Sylvia Plachy was born in Budapest and lives in New York City. She has worked as an observer and photographer since receiving her BFA from Pratt Institute. Her weekly column in the Village Voice, Unguided Tour, 1990, which was a photo without a caption, evolved into her first book and won an ICP Infinity award. Her latest book, Self Portrait with Cows Going Home, a personal history of Eastern Europe with text and photographs, received a Golden Light Award in 2004. Sylvia’s recent books are: Red Light with writer James Ridgeway which explores the sex industry and Signs & Relics, originally a column in Metropolis magazine, Goings On About Town based on photographs featured in The New Yorker and Out of the Corner of My Eye, a catalog unveiled at Photo España in Madrid. She is exhibited around the world and has worked for magazines such as Grand Street, Granta, Art Forum, Fortune Magazine, Wired and The New Yorker among others. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a CAP’s recipient, has won the Page One Award from Columbia School of Journalism for a photo essay on Three Mile Island and recently received a Lucie, awarded by the WIPI, legacy photography in the Look3 festival in Charlottesville Virginia in 2009. In February 2010 she was given the prestigious Dr. Erich Salomon award for lifetime achievement in photojournalism. This is Sylvia’s third workshop in Maine.