Sylvia Plachy: Goings On About Town: Photographs for The New Yorker

by Mark Singer (Foreword), Elisabeth Biondi (Afterword), Sylvia Plachy (Photographer)

Sylvia Plachy was the first photographer ever to be assigned to shoot the opening picture of the essential Goings On About Town section of The New Yorker . She did so for more than a year, in conjunction with the legendary magazine's front section redesign of 2005. From the Mermaid Parade on Coney Island to Forest Park in Queens, from backstage to center stage, in Goings On About Town , Plachy explores the city's dynamics from the inside out, revealing the vital, and, at times, wacky creativity that energizes New York City around the clock. In so doing, she presents hidden gems that most of us never have a chance to see up close--like Macy's New Jersey workshop for the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. Plachy's humor and way of looking is particularly suited to such offbeat assignments. Almost entirely in color, this volume also includes some images that have never been published before. Joyful and idiosyncratic, Goings On About Town is quintessentially Plachy, and quintessentially New York.

Genres: Photography

Hardcover

First published October 1, 2007

About the author

Mark Singer is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional and the author of "The Changing Landscape of Retirement—What You Don’t Know Could Hurt You". He has been The Retirement Guide to thousands of investors for close to 25 years and is the creator of the Retirement Roadmap and the Financial Organizer System, both of which contribute to a solution to investors’ greatest concerns—properly coordinating their financial affairs. These systems have become a primary resource for the people who have worked with Mark over the years.

Mark is a frequent speaker at events in and around Boston, teaches for the non-profit Heartland Institute as a Certified Financial Educator (CFEd®), and is the founder of the Greater Boston Corporate Wellness Forum. He was the host of television’s long running program “Your Money Matters,” as well as hosting “Retirement Corner” on WBOQ 104.9 FM and “Retirement Strategies” on WESX 1230 AM radio. Mark also hosted “Your Financial Future” on Blogtalk Radio through the Diva Toolbox, where he shared his specific expertise in working with women on financial matters.

Mark is a former columnist for the Money section of The Lynn Daily Item, a Boston area newspaper, and is a frequent contributor to various newspapers and other periodicals. He has shared his expertise nationally in interviews and appearances with The Wall Street Journal, ABCNews.com, FoxNews.com, and Bloomberg Radio, as well as locally on NECN and WRKO.

Mark is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Certified Financial Planning and of the International Society of Retirement Planning.

Find Mark on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/YourRetirementJourney and LinkedIn at: www.linkedin.com/in/marksinger1

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally figured out why I have really gotten into photography books as of late; I miss just walking around and seeing people! The photos in this book are both intimate and removed - Sylvia Plachy has a real talent for capturing the transitory nature of our collective interpersonal experiences even as they pass into memory.

[Digi M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her work is less about capturing that decisive moment and more about emotion and an inside view into something that you may have missed.

It’s almost as if she just wandered off the normal path with her camera, but somehow captures something unique. I believe the value in her work is that perhaps anyone could take these photos, but nobody did, except her, because she is both curious and ready.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of photographs, with a foreword by Mark Singer and an afterword by Elisabeth Biondi, consists of eighty pictures that were taken while Plachy was the photographer for The New Yorker's "Goings On About Town" section, plus one that wasn't. The pictures are a mix of color and black & white, and are mostly from 2005 and 2006 (the book came out in 2007). As Singer notes in the foreword, nearly all the pictures contain at least one living creature, though some of my favorites are ones that don't. I love "A table at the filming of Julie Taymor's Across the Universe," which is a black and white image that reminds me of the work of Plachy's friend and mentor André Kertész , in the elegance of its shading and line and composition: it's a picture of a salt shaker and a pepper shaker, a creamer, and bowl of sugar on a table, with a painted wall as backdrop, and it's entirely lovely, much more graceful that that description of it might make you think. Another person-less picture I love is "Macy's warehouse, before the Thanksgiving Day Parade," in which there are four models hanging from the ceiling: a painted model of Kermit the Frog in vivid green, his arm raised in a wave, another model that's identical but unpainted, and two more unpainted models of other characters: it's wry and charming, a great behind-the-scenes moment. Elsewhere, Plachy captures people in the act of making art: there's a great photo of two people working on "Sol LeWitt's rooftop installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art." I love the bright waves of the LeWitt piece, and the glimpse of its making: the blur of someone in motion on a ladder; another woman with a paintbrush or marker in her hand and a roll of masking tape around each wrist. When Plachy isn't taking behind-the-scenes pictures, she often captures the audience/viewers of some place or event: the photo of an auto show includes a pair of kids looking at an SUV; the picture of a tiger at the Bronx Zoo is also a picture of a pair of kids looking at the tiger. At the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden, Plachy photographs not so much the orchids as a girl posing in front of them, her tongue sticking out as a woman (her mother?) takes her picture. The pictures in this book I like best are, generally, formally interesting/satisfying: in "A wigmaker at the Metropolitan Opera," a woman in a pale pink cardigan sits at a table with wig forms and potted plants behind her, with the leaves of a plant and tendrils of a wig trailing into the frame from above: it's wonderful. In "A post-performance talk by dancers at Jacob's Pillow, Becket, Massachusetts," we see the dancers' feet and legs,mostly, as they sit in a line on a stage: we don't see their faces at all, or the audience; much of the frame is taken up by greenery in front of the stage.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice picture book of New York but don't agree with some of the methods used in her pictures. Most photographers would redo photos that were distorted or blurred in certain parts. Nice ideas though.