HÉCTOR TAPIA AGUILAR
CINEMATOGRAPHER
"Nítido": Héctor Tapia in conversation with Eunice Levis on the book portraying Dominican permanence in Philadelphia.
In a series of reels, the photographer and cinematographer shares the process behind his bilingual photographic essay as it enters its final stage of production.
PHILADELPHIA. In a conversation with filmmaker and immersive artist Eunice Levis, photographer and cinematographer Héctor Tapia spoke about Nítido: A Tribute to the Dominican Soul, the bilingual photobook he has spent the past year creating, which documents the presence of Philadelphia's Dominican community through portraits and testimony. The interview, released as a series of reels on Instagram, offers a direct look at the project's origins, its visual choices, and the people who give it shape.
Nítido was developed through the Los Fellows program of the Philadelphia Latino Arts & Film Festival (PHLAFF), directed by Marangeli Mejía-Rabell, in collaboration with PhillyCam. The book brings together the stories of journalists, entrepreneurs, artists, shop owners, and creators from the diaspora, among them journalist Jesenia De Moya Correa, accountant and entrepreneur Eliz O'Neill, playwright Erlina Ortiz, bodega owner Brunilda González, restaurateur Barinne "Baro" Jiménez, comedian Che Guerrero, and documentarian Eliu Cornielle. Each chapter follows a life from its roots on the island to its present in the city, closing with each subject's personal definition of the word nítido and a message to Philadelphia's Dominican community.
The book's visual language is built on black-and-white portraiture and on projections of culturally resonant imagery onto the subjects themselves and onto the surfaces of the city, such as a glowing colmado cast against the night sky beside the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. For Tapia, the gesture is intentional: Dominican lives are already embedded in Philadelphia's physical and economic infrastructure, and the projection simply makes visible what has been present for decades. "Nítido is not about nostalgia. It is about permanence," the author writes in his artist statement.
The conversation with Levis carries its own weight within the project. The creator of El Colmado del Futuro, the immersive installation presented at Cherry Street Pier, Levis recently shared the stage with Tapia for a public conversation centered on a question that runs through both works: what do we choose to preserve before it disappears?
Nítido is currently in post-production and preparing for its public launch. Tapia conceived, photographed, wrote, and designed the book himself, and is already planning future editions in Spanish and Portuguese, in both print and digital formats. Launch details will be announced soon on this site and across his social channels.