SPRINGTIME
BRINGS
Uncommon Companions
UNCOMMON COMPANIONS, A PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT, opened at the Frick Environmental Center in December, giving viewers an intimate glimpse into the realm of insects and arachnids through portrait photography by Jacquelyn Cynkar.
Jacquelyn Cynkar stands besides her portraits in the Uncommon Companions exhibit at the Frick Environmental Center.
Jacquelyn says it’s an honor to show her work at the Environmental Center, especially because many of her images were captured in Frick Park. She credits Susan Rademacher, Director of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservatory/Head Curator, and Reed Hoffmier, Frick Environmental Center Site Manager, and their team for their collaboration and support to bring her photos to the public. When Jacquelyn started photographing insects, she didn’t realize it would turn into a series. She took her first insect portrait in 2006 and has worked on this exhibit little by little over the past ten years or so. She found herself increasingly intrigued by the detail in these insects, that a person on an average walk might not notice. “I love capturing something you might not naturally see. As I’m refining my photography skills, from a technical standpoint, I’m also learning how to investigate insects in the park. It’s a place I can slow down. I’m not feeling as rushed or hurried like I might be when photographing people.”
This planthopper, photographed by Cynkar, eats sap/fluid from plants and trees, but doesn’t kill them (though it is plant-dependent).
Jacquelyn wasn’t always a photographer. After college, she worked at Carnegie Mellon in a lab researching cognitive brain imaging, but it was during her pregnancy with her second child in the early 2000s that she realized she needed to take up a new kind of work to be at home more often. In 2005, she went CONTINUED on page 17
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