Sylvia Plachy (born 24 May 1943)[1] is a Hungarian-Americanphotographer. Plachy's work has been featured in many New York City magazines and newspapers and she "was an influential staff photographer for The Village Voice."[2]
Plachy's family moved to New York City in 1958, two years after the Hungarian revolution, after crossing into Austria for safety, hidden in a horse-drawn cart.[2] She started photographing in 1964 "with an emphasis of recording the visual character of the city along with its diverse occupants".[4]
Plachy studied photography at the Pratt Institute in New York City, receiving her B.F.A. in 1965.[5] There she met the photographer André Kertész, who became her lifelong friend.[6]
Plachy's first book, Sylvia Plachy's Unguided Tour, won the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography for best publication in 1991. Her book Self Portrait with Cows Going Home (2005), a personal history of Central Europe with photographs and text, received a Golden Light Award for best book in 2004.
Her other books are Red Light: Inside the Sex Industry with James Ridgeway (1996), Signs & Relics (2000), Out of the Corner of My Eye (2008) and Goings On About Town: Photographs for The New Yorker (2007). Plachy has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship (1977), a Lucie Award (2004),[7] and the Dr. Erich Salomon Award (2010). She has taught and lectured widely.