remind me of the value of photography. Even if we allow ourselves as humans and nations to make the same mistakes, we should at least have a record and knowledge so that if we look the other way on lessons of the past, it is our decision and something we or others can return to later to study and grow from. I have come to see photography maybe in the vein of ancient epics, for a good photo is crafted like poetry.

What’s a normal day like for you?
A normal day is hard to define! I love shooting news photography. I love the adrenalin of racing someplace, the competition of trying to make the best picture and file before the other photographers. But I also love the quieter assignments and projects that allow for a longer time to meditate on a certain topic and gather research and that work far more as a choose-your-own-adventure, within the confines of the selected story of course! If I can, I start the day with a shower and a cup of coffee or tea, but if I am someplace strange or rural where this is not possible, then I go without. If I can, I like to read or research late into the night.

Do you have a hero?
I have so many people I consider inspirational but the word “hero” scares people, especially the living and particularly me I think! When I was younger, it was the work of poets and musicians that inspired me greatly, singers and songwriters like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs and the poetry of Federico García Lorca, Arthur Rimbaud, and Charles Baudelaire.

In photography, I am drawn to people who have produced work over a long period of time that I think has an almost epic depth to it: Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Gilles Peress, James Nachtwey, Lynsey Addario, but I feel like I am not naming every one!

Politically I am drawn to those individuals whose ambitions were revealed over the course of a long, moral struggle but who personally never sought power, men like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Adam Michnik, a former student agitator, later imprisoned by the communists in Poland who created and remains editor to this day of the first free and independent newspaper after the transition in 1989, Gazeta Wyborcza.

What has been your favorite experience in the field? The most challenging?
My favorite experience to date in the field was on my National Geographic Young Explorers Grant when I had a peculiar dream come true of visiting and photographing Azerbaijan’s offshore oil fields in the Caspian, where the earliest oil discoveries were made in the 19th century and where oil is still pumped to this day. Having grown up during the very twilight years of the Soviet Union in America, it felt like the very definition of forbidden. The most challenging moments for me always come with keeping my composure to work when I am confronted with something that is just egregiously wrong. Sometimes I can hold it together long enough to get home and other times I end up crying alongside the people I am photographing.

What are your other passions?
I love cooking and literature, theater, and art.

What do you do in your free time?
What free time? Most of my free time is spent reading and researching but also looking at creative works in other fields like literature, theater, and art to inspire my own.

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Related:
“At Five Years Old, BTC Pipeline Moves Oil, Culture,” National Geographic News (June 8, 2011).

Today commemorates 17 years since the signing of the “Contract of the Century” to build the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline to deliver offshore Caspian crude from the oil fields of Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli. On this day in 1994, the agreement was signed between the government of Azerbaijan and major oil companies Amoco, BP, McDermott, Unocal, Lukoil, Statoil, Exxon, TPAO, Pennzoil, Itochu, Ramco, Delta and SOCAR (the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijani Republic). The BTC pipeline has the capacity to bring one million barrels of Azeri oil a day to Western markets.

Last year, I first came to Azerbaijan and the region to follow and photograph socioeconomic developments along the pipeline route with a Young Explorers Grant from the National Geographic Society. The work I produced was published, “At Five Years Old: BTC Pipeline Moves Oil, Culture,” and I hope to return to the region to following the route this winter. I will soon be launching on October 1 a crowdsourcing campaign to accomplish this goal on the photojournalists’ fundraising platform Emphas.Is, where I hope to raise $4,250.

Here are some unpublished images from the offshore oil platform Guneshli-4, part of an exclusive look at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli offshore oil fields, as well as images from the Sangachal Oil Terminal south of Baku, where the BTC pipeline officially begins its 1,100 mile journey towards the southeastern coast of Turkey and the port of Ceyhan:

AZERI-CHIRAG-GUNESHLI:

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The offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields 60 kilometers from the Azeri coast in the Caspian Sea on July 15, 2010; oil from these fields is pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

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Oil workers on Guneshli 4 offshore oil platform in the offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields 60 kilometers from the Azeri coast in the Caspian Sea on July 15, 2010; oil from these fields is pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

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A worker in the dormitory building walks down a stairwell beneath a poster of President Ilham Aliyev and his father, Heydar Aliyev, the former president of Azerbaijan, on the Guneshli 4 offshore oil platform in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields 60 kilometers from the Azeri coast in the Caspian Sea on July 15, 2010.

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Oil workers on Guneshli 4 offshore oil platform in the offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields 60 kilometers from the Azeri coast in the Caspian Sea on July 15, 2010; oil from these fields is pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

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Workers on the Guneshli 4 offshore oil platform in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields 60 kilometers from the Azeri coast in the Caspian Sea on July 15, 2010.

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Oil workers on Guneshli 4 offshore oil platform in the offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields 60 kilometers from the Azeri coast in the Caspian Sea on July 15, 2010; oil from these fields is pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

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The Azeri flag flies on Guneshli 4 offshore oil platform in the offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields 60 kilometers from the Azeri coast in the Caspian Sea on July 15, 2010; oil from these fields is pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

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SANGAÇAL OIL TERMINAL:

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The Sangachal Terminal, where Azeri crude from the offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields is processed and pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, in Baku, Azerbaijan on July 13, 2010.

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The Sangachal Terminal, where Azeri crude from the offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields is processed and pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, in Baku, Azerbaijan on July 13, 2010.

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The starting point of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline at the Sangachal Terminal, where Azeri crude from the offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields is processed and pumped into the pipeline, in Baku, Azerbaijan on July 13, 2010.

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Private construction contractors the Sangachal Terminal, where Azeri crude from the offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields is processed and pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, in Baku, Azerbaijan on July 13, 2010.

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The Sangachal Terminal, where Azeri crude from the offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli oil fields is processed and pumped into the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, in Baku, Azerbaijan on July 13, 2010.

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To see the fuller, wide edit of my two-month journey along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline route in the summer of 2010, please visit my PhotoShelter site.

I received three honorable mentions this year at the Lucie International Photography Awards for work in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Hungary, and Chicago. The entries are below with brief descriptions. You will have to scroll down pretty far in the same “Honorable Mention” gallery to find these entries in the environmental, political, photo essay and feature story categories here.

From the entry description:
Entry Title: “Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline“
Name: Amanda Rivkin, United States
Category: Professional, Photo Essay and Feature Story
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline traverses three nations, skirts five conflict zones, and covers land held by believers in at least two of the world’s great religions. A major post-Cold War victory for the West that sent one million barrels of oil a day pumping from the oil fields of Azerbaijan with room to expand to transport energy from elsewhere in the Caspian and Central Asian regions, the BTC pipeline – as the project is known – has helped to redefine energy security in the early 21st century.
(This work has previously appeared at National Geographic.)

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Entry Title: “Hungary’s Toxic Red Sludge“
Name: Amanda Rivkin, United States
Category: Professional, Environmental
On October 4, 2010, a reservoir containing toxic red alumina sludge in Ajka, Hungary ruptured and resulted in a serious industrial accident affecting numerous surrounding villages. In part, the accident was the result of a much larger region-wide disaster that has resulted from decaying communist-era industry and lack of regulation in the aftermath of the transition to capitalism and a private sector economy following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and communism across the former Eastern bloc. There is no perfect storm man created.
(This work has previously appeared at Bag News Notes.)

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From the entry description:
Entry Title: “Mayor Not Daley: The Rise of Rahm Emanuel in Chicago“
Name: Amanda Rivkin, United States
Category: Professional, Political
When Richard M. Daley announced he would not seek reelection for the office of mayor of Chicago, a position he held for 22 years and a post previously held by his father, Richard J. Daley, an elaborate game of political exchange brought Rahm Emanuel home from Washington to become mayor of Chicago. Formerly the White House Chief of Staff under President Barack Obama, Emanuel left the White House and Richard M. Daley’s brother, Bill Daley, soon took up the job. Emanuel’s close relationship with the president is something many Chicagoans hope the city will benefit from.
(This work has previously appeared at Fortnight Journal.)

The Fulbright Program
The United States Department of State and
the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: James A. Lawrence
Date: 8/4/11
Telephone: 202-632-3241

Amanda Rivkin Receives Fulbright Award

Ms. Amanda Rivkin of Georgetown University has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarship to Azerbaijan in Photography, the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced recently.

Rivkin is one of over 1,600 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2011-2012 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The primary source of funding for the Fulbright Program is an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations and foundations in foreign countries and in the United States also provide direct and indirect support. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. The Program operates in over 155 countries worldwide.

Since its establishment in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has given approximately 300,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.

Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in government, science, the arts, business, philanthropy, education, and athletics. Forty Fulbright alumni from 11 countries have been awarded the Nobel Prize, and 75 alumni have received Pulitzer Prizes. Prominent Fulbright alumni include: Muhammad Yunus, Managing Director and Founder, Grameen Bank, and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient; John Atta Mills, President of Ghana; Lee Evans, Olympic Gold Medalist; Ruth Simmons, President, Brown University; Riccardo Giacconi, Physicist and 2002 Nobel Laureate; Amar Gopal Bose, Chairman and Founder, Bose Corporation; Renee Fleming, soprano; Gish Jen, Writer; and Daniel Libeskind, Architect.

Fulbright recipients are among over 40,000 individuals participating in U.S. Department of State exchange programs each year. For more than sixty years, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has funded and supported programs that seek to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is administered by the Institute of International Education.

For further information about the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, please visit: http://fulbright.state.gov or contact James A. Lawrence, Office of Academic Exchange Programs, telephone 202-632-3241, or e-mail fulbright@state.gov

Un bagno di petrolio
National Geographic Italia
20 giugno 2011 (June 20, 2011)

Dall’Azerbaigian alla Turchia, passando per la Georgia. L’oleodotto BTC porta verso occidente non solo il greggio. Un fotoracconto tra i popoli e i contrasti del Caucaso lungo la strada del petrolio che fu al centro della scacchiera geopolitica della regione

fotografie di Amanda Rivkin

Immersi nel petrolio
Fotografia di Amanda Rivkin

L’Azerbaigian è noto fin dai tempi di Marco Polo per le sue sorgenti di olio nero. Ha riserve per 1,2 miliardi di barili di greggio. Marianne Lavelle con le sue foto segue il percorso dell’oleodotto BTC (Baku, Tbilisi, Cehuyan) non solo un’enorme infrastruttura energetica, ma un caso geopolitico tra paesi e culture secolari. Vedi su Limes la carta del percorso del BTC. Leggi anche sul blog MappaMundi

Nella foto, Quliyev Jeyyub si rilassa con un bagno nel greggio nella rinomata casa di cura Naftalan, 360 chilometri a ovest di Baku.

La Spa petrolifera, costruita nel 1926, è uno dei diversi centri che promuovono le qualità terapeutiche del petrolio.

Gli ospiti sperano di alleviare i dolori alle articolazioni, ringiovanire la pelle e migliorare il metabolismo, con questi bagni nel caldo, denso, liquido nero.

Sono permessi però solo 10 minuti di immersioni, prima che gli assistenti li facciano uscire e avviare alle docce.

This is a pretty special newsletter for me concerning announcements. First, I have graduated from the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service, which ends a two-year chapter of my life first in Washington, DC and then commuting between there and New York over the past year. While it was a fascinating educational experience, I am ready to move on to new projects and pastures.

As a photographer, my work grew as well over those two years, for me most notably last summer when I was a recipient of a National Geographic Young Explorers Grant which facilitated travel photographing the social and economic life along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which delivers Caspian crude to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan by way of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

Recently, this work was published on the National Geographic website in a photo gallery entitled, “At Five Years, BTC Pipeline Moves Oil, Culture,” with accompanying text by Marianne Lavelle.

Lastly, the biggest bit of news. As a consequence of this work and my interest in the people, culture and history of Azerbaijan, I will be returning to Baku next year and call the city as a base as a Fulbright grant recipient in photography.

I should note I have also updated my website, www.amandarivkin.com, to reflect recent and recently published work such as the “Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline” and coverage of Rahm Emanuel’s recent mayoral run in a new gallery of “Chicago Politics“.

Until July 20, I will be in Chicago and available for assignments across the city. As always, thank you for your interest and attention to my work.

Warm regards,

Amanda Rivkin

U.S. Department of State
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
2011 Critical Language Scholarships
for Intensive Summer Institutes

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: James A. Lawrence
Date: May 12, 2011
Telephone: 202-632-3241

Amanda Rivkin Receives U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship

Amanda Rivkin of Georgetown University has been awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to study Azerbaijani in Azerbaijan during the summer of 2011.

Amanda Rivkin is among the approximately 575 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students who received a scholarship from the U.S. Department of State’s CLS Program to study Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Indonesian, Japanese, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, or Urdu languages. U.S. students will spend seven to ten weeks in intensive language institutes this summer in 14 countries where these languages are spoken. The CLS Program provides fully-funded, group-based intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences. CLS Program participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship and apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.

The 2011 CLS Program received over 5,200 applications. Representing all 50 states, students from a range of academic disciplines and U.S. colleges and universities were selected for scholarships in 2011 through a merit-based selection process.

The U.S. Department of State launched the Critical Language Scholarships for Intensive Summer Institutes in 2006 to increase opportunities for American students to study critical-need languages overseas. The program is part of a wider U.S. government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical languages.

CLS Program participants are among the more than 40,000 academic and professional exchange program participants supported annually by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) to promote mutual understanding and respect between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. The CLS Program is administered by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) and American Councils for International Education.

For further information about the CLS Program or other exchange programs offered by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, please visit our websites at http://www.clscholarship.org and http://exchanges.state.gov.

* NOTE: Due to a conflict with the Fulbright orientation schedule, I was in the unfortunate position of having to decline this truly unique award and opportunity. In the interim, I will be available for assignments in Chicago until July 20.

Finally received and had a chance to open the very beautiful American Photography 26:

The credits are in the back of the book and look something like this:
Amanda Rivkin
www.amandarivkin.com
amanda.rivkin@gmail.com
Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich prepares his impeachment speech at the Illinois State Capitol, January 29, 2009., Springfield, Illinois, for the article “Blagojevich’s Final Day,” January 2009.
Publication: The New York Times
Photo Editor: Corn Schmid, David Scull, and Gina Privitere
School: Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service
Writer: Monica Davey
Agency: Polaris Images
Client: The New York Times
Publishing Company: The New York Times Co.

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And the outside front and back covers:

American Photography 26
www.ai-ap.com

Amanda Rivkin
amanda.rivkin@gmail.com
Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich prepares his impeachment speech at the Illinois State Capitol, January 29, 2009., Springfield, Illinois, for the article “Blagojevich’s Final Day,” January 2009.
Photo Editor: Corn Schmid, David Scull, and Gina Privitere
Publication: The New York Times
Publishing Company: The New York Times Co.
Writer: Monica Davey
Client: The New York Times

Selected
AP 26

previous posts:

“Forthcoming: American Photography (Launch Date: November 11, 2010),” September 30, 2010

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.