Amanda Rivkin

portraits

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Democrat Barack Obama waves to his supporters in Grant Park, Chicago through bullet proof glass after winning the U.S. presidential election, defeating Republican John McCain, to become the 44th U.S. president on November 4, 2008. Obama gave his victory speech to a crowd of just over 200,000 supporters.
  
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. Beleaguered Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich prepares notes in his final act in the governor's office in Springfield before speaking in his own defense at his impeachment hearing at the state capitol in Springfield, Illinois on January 29, 2009. Blagojevich said he rarely sticks to his notes but uses them for support and back-up. (Credit: Amanda Rivkin for The New York Times)
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich leaves the Dirksen Federal Building with his wife Patti Blagojevich on June 27, 2011 after being found guilty of 17 counts of wire fraud, attempted extortion, bribery, extortion conspiracy and bribery conspiracy. He was acquitted on one charge of bribery, and the jury deadlocked on two counts of attempted extortion. (Credit: Amanda Rivkin for The New York Times)
     
  
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN. Young girls dress themselves appropriately for prayer upon entering the Shi'a Icherishahar Djuma Masjid or Innercity Mosque for Friday prayers in the old city on July 2, 2010. Viewed as "the wrong message" by the ruling regime of Ilham Aliyev, Islam has been shunned in favor of opulence and materialism for the elite and the imam of the Icherishahar Djuma Masjid was replaced after dalliances with the opposition in 2005, the time of the last major civil disturbances, and Iranian-style clericalism; the wider effect in Azeri society of the corruption that resulted from the second oil boom of the 1990s has left the society of the elite with great wealth but an absence of moral leadership, yet few have turned to Islam for answers.
   
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN. Emin Milli, a blogger and opposition activist heavily championed by the West who was imprisoned for 17 months on hooliganism charges following a video he made satirizing his country's leadership, remarries for the second time a painter Tora Agabekova following his divorce from a previous marriage earlier this year after being released from prison on November 12, 2011. To Emin's right is Adnan Hajizade, who served with him in jail and now serves as a witness at his wedding.
   
ISTANBUL, TURKEY. Mehmet Ali Agca sits in the lobby of the Eser Premium Hotel in the Buyukcekmece district on the outskirts of the European side of Istanbul on March 6, 2013. Ali Agca spent 30 years in jail in Italy for a 1981 attempt to kill Pope John Paul II, a plot allegedly supported by Bulgarian intelligence, although Agca now claims the Iranian leadership had a hand as well.
     
  
ERZURUM, TURKEY. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan departs a political rally in support of the September 12 referendum which would change the nature of the country's constitutional court to solidify the hold of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) under the pretext that it would prevent future military coups, in Turkey's conservative far northeast city of Erzurum, the first major city near the route of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in Turkey, located just 10 kilometers from the pipeline which traverses numerous villages near the city's airport, on August 13, 2010.
   
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN. (L-r) Ibrahim Ibrahimov, an Azerbaijani oligarch and billionaire, is seen with his assistant and protege, Shahin Talibov, Vice-President of Avesta Concern, at the edge of the Caspian Sea outside one of several of his homes in the Garadagh region just southwest of Baku, Azerbaijan on July 18, 2012. Ibrahimov is the developer behind the Khazar Islands artificial islands project; in his private life, he enjoys building a home for his family, moving in, and then quickly tires of the property before building a new home on an adjacent lot on his seaside lands. (Credit: Amanda Rivkin/VII Mentor Program for The New York Times Magazine)
   
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN. (Center) Ibrahim Ibrahimov, an Azerbaijani oligarch and billionaire, talks on his cell phone at the breakfast table while seated between his wife (at left) Valida Ibrahimli and son Huseyn, 18, in one of several houses on his Caspian seaside property he used to inhabit with his family in the Garadagh region just southwest of Baku, Azerbaijan on July 18, 2012. Ibrahimov is the developer behind the Khazar Islands artificial islands project; in his private life, he enjoys building a home for his family, moving in, and then quickly tires of the property before building a new home on an adjacent lot on his seaside lands. (Credit: Amanda Rivkin/VII Mentor Program for The New York Times Magazine)
     
  
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN. A young girl stand beside her mother and a friend at the grand opening celebration of Emporium's second store at the Port Baku luxury residences on October 28, 2011. Emporium's second store in Baku was designed by Japanese architect Yukio Ishiyama of the Milanese design firm Garde and features over 150 luxury ready-to-wear brands such as Azzedine Alaïa, Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney; Emporium is widely considered to offer the greatest variety of high-end designer shopping in Baku under one roof.
   
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA. Mary Kay saleswoman stands beside her Mary Kay white Chevrolet Malibu in the parking lot of the Cavalier Inn on June 4, 2012.
   
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Grant Newburger, 50, a supporter of Bob Avakian's Revolutionary Communist Party, in his apartment at 1230 N. Burling, a Cabrini Green high rise, on the corner of North Halsted and Division Streets on Chicago's Near North Side, December 18, 2007. Newburger has lived and worked as a community organizer at the once notorious and now partially demolished Cabrini Green since 1996, fighting the Chicago Housing Authority's "Plan for Transformation."
     
  
SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA. Henry Kissinger with the Texas delegation at the conclusion of the Republican National Convention at the XCel Center on day four, September 4, 2008.
  
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. Writer Aleksandar Hemon at the Metropolis Coffee Company in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago on May 7, 2009. (Credit: Amanda Rivkin for The New York Times)
   
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN. (Center) Gamar Tagili, 15, is quizzed on biology by her cousin Ayten (right) as her cousin Fatima (left) looks on in the Tagi family bedroom on August 18, 2012.
     
  
KOLONTAR, HUNGARY. Laszlo Retnager, 63, with his dog in the yard of his home on November 25, 2010 after visiting with volunteer psychologists from the organizations Helperek who have come to Kolontar in the aftermath of an industrial accident at the MAL plant in nearby Ajka, Hungary on October 4, 2010 that sent a torrent of toxic red alumina sludge gushing through a section of Kolontar and several surrounding villages, killing ten, injuring hundreds, and leaving several families homeless. While many locals were initially resistant to their assistance given a deep aversion to a profession many thought was just to assist crazy people, many locals have warmed to their presence and welcome their guidance in a difficult time.
   
ALAKHI SANGORI, GEORGIA. Mariam Aptsiauri and her husband Anzori Aptsiauri in their home on August 1, 2010. While the Aptsiauris have received nothing yet in compensation for having the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline traverse their farmlands, destroying the possibility for continued agricultural production there because of damage to the topsoil and live in poverty, their neighbor Gia Obgaidze is likely the largest recipient of compensation funds in Georgia, which he used to start a chicken farm in addition to remodeling his home; according to an attorney who formerly handled compensation issues with the Young Lawyers Association, Obgaidze likely received 187,000 Georgian lari or approximately $100,000.
   
OCONOMOWOC, WISCONSIN. Uncle Herm on Christmas Day 2010.
     
  
HOLLAND, MICHIGAN. Momka through a decorative crystal mobile at the Tulip Festival, May 2, 2009.