All posts filed under: Archive

Istiklal Caddesi, Istanbul

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My heart to the victims, their friends and family as well as the people of Istanbul and Turkey after today’s suicide bombing on Istiklal Caddesi, Europe’s busiest street, a major pedestrian thoroughfare aligned with shops and restaurants that cuts through the heart of the Beyoglu district from Taksim Square to the ferry boat terminals of Karaköy. There are more bombings and senseless deaths today in the world than the imagination could have dreamt possible at the close of the last century. Often they occur far from home, but every day it seems they dream up new ways to manage to bring it ever closer to home, wherever home is. Some of us have seen our cities struck, our friends hurt, killed, maimed or disappeared into the abyss of wars and attacks of the age of terror. For me, Istiklal is close to home because it was home. Images from my archive of Istiklal in better times showcase the avenue as at the center of political, social and economic life in Istanbul:

RIP, Ekrem Jevric

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Sad to receive news that Ekrem Jevric, a viral video and Serbian “rijaliti” star of “Parovi,” died yesterday morning in America. Here he is last September in Belgrade singing me a turbofolk hit live on Serbian TV in what may have been one of the most surreal moments of my life. RIP.

Etem Erol, 1955-2016

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The last message I had from Etem hoca was just a few days before he passed away. I had a night layover in Istanbul on my way to Odessa for two months and I asked if he wanted to join some friends for dinner, so naturally I invited Etem, as I had not been back to the city I called home for two years in over a year. He wrote to say he regretted he could not make it that he was leaving early that same morning for Bulgaria with his brother. It was in Bulgaria, I came to learn just a few nights ago from a classmate and fellow student in his Elementary Turkish I class so many years ago, that he had a heart attack and died in his brother’s arms. He was so young, 60, and with so much life and so much still to give. I write this with tears streaming down my face and it’s been more than a day now since I heard this really excruciatingly painful news. It …

Crossing Borders Picture Fund

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CROSSING BORDERS PICTURE FUND Crossing Borders Picture Fund is a print auction to raise funds towards the current refugee/migrant crisis. It is a reaction by a group of photographers to support families being uprooted from their homes in a desperate and urgent need for safety and a better life – many dying in the process of doing so. Not since the World Wars of the first half of the 20th century have we seen such an influx of people crossing international borders in a struggle to survive in order to avert death. This is a not for profit effort to engage with photography on a different level and for a good cause. All money raised will go towards the printing of the images and raising money towards an organization helping refugees/migrants on a major and impactful scale. We hope you will join us. http://www.crossingborderspicturefund.com info@crossingborderspicturefund.com Prints included in the sale from photographers Ed Kashi, Laura El Tantawy, Tanya Habjouqa, Peter Di Campo, Sara Terry, Sim Chiyin, Nichole Sobecki, Laura Boushnak and others. If you purchase …

Open Society Foundations Voices Blog: After a Long Haul, Refugees Settle Into New Lives Far from Home

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Voices | Q + A After a Long Haul, Refugees Settle Into New Lives Far from Home October 16, 2015 Antonia Zafieri American photographer Amanda Rivkin has been photographing refugees as they transit from Syria to Europe. Recently, she posted several of these photos to the Open Society Instagram feed. Here, she talks about her experience documenting the refugees’ stories, and what she’s observed of their attempts to settle into new lives far from their original homes. Why did you pursue this story? I pursued the story of the recent exodus to Europe from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere for no reason other than it was there. I lived in Turkey for two years and never covered refugees as an issue per se, although refugees were everywhere in Istanbul at the time. Some were also my friends. If there was a crack between two buildings, it was as if you could find three Syrian families living there. But I think there is so much of this biblical, dramatic imagery that we forget that Syria—emptying out …

Now a Corbis Contributor!

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After a year hiatus from agencies following my departure from VII Photo Agency at the conclusion of my two-year tenure in the VII Mentor Program from 2012-2014 working with Ron Haviv, I am now signed as a Corbis contributor. Corbis Images will license my archive internationally for the next two and a half years. From 2008-2011, I was represented by Polaris Images.

*InstArchive* on Instagram

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I’m trying something new because I’m American and tradition is boring we are made to think/believe/made to think is make believe. Everyday on my Instagram (@amandarivkin) I am posting a new image from my archive that is paired with a bit of “on this day in world history”. It’s how I’m taking it to the streets, building the ol’ personal brand, sharing my love of history, and finding meaning in my own work. It’s only a few days old but already we’ve been to Davenport, Iowa; Baku, Azerbaijan; Reyhanli, Turkey and today Spotsylvania, Virginia. Czech it out! MAY 9: On May 9, 2012, Obama announced his support for gay marriage in a television interview with Robin Roberts. In this image from my archive, witness Connie Fuller, 39, takes a picture of Rock Island, Illinois couple (l-r) Curtis Harris, 50, and Daren Adkisson, 39, after they picked up their marriage license first thing in the morning at the Scott County Recorder’s Office the first day same sex weddings are legal across Iowa in Davenport, Iowa on …

Best of 2013: My Year in Pictures

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This was my first full year based in Istanbul, Turkey, a city I have long dreamed of calling home since I was a student of Ottoman history in college. While my Turkish could still stand to see some improvement, I have begun to get a foothold in a complex region and see many of the corners of Eastern Europe I previously had not. In February, my work photographing the Khazar Islands, a $100 billion fantasy real estate project of Azerbaijani oligarch Ibrahim Ibrahimov, appeared in The New York Times Magazine. Later in the year, it would be republished again in Mare magazine in Germany. While shot in the summer of 2012, I have chosen to start the year in pictures with some of my favorite images from this shoot, due to my desire to continue photographing the Khazar Islands and the initial publication of this work in the early part of this year. In January, I took a road trip through the American deep south to explore “post-racial America” and the tensions that exist beneath …