amanda rivkin, photographer

Pictured: A World at 7 Billion
The New York Times Lens Blog
December 7, 2011, 5:00 am
By KERRI MACDONALD

Here it is: A visual time capsule, capturing our world at seven billion people — and counting. Below, you’ll find a virtual quilt that weaves together about 400 of the more than 1,000 photographs we received. There is little rhyme or reason to the order you see. We sought a mega-snapshot of our world — different regions, subjects, viewpoints.

There is a serendipitous beauty in the chaos.

What will these photos tell the future generation — including some of the newborns who were photographed by Lynsey Addario on Oct. 31 — about our world? Explore the gallery using the search box just below this text. Browse by name, location, or — if you want to get creative — randomly, by word. One of our most successful searches was “hope,” which brings together the optimism we found in so many pictures.

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View my image, “A Dissident Remarries,” featured as #3 of 390 images submitted by photographers working with The New York Times and readers.

Recently, a query from Dan Reimold of College Media Matters/University of Tampa landed in my inbox, requesting an interview for a forthcoming journalism text book he is working on now that will offer advice and experience from journalists. With his permission, I am publishing the contents of our online interview, which was conducted from July 1-5, 2011:

DAN REIMOLD. What are the best pieces of advice you have received or given about capturing quality photos?

AMANDA RIVKIN. Most of the best macro-level advice I have received has been from photographers-turned-editors like Santiago Lyon, the Director of Photography at The Associated Press, who has spoken to me and many, many other young photographers about the difference between taking pictures and making a picture and thinking about the frames you are taking as opposed to merely clicking away. Other photographers have undoubtedly helped along the way and too many to name, but the best advice I have found is only pertinent when it is later engrained in experience.

AR. The one time I talked with photographer Chris Hondros about this craft was at a bar in Brooklyn several years ago. One of the things that stuck with me from that encounter was his advice that “if you stay in this long enough, you will lose people along the way.” Hondros was killed last April in an artillery strike in Misrata, Libya along with filmmaker and photographer Tim Hetherington. There is no question that advice remains that until it is put to practice.

DR. What has been a particularly memorable moment for you as a photojournalist/photographer– during your student or professional days? A few lessons learned?

AR. When I get asked this question, I have learned that all most people really want to hear about is Rod Blagojevich since I was the only photographer to follow him his final day in office for The New York Times. I think in twenty years nobody will know the name Rod Blagojevich, yet shockingly almost three years after his initial arrest he has not yet exhausted the celebrity industrial complex to the extent he has the corruption that appears to have once characterized his political career.

AR. The first thing people most people want to know is how is this access arranged? I had nothing to do with it – I entirely credit the reporter Monica Davey, who I had never worked with before but then worked with many times since – and can imagine it was a series of negotiations but also in part because we were not the Chicago newspapers the former Governor felt had so wronged him at that moment.

AR. For me it was a case study in the neediness of politicians – Blagojevich called his wife with every move of the arm it seemed – and the mob mentality the press so often readily signs up for. It was really a chance to stand back and garner a different type of coverage, which I think is at least one of the goals of strong photography is that it seeks out and portrays a perspective that does not necessarily conform to the tried and tested formulas. People are drawn to Rod Blagojevich similarly for this circus-like atmosphere void of choreography or prediction, and so I suppose the subject in this case taught the photographer a great amount about what makes for an interesting photograph.

DR. What are the most common rookie or amateur mistakes you see new or untrained photographers make?

AR. Sadly most of the time it is not the amateurs I see misbehaving for they are still so green and fearful of failure that they are hesitant, cautious and perhaps make too few mistakes to learn from. Too often, though, I suppose they allow themselves to be intimidated by certain older photographers who work for marquee publications or wires adept at using their experience and position to nudge out someone younger in the way of their shot. I don’t blame them, but there are ways to accomplish this without ego waving or professional yardsticks. I think timidity is the greatest mark of an amateur, at least when I am out shooting for assignments that involve being in a highly competitive press box because then the only game until “the show” (whatever event you may be covering) gets going is just holding your own ground.

AR. The other mistake is very serious and that is the mistake of not understanding one’s own limitations, sort of the opposite problem of timidity. A camera on your shoulder is not enough to understand an extreme situation like a civil war or military engagement and neither is a view from a foxhole. The press often has a limited understanding in its own role in the promotion of armed conflict and so consequently to a certain breed of young photographer – and I am weary of being very critical here for the motivations and ambitions are not too far from my own – does not understand that the height of irresponsibility involves entering a hostile environment with no training, no insurance, no backing and no understanding.

AR. War is serious and so consequently should be approached in a serious way. Photographers who have covered in all or in part the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan can speak to the divergent experience of covering poorly trained, equipped rebels in Libya who were primarily comprised of the formerly professional classes. If there is a difference between regular and irregular armies that defies mere experience and years on the beat, than the same can be said of the difference between photographers who have military experience or knowledge and those who are comfortable merely chasing light and shadows in conflict zones. The AP Director of Photography Santiago Lyon refers to the different between seeing and thinking photographers, which I think is part of this difference, but it is something still more than that. Like most things, you can see war from a foxhole and from the level of grand strategy and I guess the photographers whose work I really love approach things from enough different foxholes to intimate at grand strategy. This is very tough for an amateur.

AR. They always say nowadays that no picture is worth your life and I am not sure that I agree with that but I will say that the pictures photographers have made in the final moments before their death are never the ones that would be worth it, however iconic the culture and times may pronounce them later. As someone once said to me, “Nobody cares if you climbed the mountain, wrestled the bear – all anyone cares about is if you did what you needed to do to get the shot and got out of there alive.”

DR. What are the keys to building and sustaining a worthwhile photo blog, and getting people to actually check it out?

AR. I am perhaps the wrong person to ask about building and sustaining a worthwhile photo blog as mine still feel so promotional and were started less than a year ago! I do think it is essential now, even if it is just to keep people who may be interested in your work aware of recent publication credits, work, or as I am fond of, combing through my photography archives to produce a series of “From the Archive” posts that are relevant to whatever may be happening in the world on a given week, sort of a photographic ode to the long march of history.

AR. I guess market research and knowing what you like and what you don’t like, what ways media works for you and does not work for you are the most successful ways to build a photo blog. Trends change constantly and as relevant right now as a photo blog is a presence on the social media sites, especially for individual or collectives of photographers, in time it is safe to say this too will be passé.

DR. What are the photographic ethics you rely upon most while shooting and editing??

AR. Honesty and integrity. While shooting you want to be faithful to the scene you are capturing and when editing you want to be faithful to the scene you captured.

DR. A bit tongue-in-cheek but truly curious… Is there a cosmic connection between photog and camera? (I hear rumors of some photographers naming their cameras or rescuing them from a fire before family pets…)

AR. Not that I am aware of. I don’t believe in such cosmic connections, but I do believe very much in karma. I once had a camera stolen by another photographer and if there is any cosmic connection between a photographer and his or her camera, that would be karma. For whom yet, I am not sure.

DR. What are the keys to establishing a quality online photo portfolio?

AR. It is tough to say what makes for a quality online portfolio beyond the basics: clean presentation, easy to read captions, and variety of work and experience. Otherwise I think it returns to the question of photographers blogging, which is to say, it should represent who you are and the work you currently produce and hopefully a glimpse at the work you would like to produce or might produce in the not-so-distant future.

The New York Times page A16, June 28, 2011 includes, “In a Retrial, Blagojevich Is Found Guilty of Corruption,” by Monica Davey and Emma G. Fitzsimmons with photograph of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich by Amanda Rivkin.

Mr. Blagojevich with his wife, Patti, arriving at court on Monday.

Former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich leaving the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago on Monday after being convicted of 17 counts.

Mr. Blagojevich and his wife, Patti, leave court after the verdict. (Credits: Amanda Rivkin for The New York Times)

Jury Finds Blagojevich Guilty of Corruption
By MONICA DAVEY and EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS
Published: June 27, 2011

CHICAGO — A jury on Monday convicted Rod R. Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, of a broad pattern of corruption, including charges that he tried to personally benefit from his role in selecting a replacement for President Obama in the United States Senate.

Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat who former aides say once envisioned himself as a future presidential contender, was found guilty of most of the 20 federal counts against him: 17 counts of wire fraud, attempted extortion, soliciting bribes, conspiracy to commit extortion and conspiracy to solicit and accept bribes.

As the verdicts were read aloud in court, one “guilty” following another, Mr. Blagojevich, who has always proclaimed his innocence, turned, his jaw clenched grimly, to look at his wife, Patti, in the front row. By then, she was already slumped back in the arms of a relative, eyes closed, wiping away tears.

The verdict appeared to be the conclusion, at last, to the spectacle of Mr. Blagojevich’s political career, which began its spiraling descent shortly after Mr. Obama was elected president in November 2008. A month after Election Day, Mr. Blagojevich, who was in his second term as governor and under state law was required to name a senator to replace Mr. Obama, was arrested, and federal agents revealed that they had secretly recorded hundreds of hours of damaging phone calls by him and his advisers.

Mr. Blagojevich, a lawyer and former state and federal lawmaker, was accused of trying to secure campaign contributions, a cabinet post or a high-paying job in exchange for his official acts as governor — whether that was picking a senator, supporting particular legislation or deciding how to spend state money. Mr. Blagojevich was acquitted on one charge of bribery, and the jury deadlocked on two counts of attempted extortion, but convictions came on the bulk of the counts and on those related to the Senate seat — the claims that had drawn international headlines.

The outcome came as a victory for federal prosecutors, whose earlier trial resulted in a deadlocked jury on most counts and led people to wonder whether Mr. Blagojevich’s behavior would ultimately be deemed crass political deal-making or a lot of wishful, blustery talk, but not rise to the level of crimes.

Issuing their verdicts on the 10th day of deliberations, jurors said the accusations related to selling the Senate seat had been the clearest and easiest to resolve, in part because of the audio recordings of Mr. Blagojevich’s telephone calls. In the end, the jurors — 11 women and 1 man, all of whom declined to provide their names to reporters — said they believed they had sent a loud signal to corrupt Illinois politicians, past and future.

“There’s a lot of bargaining that goes on behind the scenes — we do that in our everyday lives, in business and everything,” said the jury forewoman, a retired church employee from the Chicago suburbs. “But I think in the instances when it is someone representing the people, it crosses the line. And I think we sent a pretty clear message on that.”

And she had her own conclusion about the unseemly political world she had seen close-up through about six weeks of testimony: “I told my husband that if he was running for politics, he would probably have to find a new wife.”

For Democrats here, in a state government they almost entirely control, the final chapter could not come soon enough. By turns, Illinois residents had been mortified by the saga, amused by its circuslike antics and, most recently, weary of the whole thing.

Mr. Blagojevich’s impeachment, removal from office and evolution into a punch line on late-night television threatened the Democratic Party’s political hold on the state, created an outcry to overhaul lax state campaign finance and public records laws, and led to added scrutiny of some of this city’s best-known politicians, including Mr. Obama, Rahm Emanuel (the president’s former chief of staff and now Chicago’s mayor) and Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr.

The scandal also reaffirmed an image that Illinois has long wished to shed: Mr. Blagojevich appears likely to be the fourth governor in recent memory to be imprisoned (one for acts committed after leaving office).

Read more at The New York Times

Last week on June 15, 2011, I photographed David Protess in the new offices of the Chicago Innocence Project, the non-profit he recently started, in downtown Chicago. A small image crop appeared on the front page of The New York Times on Saturday June 18, 2011 in a story entitled, “A Watchdog Professor, Now Defending Himself” by David Carr and John Schwarz. The jump page, A11 and the nytimes.com website both contained a second portrait. Here are three from the very brief shoot in the middle of last week:

(Clockwise from top left) David Protess at top left in the entry way, at top right at his new desk with a courtroom sketch of the “Ford Heights Four” above the desk, and below in the back hallway beside a fire escape at the new offices of the Chicago Innocence Project, the non-profit Protess recently started in his first post-Northwestern University venture, in downtown Chicago on June 15, 2011.

The New York Times pages A1 and A11, June 18, 2011 includes, “A Watchdog Professor Now Defending Himself,” by David Carr and John Scwartz with photograph of David Protess by Amanda Rivkin.

“I have spent three decades exposing wrongful conviction only to find myself in the cross hairs of others who are wrongfully accusing me,” David Protess said. (Credit: Amanda Rivkin for The New York Times)

A Watchdog Professor, Now Defending Himself
By DAVID CARR and JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: June 17, 2011

For the last two years, David Protess, a renowned journalist and professor who spent three decades fighting to prove the innocence of others, has been locked in a battle to do the same for himself. It hasn’t gone as well.

Mr. Protess, who taught at the Medill journalism school at Northwestern University, was the founder and driving force behind the Medill Innocence Project, which was instrumental in exonerating at least 12 wrongly convicted defendants and freeing them from prison, including five who were on death row in Illinois, and in prompting then-governor George Ryan to clear the rest of death row in 2003.

But during an investigation into a questionable conviction, the Cook County state’s attorney turned her attention instead on Mr. Protess and his students. Since then, questions have been raised about deceptive tactics used by the Medill students, about allegations that Mr. Protess cooperated with the defense lawyers (which would negate a journalist’s legal privilege to resist subpoenas) and, most damning, whether he altered an e-mail to cover up that cooperation.

Medill, which enjoys an international reputation, in significant part because of his work, removed him from teaching in April, and this week he resigned from Northwestern altogether. It has been a breathtaking reversal for Mr. Protess, who says he believes he is being pilloried for lapses in memory and a desire to defend his students.

“I have spent three decades exposing wrongful conviction only to find myself in the cross hairs of others who are wrongfully accusing me,” he said in an interview.

It is often said that academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so low, but in the matter of Mr. Protess and the wrongly convicted men he helped to free, the stakes could not have been higher.

“He is in the hall of fame of investigative journalists in the 20th century,” said Mark Feldstein, an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University. “Using cheap student labor, he has targeted a very specific issue, and that work has reopened cases, changed laws and saved lives.”

Dennis Culloton, a lawyer who served as press secretary for Governor Ryan, said that Medill’s work led in part to the decision to essentially shut down Illinois’s death row. “I think it would have been an academic discussion if not for David’s work,” he said.

Behind that public success, however, there were gnawing tensions within Medill. Mr. Protess’s tendency to clash with authority did not end with law enforcement. He came into conflict with at least two deans of the Medill school, including the current one, John Lavine, who started in 2006 after a long career in newspapers.

Mr. Lavine is a polarizing figure at Medill: he is widely credited with stabilizing an institution that was suffering financially but he also led a successful effort to rename the school the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, a change he said reflected the school’s broader agenda but one that was widely ridiculed by alumni and journalists.

Read more at The New York Times

Qaddafi is a topic of conversation in and of himself, and his family an entirely separate discussion as well. He is the center of gravity of his own regime, naturally. The U.S. has announced it is not engaging in regime change (although not quite in those words), but has struck the compound where he resides with a missile.

On another war front, Der Spiegel has announced to an e-mail list of its subscribers that in its print edition to hit news stands tomorrow, it will publish three images of U.S. soldiers posing with dead Afghan civilians. The Washington Post writes, “The photos are among several hundred the Army has sought to keep under wraps as it prosecutes five members of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, for the alleged murders of three unarmed Afghan civilians last year.” The consequences may prove more devastating than the Abu Ghraib scandal. The Guardian follows up with additional details about a dozen members of the unit, already on trial in Seattle and confronting life in prison or the death penalty if convicted:

Some of the activities of the self-styled “kill team” are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.

Five of the soldiers are on trial for pre-meditated murder, after they staged killings to make it look like they were defending themselves from Taliban attacks.

Other charges include the mutilation of corpses, the possession of images of human casualties and drug abuse.

All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.

Interestingly, rounding out the debate on military secrecy and press affairs in the past week is the rumblings at the State Department with spokesman P.J. Crowley’s resignation in the wake of comments he made at M.I.T. criticizing the military’s treatment of Private Bradley Manning, accused of leaking U.S. diplomatic cables.

All of this brought me back to a simple moment and experience of being with the demonized “other.” As a photographer, I have had the experience twice of being with a person cast as the other for a period on a day when the demonization meets its high tide. My first experience was meeting Bill Ayers, former member of the Weather Underground and professor at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), on election day 2008. The second time was following former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich his final day in office for The New York Times. Below my favorite images from both shoots and a bit of back story below each image:

Backstory: “My editor at my agency suggested I might give obtaining a hard to get portrait of Bill Ayers a try. ‘A local kid might have a better shot,’ he advised on the phone a few weeks before the election. I sent Ayers an e-mail and to my surprise he responded not too much time before election day, writing that he had been out of the country and traveled back the Sunday before election day from Asia. We figured out a time to meet mid-morning, near a vacant lot on the near West Side. The first thing he asked me was where I went to high school. We played a few rounds of do-you-know-so-and-so but came up blank. Perhaps a bit more time would have materialized better results, afterall Chicago is the greatest small town on earth, a veritable village. After I took his portrait, he repeated over and over, ‘I am not a terrorist, I am not a terrorist…,’ appearing visibly shaken by the accusation made repeatedly by Sarah Palin in particular with regard to his past as a member of The Weather Underground and the group’s attack on a Pentagon lavatory. The accusation snowballed into an unsuccessful effort to link his past to the candidacy of Barack Obama, which failed in part because Obama was much too young to have taken any role in the bitterness of the Vietnam era.”

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Backstory: “Blagojevich was a talker but his neediness was of the most predictable sort, the vanity trap of the political class. You would never have to interrogate Rod Blagojevich. He gave me a pen, perhaps one of the last if not the last he could give out that said ‘Governor Rod Blagojevich’ while he was still Governor Rod Blagojevich. When we returned from Springfield and arrived at his house, I asked if we could go inside and he said he did not think Patti, his wife, would like that. When he got out of the car, we stayed parked a few minutes and watched as he enjoyed the stake-out, the crush of reporters, photographers, and videographers that surrounded the stairwell to his home as he walked at the pace of a crawl up the steps. He was riding out the publicity to the last moment. Little did we know that would hardly be the last moment.”

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One last note. The Libyan government is currently believed to be holding four New York Times reporters, among them photographers Lynsey Addario and Tyler Hicks, despite promises of their release made by Saif Qaddafi to ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour. Lynsey’s work has long been an inspiration since I was first introduced to her portfolio. Tyler’s book “Histories Are Mirrors” is an extraordinary visual study in comparative war and the final days of failing regimes. Anthony Shadid and Stephen Farrell are the two reporters; Farrell is British, the others are American citizens. Like many in the journalistic profession and readers of The New York Times, I hope for their release soon. UPDATE: The four New York Times journalists were released to Turkish diplomats in Tripoli, while 13 reporters remain missing according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Newsletter just went out:

Greetings!,

A round-up of recents publications and news from Amanda Rivkin, photographer to kick off the springtime – because what says rebirth like a look back in time:

AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY 26

The American Photography 26 photo annual arrived recently, featuring photographic highlights from 2009 in photojournalism, fine art and commercial photography. Included is this image I took (at left) from January 29, 2009 of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich in the Illinois State Capitol his final day in office for The New York Times:

More on American Photography 26 both on the AI-AP website and the amanda rivkin, photographer blog.

RAHM EMANUEL IS OUR NEW DALEY

On February 22, 2011, Chicago got a new mayor – a rare, once-in-a-generation event if someone named Daley was in power at the time of your birth, growth or development. For the first time in more than 21 years and after nearly half a century of Daley family-rule at the helm of Chicago politics, a new mayor was anointed: Rahm Emanuel. Receiving 55% of the vote, not quite the 120% figure that was floated on late night television talk shows roughly in line with only-in-the-third-world results, Emanuel avoided a run off and became the city’s first Jewish mayor with sweeping citywide margins (including 59% of the black vote).

View images from election day from Rahm Emanuel’s victory party at the plumbers’ union hall (also available in B+W) and former mayoral candidate/former (and the first and only black female) U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun vote on election day at PhotoShelter.

FORTNIGHT JOURNAL: THE CHICAGO WAY

Valentine’s Day 2011 – my valentine to the world: a 2,000 word literary essay on Chicago politics, appears in Brooklyn-based Fortnight Journal chronicling 21 years of life under Little Richie M. Daley in Chicago. Neatly presented in five sections are the five pillars of the Fifth Floor (the mayor’s executive suite) under the younger Daley: efficiency, cohesion, racial reconciliation, and the promulgation of both dynastic and tribal traditions.

Read it at Fortnight Journal.

NEW PHOTO JOURNAL BLOG

In an effort to get hip to the things the kids are up to and reach both people my own age with my images and commercial clients interested in the increasingly verité style of advertising, I have launched a new photo journal blog using the popular Tumblr format.

Visit the new photo journal Tumblr blog.

ADDITIONAL SOCIAL MEDIA NOTES

I am fond of saying I do not have to like the modern world, I just have to live in it. That said, this translates into social media relevancy (or irrelevancy). In any event, I am maintaining pages on both Facebook and Twitter these days for the Facebook-erati and the Twitterati. To my amazement, some of the literati have actually followed suite. Go figure. I can only promise you will never know what I ate for dinner.

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As always, thank you for your interest and attention to my work.

Warm regards,

Amanda Rivkin

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:

After viewing “Bureaucratics” by Jan Banning at the HERE Arts Center in the West Village New York last night, I was determined to comb the archives for images of that ubiquitous figure on assignments – the bureaucrat – who only occasionally makes the cut of a final edit for publication or submitted for such. As Mr. Banning has gone to the trouble of forming clusters around nations and functions, my attempt to do the same with this selection of five from the archives.

First, from my own country taken from assignments for The New York Times and the non-profit investigative website ProPublica in Iowa, the Illinois statehouse, and the stagnating Indiana town of Elkhart.

Marriage license and vital records clerk Rebecca Badtram, Scott County Recorder’s Office in Davenport, Iowa on April 27, 2009, the first day same sex weddings are legal across Iowa.

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Assistant to beleaguered Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Mary Stewart cleaning out her workspace adjacent to Blagojevich’s during the conclusion of his impeachment trial at the state capitol in Springfield, Illinois on January 29, 2009.

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Elkhart, Indiana Mayor Dick Moore on April 8, 2009.

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CONCLUSIONS: In America, bureaucrats’ functions range from managing city budgets to delivering coffee to the governor and packing up his desk when he is ousted on corruption charges. They also issue marriage and death certificates. To each, his or her own respective desk, office and accoutrement. Mary Stewart has the American Flag and Elkhart Mayor Dick Moore has a portrait of the first family with the White House seal behind it.

In the Turkic world, from Turkey and Azerbaijan functionaries of a religious and the intersection of business and government make an appearance in the archives.

From Azerbaijan, I have this image in a Baku highrise along the Neftciler Prospekt (Oil Workers’ Boulevard) of Shahmar Movsumov, the Executive Director of the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan which is responsible for managing the foreign financial assets of the state’s oil wealth and operates independently of the the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), on July 20, 2010. A portrait of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev hangs over Movsumov’s desk.

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And in Turkey, the mosque attendant at the Lala Pasha Mosque in the conservative northeastern city of Erzurum on the first night of Ramadan, August 11, 2010.

A little break from editing and post-holiday recovery affords a window on the week that just past. Census figures showed only one in fifty American states lost population over the last decade – Michigan. The day before Christmas I was in Constantine, Michigan with New York Times Chicago bureau chief Monica Davey to cover the story, “Michigan’s Decade of Tarnish Seen in Census Report”:

CONSTANTINE, Mich. — While every other state in the nation gained population over the past decade, Michigan shrank. And yet, as word seeped across frozen towns like this one on Wednesday, almost no one seemed even mildly surprised. This was, many here said with resignation, just one last, official confirmation of Michigan’s long, grim and gloomy slide.

“We used to enjoy a bit of a strut,” said Jerry Becker, a welder, recalling an era when Michigan’s automotive powerhouses ruled the world and salaries here felt lavish. “But that’s long gone. We all know by now that everybody thinks of Michigan as a bad place to live — a place that doesn’t seem to have much of a future.”

If any state is ready to be done with the 2000s, it is this one.

Where the nation witnessed economic misery near the start and end of the decade, Michigan felt a slow burn throughout. Cities like Detroit and Flint pondered ways to shrink their sizes to save themselves. States like Wyoming and North Dakota, flush with jobs, tried to recruit out-of-work Michigan residents to relocate. And places like this old corn and soybean growing village of 2,095 people — the self-proclaimed seed corn capital of the world — watched companies, like the soda pop top factory here this fall, close up shop.

More images available on my PhotoShelter archive gallery, “2010 Census Shows Depopulating Michigan for NYT”