New York Street Photography by Phil Penman
New York Street Photography by Phil Penman

Tuesday 17 January 2023

 This was a shared evening with Old Coulsdon with over 70 people present.

Phil led us through his life as a photographer and he began his presentation by talking about his birth in England, in Dorset and his education at Berkshire College of Art and Design before he moved on to his first photographic job with the Wokingham Times.

 He wanted to work and live in New York and on a stakeout in England he got an introduction to a celebrity news agency Splash News was offered a job and moved to Los Angeles. As a celebrity photographer he was lucky enough to shoot people like Bill Gates, Jennifer Lopez and Christopher Reeve while he was also covering news stories. His news pictures were published in English papers like the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph and in Paris Match.

 Then suddenly on September 11 he was asked to go immediately to the Trade Centre. The aeroplane terrorist attack. His first thought was to find a vantage point, not close to the towers because he was to take photos of the height of the towers. Phil's description of his photography of this outrage was quietly dramatic. The rumble as the towers came down, being grabbed by a policeman and told to sprint, the black sky and utter weirdness of the scene. Should he take pictures of distressed people without asking? Yes, that's why he was there. He ran for shelter into a music shop while outside was a parallel universe with paper 'raining' from the sky with people walking towards him out of a cloud of dust.

 In 2015 he donated all his work from the event to the 9/11 museum.

 Phil went on to give us a view of his work that followed, more celebrity photography plus full length street pictures making sure that you are not looking down onto the subject. Then a show of his work during the Covid pandemic showing what life was really like on the streets of NY and telling some of the stories of the people who are homeless.

In fact, he said, that Covid lockdown period was his busiest ever!

 He summed up by running through his life from Dorset through celebrity photography, selling prints and publishing his first book, doing what he wanted to do!

 An entertaining and instructive evening. Lots of excellent information from the question time.

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Special PresentationMaurice Youngshared event, zoom, street photography, mononchrome, new york
Storytelling for Photographers by JP Stones
Storytelling for Photographers by JP Stones

Yesterday evening's presentation by JP from his home in Mexico, where he has lived for about the last ten years, was shared with Sheffield Camera Club so more than 60 people tuned in to a very interesting presentation.

 JP explained that he worked with the Mexica people whose roots are in the prehispanic periods of meso America. He showed a picture of Linda, one of his models, in a costume relevant to the myths of her culture and he made the point that she had produced the costume herself and how expensive it was, but all the details mattered to be sure that the costume was factually correct for the myth.

He said that when he first started full time photography he only wanted to take pretty photos, but he found that his interest in making narrative photos resulted in a different kind of picture and he was surprised to find that his photographs were copied on to tattoos and murals! He even gave permission to have one of his images used as a Hells Angels logo!

This change of direction from pretty pictures to storytelling photos had produced a much greater reaction to his work. It was clear to him that the story comes first, and the photo follows. As an example of narrative pictures JP used the early Christian church of western Europe. The first followers of the Christian faith could neither read nor write so to give them an understanding of the legends and stories the interior of churches and the stained glass of the windows were covered with pictures showing the religious messages and histories - iconography.

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Zoom, Special PresentationMaurice Youngculture, portraiture, storytelling, mexico