amanda rivkin, photographer

They all say the same thing, the first in French, the second in Catalan and lastly English, perhaps the most useless of the languages accept for this week during Visa Pour L’image, as English maintains its credibility as the language of international media still. It is my first trip to the city, to the south of France (previous trips to the country have taken me only to Paris and Bretagne, where my dearest and oldest friend claims deep ancestral roots and where half of her family resides) and to the annual photojournalism festival, likely and perhaps the biggest in the world in its 23rd year.

An editor once confided quite privately that the media was so late to catch the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and project images of the destruction of New Orleans worldwide not because President George W. Bush’s response left much to be desired but because the photo editors were on a working vacation in this city, Perpignan in the south of France. In other words, even if you think this annual gathering of photojournalists, their photo editors and the French public (who tend to treat journalists like rockstars) is irrelevant to current events and world affairs, guess again.

As a first time visitor to Perpignan and Visa Pour L’image, my duty is ostensibly to take it all in and to live and learn. I have also managed to arrange a steady series of meetings with many of the editors at many of the precise publications I have long hoped to show my work too, especially as I prepare for a move to Baku, Azerbaijan where I will be working with a Fulbright grant on three primary projects: 1) the social and cultural role of women in a country at the crossroads of East and West, 2) the country’s development in preparation for its role as host of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 and 3) a continuation of my previous work documenting the socioeconomic transformation along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline route.

Over the course of the coming week, I will be answering the following question from editor after editor: what work do you have to show? Here, in a few brief images, project titles, and captions is a preview:

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BAKU-TBILISI-CEYHAN OIL PIPELINE

Young girls dress themselves appropriately for prayer upon entering the Shi’a Icherishahar Djuma Masjid or Innercity Mosque for Friday prayers in the old city of Baku, Azerbaijan on July 2, 2010.

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HUNGARY’S TOXIC RED SLUDGE INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT

The rupture in the toxic red alumina sludge reservoir as seen from the top of a remaining piece of the reservoir’s wall at the MAL plant in Ajka, Hungary on November 22, 2010, that sent a torrent of toxic red alumina sludge pouring into the surrounding countryside, several villages including Kolontar and Devecser and resulted in the death of ten individuals, including a 14 months old baby, injured hundreds and left several families homeless.

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NEW WORK: PRAGUE STAG NIGHTS

Angelo Eleveld, 22, of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, a stag tourist celebrating the impending marriage of his friend Michael Klos, 23, dances with stranger and fellow stag tourist, the soon to be married Blair Skadden of New Zealand in the “mankini” made famous by British comedian Sasha Baron Cohen in the “Borat” film at the Beer Factory on Weneslaus Square in Prague, Czech Republic on August 12, 2011.

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CHICAGO POLITICS PORTFOLIO

President Elect Barack Obama waves to a crowd of 250,000 in Grant Park, Chicago through bullet proof glass after becoming the 44th U.S. President on election night on November 4, 2008.

Final note: If you are an editor, or photographer hoping to reach me this week, I will be available on my Czech cell at +420.774.037.084.

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.)

Amanda Rivkin in Hungary: Toxic Red Sludge
Bag News Notes
April 6, 2011

The rupture in the toxic red aluminum sludge reservoir as seen from the top of a remaining piece of the reservoir’s wall at the MAL Zrt plant in Ajka, Hungary. November 22, 2010.

This week marks the first anniversary of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in West Virginia which killed 29 coal miners. BagNews has been tracking mountaintop removal there with our series Dragline: Mountaintop Mining Watch. On the other side of the Atlantic, it has been six months since a similar accident with fatal consequences in Eastern Europe. Photographer Amanda Rivkin reports:

For sixty-three year old Geza Csenki, living in the small village of Devecser in western Hungary, last October 4 was the day the world folded. A torrent of toxic red sludge from a nearby industrial plant owned by MAL Zrt (Magyar Alumínium Termelő és Kereskedelmi) burst and flooded the town. Ten people died, including a 14-month old baby and hundreds were hurt and hospitalized. Csenki lost his home.

The collapse of the reservoir wall in Ajka wasn’t a freak accident nor was it an isolated incident. Remaining portions of the wall are not secure and while much of the sludge has emptied into the surrounding countryside, the rain and elements will determine how much more continues to leak out.

Clean up crews work to hose down contaminated trees in the castle park that schoolchildren used for play. November 20, 2010.

Geza Csenki outside the entrance of his ruined and uninhabitable home. November 25, 2010.

“I have a brother in North Carolina; I would have emigrated to join him had this happened 10 years ago, but now I have no idea what to do,” Csenki said between tears. Ironically, his troubles are compounded by the real possibility that he may have to close his children’s clothing store due to a lack of business – as donations to the community started arriving after the disaster.

Dora Jazmin Juhasz, 3, watches television as her father, Zoltan Juhasz, 33, sleeps in their temporary home. November 23, 2010. Despite nearly drowning in the sludge, Dora survived without injury, but her 14-month old younger sister, Angyalka, was the youngest victim killed. Zoltan has burns that cover 67% of his body.

The pace of life in the two villages at the base of the reservoir, Devecser and Kolontar, has not returned to anything resembling normal. It is a post-disaster sort of normal, with a portable soup kitchen in a military tent still providing sustenance every day for many families. Many people have been forced to live with family members or take up in abandoned buildings. Some live in their place of work.

Csenki’s organizing efforts to protest the government’s crisis management have been met so far with half measures. They have won some concessions, such as the right to remain in their village and avoid having it labeled a toxic wasteland, even though many houses remain covered in sludge. In turn, Csenki has vowed not to block the main road with demonstrators. He has become aware of his own power as a victim of the tragedy.

A mysterious light captures what is likely toxic dumping into the river alongside the M8 highway. November 25, 2010. While nobody would disclose what they were doing, they allowed for photos believing that a foreign photographer could not understand or ask questions.

The government has also promised to build new homes by the middle of the next year for Csenki, his wife and others like them who survived the catastrophe. The battle for compensation continues and they wonder why they can’t be given money to rebuild themselves rather than rely on a system that has so wronged them.

The accident is part of a larger, looming problem concerning the state of post-Soviet industries in the region. Privatization during the early 1990s forced the regulatory burden from the state onto the private sector. So for the residents of Devecser and Ajka, unfulfilled promises to revise industrial inspection codes in the future bring little comfort.

The feet of Laszlo Markos, 61, who was severely burned in the accident. November 23, 2010.

Zoltan Bakonyi, the largest shareholder of MAL Zrt, was briefly arrested. He appeared on television to say the aluminum sludge might not be so harmful after all. His father Arpad Bakonyi was a key player in the privatization of the Hungarian aluminum industry.

“How can they say this?” asked Iren Istvanne Nemeth, 71, a survivor of the accident. Nemeth removed her shoes and socks and showed off burns and blisters that she said covered half of her body. Her son Istvan was killed.

Nemeth had been released from the hospital after six weeks. At the time of the disaster, she was forced to wade in the toxic sludge until emergency rescue workers arrived. Since the accident occurred during the middle of the day, it was mainly the shut-in elderly and those who lacked upstairs floors who had nowhere they could run to safety.

“I have had a difficult life,” Nemeth concluded, the same day she was supposed to move into a shelter for the displaced.

Melinda Lehmann, 28, sits in her car outside her family’s bar in Kolontar, Hungary on November 22, 2010.

–Amanda Rivkin

PHOTOGRAPHS by AMANDA RIVKIN

Kinofest NYC Film Festival 2011
Tonight’s Screenings:

Torn From the Flag
7PM at the Ukrainian Museum (222 E 6th Street)

Director: Klaudia Kovacs

Hungarian/English (w/Eng. subtitles)

USA, 2007

96 min

This incisive sociopolitical and historical documentary covers the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the ensuing international decline of communism with both archival footage and interviews with then youthful revolutionaries, Russia’s Budapest-based troop commander and other historical notables. The extensive interviews span across the US, Hungary, Russia and Italy supplying viewers with lots of new information on behind-the-scenes political dramas leading up to and shortly after the revolution. This film garnered 8 film festival awards worldwide and participated in the 2009 Oscar competition in the “Best Documentary” category.

The Year in Pictures 2010 by Amanda Rivkin available on PhotoShelter Archive.

Images from the year include:

Gitmo USA – the prison site designated for Guantanamo Bay detainees after the prison’s closure in rural Illinois that never quite opened because the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has not yet closed.
Portrait of William Fiedler, Owner of the Gallery Bookstore, Chicago – My former boss at one of the North Side’s finest used book stores.

Injured Veteran – Portrait of Michael Jernigan, injured in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004; photographed at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

Baltasar Garzon – Former examining magistrate of Spain’s Criminal Court, extraordinarily controversial for execution of the practice of universal justice and far-reaching indictments of foreign leaders and terrorist organizations; photographed at the Instituto Cervantes in Chicago.

Afghan Bowling Tournament (3 images) – Afghan-American bowling tournament in Annandale, Virginia.

Cuba (8 images) – The Second Age of Castro, published on ForeignPolicy.com and The New York Times “Week in Review”.

Spectacular Slovakia (13 images) – Weddings, floods, world cup, trains, planes, castles, even nuclear power plants; images from a 40 day odyssey across Slovakia for English-language newspaper The Slovak Spectator’s annual magazine-length feature travel guide publication’s 15th edition.

Azerbaijan (3 images) – Early impressions of the oil rich land include a peak inside the women’s section of the largest Shia mosque in the Old City, a meeting with satirical blogger Emin Milli on prison leave for his father’s funeral, and a visit to a polluted beach.

An Encounter with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan – And a book gets thrown at my head in Erzurum, Turkey in the country’s conservative northeast.

Hungary’s Greatest Ecological Disaster (4 images) – the aftermath and the survivors of the October 4, 2010 industrial accident caused by a rupture in a reservoir containing toxic alumina industrial waste.

On the campaign trail with Rahm Emanuel for mayor of Chicago (4 images) – running with Rahmbo as he opens a field office in the Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side and fields questions from attorney Burt Odelson challenging his residency and therefore eligibility to run.

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Thank you Mikko and Photojournalism Links for the mention of “The Year in Pictures” in the December 19, 2010 links.

AJKA, HUNGARY. The rupture in the toxic red alumina sludge reservoir as seen from the top of a remaining piece of the reservoir’s wall at the MAL plant on November 22, 2010, that sent a torrent of toxic red alumina sludge pouring into the surrounding countryside, several villages including Kolontar and Devecser and resulted in the death of ten individuals, including a 14 months old baby, injured hundreds and left several families homeless.

Another newsletter went out yesterday afternoon:

Greetings!

A short, personal note before I begin with the usual business. Thank you as always for your continued support of my work. It means a great amount to me these days as I have been struggling a lot to get my feet off the ground since moving to New York a few short months ago. The small gestures of support, kind words regarding my work, and print purchases have meant a great amount to me. Thank you.

I am holding an unprecedented holiday print sale in an effort to raise money for my upcoming trip to Hungary to cover the aftermath of the alumina industrial accident in the village of Ajka, which sent a flood of toxic red sludge pouring into the surrounding towns and countryside, marking the country’s worst ecological disaster.

For the awesomely low price of $75 each (or $50 for student), I am offering up 17 different prints to choose from as part of this sale. Of course, if you see something you like more, drop me a note at amanda.rivkin@gmail.com.

To order, please send an e-mail request to amanda.rivkin@gmail.com stating which print and where to send it to. As I am a registered PayPal merchant, you can now pay by credit card as you would with any other electronic invoice! The big advantage to ordering now is that your print will ship immediately after the Thanksgiving break, so please do not wait!

VIEW THE 17 PRINTS FOR $75 EACH

And thank you for your support!

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As I also noted in my last e-mail, two fellow Sarah Lawrence alums, Samantha Hinds and Adam Whitney Nichols, have combined forces (we do that) to produce the awesome Fortnight Journal. For my second bi-weekly contribution I wrote about “The Moment” I photographed as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan threw a book from a campaign bus that landed squarely on my head.

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Lastly, some brief upcoming travel notes.

I will be in Hungary from November 18-29 covering the aftermath of the industrial accident in Ajka.

After I return, I will be traveling to Chicago for much of the month (Dec. 10-30) in an effort to cover as much as I can of the Chicago special mayoral election. For editors familiar with my work covering Obama and Blagojevich, I hope this is an opportunity not just for me but for you to share work with your readers that reflects a scope of understanding of not just the story but the political environment. With the election date set for February 22, my goal is to be available for Chicago assignments in this time frame as well.

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As always, thank you very much for your ongoing interest in my work.

Sincerely,

Amanda Rivkin

Newsletter went out yesterday afternoon:

Greetings!

I would like to announce a holiday print sale of a select series of 17 prints for $75 each. Every print is from a 6 x 10 inch file and is printed on 8 x 10 inch paper and students who order from a .edu e-mail account receive a discounted price of $50.

The holiday print sale is to fundraise for my upcoming trip to Hungary to cover the aftermath of the alumina industrial accident in Ajka that sent toxic red sludge pouring into neighboring villages when an industrial reservoir ruptured.

VIEW THE 17 PRINTS FOR $75
to order: send a request that specifies which print and includes your name and mailing address to amanda.rivkin@gmail.com.

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Two of my fellow Sarah Lawrence alums, Samantha Hinds and Adam Whitney Nichols, launched Fortnight Journal an online literary journal of art, prose and contemporary culture.

VIEW SLOVENSKO FOR FORTNIGHT JOURNAL
to see my first of six contributions.

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The New York Times Lens Blog “Turning Point” series concluded last week after showcasing interviews, original work and photographs both classical and obscure that have served as a source of inspiration for 13 young emerging photojournalists. In alphabetical order, I thank them and Lens blog editor Jim Estrin and contributor Kerri MacDonald for their efforts on this 13-week collaboration that began last spring. They are:

Mustafah Abdulaziz
Robert Caplin
Matt Eich
Maja Hitij
Kirsten Luce
Aga Luczakowska
Justin Maxon
Ayman Oghanna
Ed Ou
Yana Paskova
Amanda Rivkin
Newsha Tavakolian
Peter van Agtmael

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Last but not least, the Georgetown Student Exhibit at FotoWeek DC opens this Saturday from 5-7pm. The exhibit is on view at Walsh Building 2F, 36th & Prospect NW in Georgetown, Washington DC from November 6-13. I will have work from Azerbaijan included in the exhibit.

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Thank you very much for your ongoing interest in my work.

Sincerely,

Amanda Rivkin
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amanda rivkin, photographer
www.amandarivkin.com

currently in new york city.

*** holiday print sale ! ***

17 prints for $75 each
student discount: $50
print: 6″x10″ file size / 8″ x 10″ paper

to order, send a request to:
amanda.rivkin@gmail.com

I am offering up a selection of 17 different prints to choose from, each $75 for the holidays in an effort to fundraise for my forthcoming trip to Hungary to cover the aftermath of the toxic alumina industrial accident in the town of Ajka that occurred when a storage reservoir ruptured and sent toxic red sludge pouring into neighboring villages.

Any additional funds will go towards supporting my long term project on the “Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan: Exploring the Evolving Oil Economy,” visually charting nearly 1,100 miles of oil pipeline delivering Caspian crude oil from south of the Azeri capitol Baku through Georgia and the Caucuses and to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey’s far southeast, near the Syrian border.

The pipeline traverses three nations, lands belonging to believers in two of the world’s great religions, and skirts five conflict zones. In the process, a region accustomed to relying on neighboring Russia and Iran is returned energy independence and at times, oil riches. The project began in July 2010 with the assistance of a Young Explorers Grant from the Expeditions Council of the National Geographic Society.

or more information: www.nationalgeographic.com/field/grants-programs/young-explorers.html

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT