info: bio

amanda rivkin, photographer

Amanda Rivkin, 26, is a photojournalist whose work has appeared in Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Newsweek and others.

In 2007, Amanda began her journalism career with limited photographic training as a print intern with The Associated Press in Madrid, before photographing for The Associated Press and BBC Focus on Africa Magazine in Ethiopia during the Coptic Millennium. In 2008 Amanda relocated to her hometown, Chicago. There she photographed for publications including The New York Times, where she was a regular contributor for one year, in addition to work for Agence France Presse, Courrier Japon, The Financial Times, Le Monde, Newsweek and others.

From Chicago, Amanda covered Barack Obama’s election night victory, transition to the presidency and historic inauguration in Washington, D.C., the corruption scandal surrounding Rod Blagojevich and his final day in the Illinois governor’s office when she was the sole photographer to shadow him for The New York Times - work that was recognized by The Year in Pictures in both The New York Times and Newsweek in late 2009. From Chicago, she also covered local and national politics, the financial crisis, education and public housing-related issues, completing a personal project on a group of aging communists that had taken up residence in the once notorious Cabrini Green housing project on the city's north side.

In this time, Amanda also covered stories internationally with a focus on social and political tensions and societies in transition. She is a recent recipient of a Young Explorers Grant from the National Geographic Society to photograph the transformations along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline route, the "contract of the century," since oil started flowing five years ago. She also recently completed a six-week odyssey across Slovakia for the English-language weekly, The Slovak Spectator, supported by the prestigious national daily, Sme, photographing and reporting a travel guide magazine aimed at the diplomatic and business communities due to be published in the fall of 2010. In 2010, Amanda also photographed the myriad markets in Cuba's command economy and authored an article on Google's withdrawal from China, both for Foreign Policy. Her photographic work has been exhibited in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Spain and Syria.

Amanda speaks fluent English, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish and is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in New York. In mid-2009, she moved to Washington, DC for one year after being awarded a merit scholarship to study in the security studies program at Georgetown University; Amanda will move to New York City in the fall of 2010 to complete the degree and continue her work as a freelance photojournalist.