Amanda Boe

Amanda Boe (b. 1978) is a photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. She currently works as a photo editor at The New York Times.

Boe is a 2017 recipient of the Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship. She has exhibited her work in two-person exhibitions at the SFMOMA Artists Gallery and Rayko Photo Center, as well as in group exhibitions across the United States, including San Francisco Camerawork, SFO Museum, Southern Exposure, and Project Basho. Her photographs have been published in Begin Anywhere: Paths of Mentorship and Collaboration (2017) and Der Greif – A Process (2014), along with several print and online features.

She received a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from the University of Minnesota in 2001 and a Master of Fine Arts in photography from the Academy of Art University in 2011.

Silver Lining

I watched my younger cousins grow up in a suburban neighborhood overlooking the bay in Vallejo, California. There is something idyllic about this place: pastel houses in neat rows, a perpetually lush landscape, the daily ebb and flow of fog and sun, and the quiet—a welcome respite for those escaping the city, as I often did.

The city of Vallejo filed for bankruptcy in 2008, as the foreclosure crisis hit the region hard. Around this time, I began to photograph my cousins, their friends, and others I met along the way. The local neighborhoods of Vallejo and its sister city, Benicia, serve as the backdrop for these portraits—a social landscape shaped by conformity, economic status, and disparity.

We connected through making portraits together over the years, and in that process I witnessed a collective coming of age as identities were being explored and revealed. I wonder whether this generation will stay or leave the area. To me, they represent a sense of hope at a time when the future feels quite uncertain.

To view more of Amanda Boe’s work please visit her website.