All posts tagged: oil

Aerial Photographs

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The question of aerial photography came up in a meeting today, so I went looking through my archives for a few samples. They are a few years old but from such interesting and/or beautiful places, I felt like sharing them here. Post-script, February 5: Coincidentally, yesterday was all about helicopters. Who hasn’t misremembered that time they flew in a helicopter that wasn’t hit by an RPG? I certainly don’t misremember anything of the sort happening in any of these helicopter journeys. I did refuse a helicopter elsewhere in Slovakia though due to wind conditions and the fact that I detected the smell of slivovitz on the pilot. No picture is worth a life and no lie is worth a lifetime of credibility-building within your field and among the greater public.

EurasiaNet: Azerbaijan – Baku is Bulldozing its Past

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My images of demolitions and reconstruction in Baku illustrated a story by Ulviyya Asadzade and Khadija Ismayilova entitled, “Azerbaijan: Baku is Bulldozing its Past,” for EurasiaNet (April 27, 2012). I quite like the lede because it lends a universalism to this issue of the march of progress or so-called urban renewal confronting historic buildings and architecture in urban centers worldwide, notably so in modern cities and rapidly developing ones: Does urban renewal signify progress? That question has dogged city planners worldwide for decades. And nowhere is the matter more pertinent these days than in Baku, the Caspian seaside capital of Azerbaijan. Thanks to a massive cash infusion generated by energy exports, Baku has experienced a building boom over the past decade. Amid the makeover, scores of buildings with distinctive architectural attributes, some of them registered with UNESCO as having historical value, have fallen victim to the wrecking ball. My images for EurasiaNet as published in their online photo gallery:

Emphas.Is Crowdfunding Goal Met!

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Late Monday night Baku time, my Emphas.Is crowdfunding goal to raise $4,250 online to return to the BTC Pipeline route was met! I have enough funds to travel this winter to places and meet people whose lives have been effected by the 1,100 mile transnational oil pipeline route in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. A great many thanks to all 82 supporters who to date have leant their support to this project! Any additional funds raised now will go to expand the project to include the conflict zones that have helped determine the current pipelines geography and additional costs incurred as a result of this important study on the post-Soviet, post-Cold War reality of international energy commerce. To support the project, please visit my Emphas.Is “BTC Pipeline” project page. Thank you!

Young Explorers’ Grant Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline Photo Essay Published On National Geographic Website

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Pictures: At Five Years Old, BTC Pipeline Moves Oil, Culture National Geographic June 10, 2011 A New World Unveiled Photograph by Amanda Rivkin The landlocked Asian nation of Azerbaijan forged a powerful connection to the West five years ago with the first delivery of oil through one of the most ambitious energy projects of a generation—a $4.2 billion, 1,100-mile (1,800-kilometer) pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean coast. When the deal was originally struck in 1994 for the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline, the late Azerbaijan President Heydar Aliyev called it “the Contract of the Century”—the first time a former Soviet state had signed a deal for its oil to reach international markets without going through Russia. It was also hailed as a major policy success for the United States, which had engaged in years of intensive diplomacy to build an avenue for Caspian oil wealth that did not rely on Moscow. (Related: BP’s map of the pipeline route) The BTC has the capacity to deliver 1.2 million barrels of oil per day to the Turkish port of Ceyhan …

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 …

Shown Trial: Emin Milli and the Future of Azerbaijan

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Shown Trial Fortnight Journal November 26, 2010 What happens to the Vaclav Havels of the world when their velvet becomes bloody? Azerbaijan, after its 2005 push for openness and reform in government, found itself somewhere among Budapest in 1956, Prague in 1968 and Poland in 1981. A human tragedy began; replete with obligatory (in the post-Soviet world) sideshows, show trials, political arrests and imprisonments of intellectuals—followed by their occasional, conditional release. When I met Emin Milli, one such Azeri prisoner of conscience, he was on leave from prison in Azerbaijan this summer for one week to attend his father’s funeral and mourn his passing. He sat with his wife, Leyla, and mother, Natella, in a cousin’s home, surrounded by friends and family in the village of Boyuk Oyrad, in his native Neftcala region of Azerbaijan. Leyla would later remark to Radio Free Europe how unfortunate it was that “someone had to die, so that we may talk.” Among such circles of dissent, history has provided for the emergence of several archetypes. Some dissenters are reluctant …

New Promo Card

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My new promotional postcard featuring a photograph taken in Baku, Azerbaijan in July 2010 just arrived. Funding for this work was provided by the National Geographic Society’s Young Explorers Grant for a project entitled “Exploring the Evolving Oil Economy: Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan.” I am currently applying for further funding to continue work on this project.