All posts tagged: chicago mayor race

June Newsletter: National Geographic publishes BTC pipeline / Fulbright to Azerbaijan

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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 …

The Full Emanuel: Running with Rahmbo, Best Pictures from the Last Few Days of Campaign Coverage

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Rahm Emanuel is running for mayor of Chicago. Since 1989, change around the world inaugurated the Daley regime in Chicago, as in Richard M. For the past 21 years, Chicago had a mayor for life – until of course Daley announced this past fall that he did not plan to seek reelection. Before Richard M. Daley, there was his father, Richard J. Daley, also known as “the old man,” who controlled the city in much the similar fashion as the son has for 21 years, until his death which ushered in an interregnum until Chicago settled for his son less than two decades later. But the floodgates have now opened up; politicians once retired emerged, congressmen threw their hats in, the White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel resigned to come home and run, and then his tenant refused to surrender the house and threw his hat into the ring too. Then Rahm’s residency was challenged presenting a problem because Illinois state law says one must have resided in the state for the year prior …

Rahm Emanuel Residency Hearing

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If there is any photojournalistic exercise in the gymnastics of Chicago politics (or any assignment for that matter), it is finding that angle, that moment, or that scoop no one else has. My biggest coup to this end on the Chicago politics beat was when The New York Times helped secure exclusive access to former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich during his impeachment proceedings on January 29, 2009. But the show must go on. Rahm Emanuel raises his right hand before testifying at his residency hearing concerning his eligibility to run for mayor of Chicago in a basement Chicago Board of Elections conference room in Chicago, Ill. on December 14, 2010. And for some highlights from the day, courtesy of my old high school friend Eric Johnson, now a stringer for Reuters here in Chicago: Shown photographs of his North Side home largely emptied of furniture, Emanuel identified various rooms and then jabbed at his interlocutor when asked to identify the kitchen. “Very good Mr. Odelson. You pass U.S. history for $200,” Emanuel joked. […] Outgoing …

Newsletter: [Subject Line Should Read] Verve Photo / Holiday Print Sale / CHICAGO!

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Newsletter went out today, sadly, sigh, with a mistaken subject line that ought have read “Verve Photo / Holiday Print Sale / CHICAGO!” Hopefully the fact that it accidentally went out with the last newsletter subject line will not deter folks because this has some new images from Azerbaijan and Rahm Emanuel on the campaign trail for Chicago mayor that have not been seen before: First off, happy holidays to one and all! Some recent news, updates and events… VERVE PHOTO Today on Verve Photo, Geoffrey Hiller’s popular photo industry blog, one of my images from my work following the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline route last summer is featured: From the story behind the image: “The group of people who took me to this beach were Bakuvian urban elites, a banker, a PhD student in Germany, among others who had professional jobs that ensured that when they went to the beach it was more private, less polluted and in turn more expensive. It was a strange site, the two groups representing the two Azerbaijans. The fact …

Tonight in Chicago: The Daley Show

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My friend Ray Noland of Creative Rescue Organization sent over some interesting info yesterday on a show tonight in Chicago that he has work in inspired entirely by the life and times of Mayor Richard M. Daley, the man we all thought would be the city’s second mayor for life until he announced his decision not to run for reelection a short while ago. Ray is also the brains behind the “Run, Blago, Run!” exhibit featuring art inspired by the former Illinois governor which included my photograph of Blagojevich during his final day in office, taken on assignment for The New York Times. In the spirit of the spectaculars of the mayor election underway in this city (the fraudulent petitions, the sideshow involving Rahm Emanuel’s residency in the city as a threat to his candidacy), this too promises to be one: The Daley Show As in Richard M., not Stewart, Jon. This exhibition, a coproduction with Johalla Projects at Chicago Urban Art Society, fills some 3,800 square feet of gallery space with portraits and other …