Plachy is a staff photographer for the Village voice where her regular photographic column titled "Unguided tour" has delighted readers with poignant and startling images since 1982. This collection of 130 duotone photographs ranges from the photographer's native Hungary to her present home in Queens, stopping off in Nicaragua, a Marine boot camp on Parris island, and Manhattan, where she has photographed visiting celebrities, and anonymous street scenes. Accompanied by a flexible record of music by Tom Waits. 10x11". Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Sylvia Plachy's Unguided Tour: An Aperture Book

Arts & Photography

Plachy, Sylvia

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Aperture

Sylvia Plachy's photographs have freshness and spontaneity, ocnveying drama one moment and prompting laughter the next. Now available in paperback, this first published collection of her images invites a wider audience to join her Unguided Tour of people and places. Winner of the International Center of Photography Best Book of the Year. 120 duotone photographs.

Sylvia Plachy's Unguided Tour

Waits, Tom

Minneapolis Institute Of Arts

Cornerhouse (Gallery : Manchester, England)

Photography & Video

A CDS Book 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers, Volume 2 showcases 25 more of America’s most promising photographers, 25 years old and younger. Illuminating and sometimes startling, the collection presents work by an emerging generation of photographers at the start of their careers. The first book in the series, published in 2003 by powerHouse Books and CDS Books, was selected as a Best Book of 2003 by Photo District News. This new volume of 25 Under 25 features photographs selected by renowned photographer Sylvia Plachy that explore the theme of “transitions”: what it means to be in-between, in flux, at odds, in a new state of being—personally, locally, nationally, or internationally. The photographers, who must have been born on or after April 28, 1980, were drawn from a widely publicized, nationwide competition run by CDS. 25 Under 25 presents a wide array of photographs reflecting the world as seen through young but sophisticated eyes—the devastation from Hurricane Katrina; the battle-weary soldiers and civilian casualties of the Iraq War; explicit explorations of sexuality; urban and suburban landscapes. These images, whether of people or of what people leave behind, show us that the human imprint is everywhere, moving, altering, desiring, aspiring to permanence. “What we search for is a secret, like the pearl in the ocean, not easily found or given up. We are curious, driven, sometimes outgoing, sometimes introverted; much of who we are is visible in our pictures,” Sylvia Plachy writes in her introduction. “Too often, in the service of politics and commerce, photographs are inadequate or false. But here, we project ourselves into these images filled with insight and compassion and enter their collective memory as a continuation in the history of photography. All of these photographers, each in their own perceptive way, surprise us with their finds.”

25 Under 25: Up And Coming American Photographers, Vol 2

powerHouse Books

Signs &amp; Relics is an exploration of the world from a photographer's point of view -- in this case, noted Village Voice photographer Sylvia Plachy. Her engaging images -- some light and humorous, some somber -- show particular people and places at precise moments of synchronicity. Plachy draws telling metaphors from the photographs, which are grouped into nineteen thematic sections. "Sit," for example, shows images ranging from a wood chair in a Parisian window to a woman perched in a tree to Barbie atop a pair of high-heeled legs. Fragments of dreams and memories coexist with images from the streets of the world and photographs of people, from Plachy's family to viewers at an art exhibition. The text suggests the ties that draw the views together and simultaneously offers insights into the photographer's personal philosophy. The various sections form a mosaic in which the pieces refer to each other and to the notion that the present is rooted in the past and that any view of the world -- photographic or theoretical -- is part of an unseen ensemble.

Signs and Relics

Individual Artists

The Monacelli Press

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Books by Plachy, Sylvia