Artist Spotlight: Syndi Pilar

“I am an award winning New York City based street/ documentary photographer. I hold an MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts, and currently have a successful career as an Emmy award winning TV editor.

Photography took a back seat to my career for a while, until 2020. New York shutting down was just way too surreal for me NOT to photograph. I started shooting religiously and my passion for photography was re-ignited with vengeance. I loved photographing the ghost town that was my city, then the protests, then the celebrations and then people slowly getting back to normal life. Now, any free moment I can get, I go out and photograph.

Years of storytelling with the moving image has helped inform my still image work. Using strong visual composition, juxtaposition, light & mood, I enjoy capturing moments anywhere from the everyday street scene to intense situations such as protests and rallies. While I work primarily in black and white, I also enjoy dabbling in color every now and then.

My work has been included in several group shows over the past few years, most notably The ICPConcerned show here in NYC in 2020; The Women Street Photographers NYC exhibit in 2021 & 2023 as well as several international festival group shows.”

…

As a non-New Yorker, there’s only so much I can say about the city. I’ve been to Manhattan once for a wedding, and all the other reference points I have are from cultural products. Once I exit the fuselage of a plane into Newark, or LaGuardia, or JFK, those reference points manifest into a constellation of freckles that spell the word “tourist” on my forehead. I accept that label with as much dignity as I can fit into a bag of airline peanuts.

All I will say is this: To be born in, or even to relocate somewhere like a New York City must mean constantly recalibrating your perspective to art, identity, and the human condition. There’s no “trying things out” then heading for the exits before the city can make you think differently. Before you can even react, the epicenter of the western world gets under your skin and starts spreadin’ the news, even if you’re leaving today. Even if you live there and have grown to despise it, which would be unfortunate, there has to be an internal understanding that you are swimming through a whirlpool of cultural metastasis. Stuff happens in NYC, with or without you.

I wanted to feature Syndi’s work because she’s so clearly there. In the city. Out and about. In the crowds. She’s close enough to see, intimate enough to understand, and articulate enough to share. Don’t get me wrong, her work is not just “enough”; I believe you could drop her anywhere and she’d produce work filled with thought and tenderness and personality. Nevertheless, subject matter matters, and Syndi’s wrestled the city’s churning panoply into her lens with strategy and grace.

Syndi provided responses to the questions below. Enjoy.

-Sodfotog

How are you feeling today?

Where are you from?

What is your favorite color?

What do you do (or where do you go) to relax?

What scares you?

What does the future hold?

What matters the most?

Provide some bad advice.

Thank you for your time.

Follow Syndi on Instagram (@syndipix) or at syndipilarphotography.com

Please consider subscribing for free to receive new content weekly. If you like what this is about, you can support this newsletter through Patreon ($3/mo) or through the print store.

The print store password is “mereautonomymotif” (mere-autonomy-motif). Everything between the quotes. No capitals. No spaces.