The Nerdy Photographer Podcast 111 - Concrete Beat: Capturing the Essence of a City through Street Photography
In this episode of The Nerdy Photographer Podcast, we delve into the captivating world of street photography, where the pulse of a city beats through every frame. Join us as we explore the art of capturing the essence of a city—the rhythm of its streets, the diversity of its people, and the stories etched into its sidewalks and skylines.
Our guest, Phil Penman, shares his insights into the nuances of capturing the soul of a city. From bustling metropolises to sleepy neighborhoods, we discuss the magic of street photography as a means of documenting the ever-evolving tapestry of urban life. Phil also shares his tips and techniques for consistently finding interesting images to capture.
Street photography serves as a powerful lens through which to explore the complex layers of urban culture. By capturing fleeting moments of beauty, chaos, and humanity, photographers offer us a glimpse into the heart and soul of a city. From the iconic landmarks that define its skyline to the hidden alleyways that pulse with life, each image tells a story—a snapshot of the city's past, present, and future. Join us as we celebrate the art of street photography.
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The British-born, New York-based photographer Phil Penman has documented the ever-changing scene of New York City's streets for more than 25 years. In his career as a news and magazine photographer, with a large body of work in such publications as The Guardian, The Independent, The New York Review of Books, among others, he has photographed major public figures and historical events. In particular, his report-age following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center has been featured on NBC's Today show, as well as on the BBC, History Channel, and Al Jazeera, and his images have been included in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum's archives.
His work covering the pandemic lockdown in New York City has been acquired by the U.S. Library of Congress, whose collection holds work by such great Depression-era documentarians as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange.
Besides showing at Leica galleries in New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, and London, Penman's signature street photography has appeared in international exhibitions as far afield as Venice, Berlin, and Sydney.
He also tours the world teaching workshops on photography for Leica Akademie. He was recently named among the "52 Most Influential Street Photographers," alongside such legends as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, Diane Arbus, and Garry Winogrand.
Penman's book, "Street" , published in 2019, became a best-seller and was featured at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His most recent book " New York Street Diaries" launched as the number one selling Street Photography book worldwide on Amazon.
Website - https://philpenman.com
Instagram - https://instagram.com/philpenman
Street: Photographs on Amazon - https://amzn.to/3UgKJNO
New York Street Diaries on Amazon - https://amzn.to/3vP0F0i
What Did You Think About This Episode?Are you a street photographer or interested in becoming one? Let us know your thoughts at our contact page - https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact - or leave a comment / send a DM on social media. We would also love to hear your photography related questions or topics you might like to hear on an upcoming episode
About The PodcastThe Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com
Episode Transcript
Casey Fatchett 0:05 A little left. Nope, too far. Oh, hey there. Welcome to the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your host. Casey Fatchett, if you've never listened to the show before, welcome. You should be sure to subscribe. And if you've done that, you should leave a review. And if you've already done both of those things, you should tell a friend about the show. In addition to providing entertaining and informative photography related information, I also go on adventures with the crew of the starship Fibonacci. At the moment, I'm taking portraits of Gothamist prime, a sentient city. On a related note, in this episode of the podcast, I'm talking with street photographer Phil Penman about how the cities he photographs have a unique character all their own. We talk about the differences between certain cities around the world and techniques that have served him well over the years for capturing amazing photos consistently. All of that after the break.
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Phil Penman 3:28 Hey, Casey, how you doing? Thanks for having me on, man,
Casey Fatchett 3:29 you're very, very welcome. And we're going to start off before we get in deep into conversation with the dice breaker, which is just I roll a 20 sided die, and we get a topic of conversation to kind of get things going. It's a 12, all right, what's your dream dinner party? Who are you inviting? Anybody, dead or alive?
Phil Penman 3:53 You can invite anyone. Wow, wow. Dream dinner party. That's pretty good. My gran for one, I'd like to see her again. Musk, I think he'd be pretty fascinating,
Casey Fatchett 4:18 to be honest, to be in a conversation with him,
Phil Penman 4:22 yeah, like, just because I always, I always love, believe it or not, I love watching all the CEO podcasts, because we're lucky now that we have, like, all these podcasts, they go on for like, two, two and a half hours, like, you there was a Bezos one with Lex Friedman recently, like, two and a half hours. Like, when did you ever get that before to, like, you know, start to get inside the mind of these people,
Casey Fatchett 4:44 just to be like, to see what's really going on, as opposed to just newspaper articles back in the early 1900s when you just get, like, some newspaper thing about the Rockefellers or anybody like that, you don't really get the access. That you do.
Phil Penman 5:01 It's, it's pretty amazing the access we get. So I he would definitely be one. I would love to, like, here's, here's some of his sports, like, the stuff will, you know, Bezos, obviously, he'd be fascinating. The one that everyone always goes for all the time is Adolf. He's done, yeah, yeah. That's like number one. That's not, definitely not mine. Yeah, no, I'm interested by the business guys. I'm always, I always, you know, if you put me, like, in a room with, like, you know, Bezos diamond, or the all the current ones, I want to say, Yeah, I like, I always find it fascinating whenever you watch things with him talking about how he does business, and then people that I know work for the company and like, the polar opposite of what he wants,
Casey Fatchett 5:50 right? Yeah,
Phil Penman 5:52 doesn't add up. But yeah, I'd like to know right, where we're going, not kind of where we've been,
Casey Fatchett 5:59 yeah, I feel like where I understand what you're saying, like, kind of have a sense of which way the world is turning they what they're seeing, or, I don't know, yeah, I think that's what I'm blaming. Like, what their thoughts on things are, I don't know. Mine is there are creative minded people that I would love to just sit down and have a conversation with. I mean, I think Bourdain would be
Phil Penman 6:28 oh good
Casey Fatchett 6:29 or Frank Zappa was really super smart and way ahead of his time.
Phil Penman 6:38 Yeah,
Casey Fatchett 6:38 trying to think of who else there's creatively. I mean, I almost ran into him once when I was photographing a gig. David Lynch. Yeah, he'd be so like, David Lynch. David Byrne, John Waters, like those just to, like, sit and, like, listen to them talk about something just that sort of the the insight into their process, that's that sort of thing fascinates me, whereas, like Bourdain, we just talk about food and have a beer, and that'd be a lot of fun.
Phil Penman 7:18 I got, I got to meet a lot of them because of my old job and working on Celebrity so I actually got to hang with quite a lot of them. And my wife's also, she's in the entertainment business as well. And hers was, she's she's interviewed everyone at this point. Hers was David Bowie. She's funny, funniest guy she's ever met in her life. She said
Casey Fatchett 7:41 I had a friend who met him regularly through his job, and just said he was a the nicest guy, but also just super, super funny that he's definitely on my list as well. Yeah, I've had the I've done a lot of like, celebrity events and things where, like, you don't necessarily get to hang out with people, but like, you're around them, and you kind of see how they are. And it's, it's interesting. I always try to come up with a really random, deep cut reference if I actually, actually have to talk to somebody like, Oh, we're gonna pose everybody together for a photo, or something like that, I always try to, like, get something that's like, so, I don't know, people don't really think about, like, I had Salman Rushdie at an event, and like, there are all these VIPs that we're gonna get a picture with them. And I was like, Oh, Mr. Rushdie, I loved you in Seinfeld, yeah, he started cracking up. And everybody else is like, what's going on? He's like, Oh, that's my best word.
Phil Penman 8:48 I I always say, pretend like you like each other.
Casey Fatchett 8:51 Yes, that's, that's when I use a lot to the
Phil Penman 8:56 that always works, the
Casey Fatchett 8:59 just, I think also it's nice when you just like running. Run in New York you run into people on the streets. Because people don't, if you've never lived in New York City, you don't realize how small of a town it is. Sometimes you'll, like, run into people and, like, just funny, all right, speaking of running into people on the streets, street photography like what, you know, what was your impetus to get into street photography?
Phil Penman 9:31 Well, I've been in the business a long, long time, 30 years now for me, and it's always been working as well. So I, mean, I started very early, 15, and then I was freelancing for the agencies, probably about 1819, years old. That's a girl. So when? Yeah, so, so as a freelancer, and you're it's high pressure as well, because if you screw up, they're not going to call you again. Yep. So. Around, I started breaking down. I went into through the celebrity route as well, like I was doing celebrity portraiture and paparazzi work and everything. That was what brought me over to the states. And then I started a break, probably around 2005 and figured out where I better figure out some kind of solution to this, because otherwise, I'm really this is not going to be a good path, especially if you have a photography background as well. Yeah, so I picked up, you know, a camera that I always wanted, which was a liker I got managed to actually was making money. That's the nice thing. People forget about living over here. You can actually make money over here. When I left the you, when I left the UK, I was making 13 and a half 1000 pounds a year, and all of a sudden you're making like, 10 times that in your first year. So I was able to buy a Leica and put it in my bag. And that's that was my carry around camera in the day to kind of take me away from the celebrity stuff that I was doing, and just started building up a body of work. And 2015 was the moment I finally broke, like complete mental breakdown. Could not stand being out on the street anymore, and decided, right, I'm just going to go full hog with the sheet stuff and try to make a name for myself doing that. Here we are.
Casey Fatchett 11:26 Here we are. It was a book and everything coming out. So to me, your style, in my humble opinion, is very recognizable. I'm scrolling through photos on Instagram or anything like, I know, even when it's somebody else posting one of your photos, which I had seen, like, for some reason, somewhere recently, I was like, oh, that's Phil's photo. Like, no, just there's something like, super recognizable. How did you develop your style for street photography, and were there any specific influences that like shaped your thoughts about how you were going to characterize.
Phil Penman 12:06 It's the hardest thing, right? I think, to develop a style that you have yet. I always say whenever I'm working with anyone, like teaching anybody like the first thing is like, right? Well, most importantly, I'm not here to influence what you take pictures of business, then you just become a clone of somebody else. And I think photographers, more so than artists, have a horrible I don't know what it is, but they just seem to copy a lot. It's you don't see it as much. I was just chatting with my wife about it, and we were trying to we, we both can't get it like your whole thing is you need to stand out from everyone else. So if you all you're doing is copying somebody else, like you can be influenced by somebody else's work, but you're not going to just straight up copy. So for me, because I was doing the celebrity stuff, and I had a job, and I was making a living doing that, I was able to just create what made me happy and I didn't care, right? Which is, it takes a it takes away a lot of the pressure. And I think because social media wasn't a big thing when I was coming up like it didn't exist, right? It, you know, the the way that we all, everyone measured themselves was, or how much money did you make this month? That was how photographers measured themselves against each other. So, because we didn't have the social media, and now people are more interested in how many likes, how many followers can I get? I get it if you're trying to make a living, because that stuff, that stuff matters, like if you want to get brand endorsements, maybe, I think the scary thing is, when you ask people what they want to be, the majority of people say they want to become an influence, or whatever that means, right? But that it's whether we like it or not, that is the way people are swayed. So if they say, Well, hang on, I want to be, I want to be an influencer what is popular, they will just start copying each other and copying each other style, because they think that's what
Casey Fatchett 14:13 people want, but that's what people react to.
Phil Penman 14:16 But it's so short term, like I can, I can look at the way that social media algorithms work, right? You're never going to win that, you know, because you're not, you're not dealing with a person, you're dealing with a computer. It's better if you understand. You can't take any of it personally, which is very hard, because you have to realize it has nothing to do with your work or your content. Yeah, it's like nothing.
Casey Fatchett 14:45 It's, it's like, I see people going, Oh, this is how you, like, beat the algorithm or whatever. And I was like, it's always some trick. It'll change in a week. And there are certain things like, we can see like that are just like it. Engagement, you know, like tricks to try to get people like, misspelling like words. It's so that people will be like, You spelled whatever wrong, and I'm just like, so they falsely get engagement.
Phil Penman 15:13 I do. I do that because I'm dyslexic.
Casey Fatchett 15:17 No, there are people who do it just like, on purpose. We'll just do it like, like in YouTube titles, like the titling their YouTube video with a misspelled word, so that they'll get people commenting on it, saying you didn't spell this correctly, just to, like, get that engagement, to try to, like, get more eyes on their stuff. And I'm like, come on. It's just I can see through that. Like, I can see through like, anybody with any like, sort of critical thinking. You can see through that sort of stuff. But you know, whatever I think that you you were talking about, like copying people I heard a long time ago, somebody else is like, you can imitate, you can emulate, or you can innovate. And I think that right now there's just a lot of imitation, because it's a lot of people who are untrained anyway, and they're just like, oh, what does this person do you see in, like, online photography forums where they're like, how do I take a picture like this? How do I how do I make this picture like in, be like, in somebody like, throw out some camera settings. And you're just like, What do you
Phil Penman 16:18 Oh, yeah, that's always my favorite. That's always my favorite, it's, I try to figure it out, because it's so foreign from where we began. And, you know, we me and my buddy, we were doing a liker Academy. Charlie works for like UK, and we were, there's a Elliot Irwin exhibition that's currently going on in Mayfair, and we had the class of people in the room, and we would, you know, you get all these people that are obsessed with critical sharpness and edge to edge and the lenses and all this. And I said, Well, hey, look around the room. 15 of these images are out of focus, and five of them are setups. Now, I've just debunked all your theories in one exhibition, and they looked around and like, holy shit, yeah. I'm like, yeah, it's got nothing to do with critical sharpness. Is like, do you look at it? Do you feel something from it? Right? If you don't, then it hasn't done the job. It hasn't the photographer hasn't been able to convey in the picture what they wanted to you.
Casey Fatchett 17:19 Yeah, I always tell people that emotional weight always counters technical perfection. Yeah, if you're not getting like, I will deliver images to my clients for certain types of jobs that are like, slightly out of focus. And that's become a big thing in the last couple years was out of focus photos, like, see that people doing it with no intention, like, I'm just going to take this, you know, it's going to be totally out of focus. Like, you're not getting the point of why the picture is out of focus. It's, you know, there's a reason for it's out of focus. Or, like, somebody did this was intention, or this moment was just happening, and there was not time to focus in, like, really sharply on it, like there was, like, there's, there's a lot of things going on. It's not just, I went out here and made sure that my subject didn't actually, wasn't actually in focus. That's not the reason, yeah, it's there's, there's a lot of things that go into it. And I think that there's a lot in a lot of people who are trying to be influential photographers, who don't see the intention behind why like these. Some of these great photos aren't in sharp focus, whatever like, there's just even when they like, admit to like, it doesn't have to be like, perfectly sharp. They don't necessarily see why you have to.
Phil Penman 18:48 Well, not everyone can be one, though, right? Like we it's, you know, I don't, I don't pretend to understand tax law or being a lawyer, a copyright lawyer, or even a painter. So why would it be any different with photography? Yeah, like, you can't you, like, okay, you can understand a camera. You can understand the technical part of a camera, but you might not have had a hard upbringing. You might not have a certain perspective on life, like all the cameras capturing is what you've done, your past experiences, how you view the world. You're never going to be able to do what that person could do, because maybe you didn't have the same upbringing. So I if you are going to show me your pictures, show me who you are, right? I want to know. I want to know who you are. Not like, okay, a rip off of that guy, right?
Casey Fatchett 19:48 You bring your own, you bring yourself into the picture. You can't just, like, go in there. It's the people that I see a lot of times, and except in forums, we're like, what are the oh, your picture is great. What are the camera settings? It's like, that's not gonna like you, like, you're gonna go out there and recreate this exact like, you
Phil Penman 20:05 don't always say, if it brings them joy, like, if they have fun from it, great. Okay. Like, nothing wrong with that. Like, but if you are doing it just to chase likes or something like that, then you're probably, you're probably in the wrong thing and, and to be honest with you, you really should, we shouldn't be worried about them, because they're probably going to move on to the next thing within a year.
Casey Fatchett 20:28 Anyway. Yeah, my, what I've noticed becoming more, my, like, sort of like, bird's eye view of the industry over the last 25 years is that he used to be, like, there were certain people who were, you know, like, did it on the weekend, who just, like, were like, I'm, this is my other job. There were hobbyists. There were pros. Now we've got this wave of people who, like, I'm going to do this for five years, make as much money as I can. Like, that's their sort of thought process. And then I'm going then I'm going to move.
Phil Penman 21:03 Well, that's the, that's the mistake, right there, right it's you, you become driven by money. And like, we're all guilty of it. At some point in our career, we've probably been driven by the money. Like, when I was like, it's, it's almost a mute it makes me laugh. Now, when I was doing paparazzi work, we would complain if we were getting like 25 grand a month, because the money being made in the industry at that time was so astronomical. And you look back at me like, What an asshole that guy was. Me, like, you're complaining about making that kind of money because you knew you were getting robbed, but it was to what degree, like I whenever I want to check, yeah, to like, you knew you getting take, like you were just getting ripped off. But it was like, All right, well, how much? And I think that was one thing that would get us wound up. But it's like, with this, the work that I was doing, it was like, Okay, you you've taken away the money thing altogether, and it just became purely about enjoyment, because you've gone into it knowing that there's no money in this, right?
Casey Fatchett 22:09 The only money is like, what happened? Like, if you turn it into something the I don't know they this is very specifically to your work. I and having lived in New York for 20 years, the the feeling that I get from your photos is this very sort of timeless. It has a very to me. It has a 40s, like being a student of older like photography, like from throughout the years, it has a very 40s, 50s, 60s feel to me. But I think overall, it's a very timeless thing. I think it's maybe because it's all black and white, it also like there's nothing that gives away what era it's in, in in some way, like, you know, like colors can tend to give away, like, an era of photography. How much do you feel that when you go and you're doing like street photography, specifically New York, how much do you feel that the city itself is a character in the pictures, like something that's something you're interacting with.
Phil Penman 23:31 So all depends on how you view New York, right? So, like I I'm hardcore New York. Have been since I was a kid. My wife, she's the same parkour New York, and said to me, which I totally agree with, is we both feel that New York is a person, and you can feel it when you go out on the streets in the day. You can feel if it's a bad day, yeah, like if there's a bad but if there's a bad energy in the day, in the air. You know, there is, you know, when it's a good day and it's not, everyone's going to have that same affinity like you remember that most people live into in New York for two years maximum, because it's either they couldn't hack it or it just became too expensive, which, for most is the biggest problem for me, because I just love the city that will come across in your pictures. Yeah, like you're not, you're not going out there to make it look bad. You're trying to capture the pulse of the city during a day, and also it's going to be, you know, who's interesting to you? Like, you know, the people that are interesting to me are the New Yorkers. Like, I think New Yorkers are some of the best people out there. Like, you know, you have a question, wait, you need to get someone somewhere. They'll take they'll take their phone out and show. You on Google Maps, yeah,
Casey Fatchett 25:01 they'll just tell you, right, how to get there. They'll point it out to you. I think there's, you know, we New York. It's a bad rap, and I agree. I completely New York is alive. It is live. And you what you said about like, knowing whether it's a good or bad day, it's just a feeling that you get. And like, the longer you live there, like you, the more attuned do you get to it and just kind of like feeling how things are going. But yeah. I mean, I wasn't originally from New York, but like, there, and maybe that's why people always ask me for directions. They always assumed I knew where the things were. This was before Google Maps was the thing. They just, like, pull up to me, and they'd be driving on the street, and they pull up to me, they go, Hey, do you know how to get to whatever? And I'm like, Yeah, you just go up here. Take a left at the, you know, the CVS, the second CVS, not the first one, the second one. And then people ask, whatever, and like, but you'll see it on the subway when somebody's like, oh, you know, like a tourist will be like, I don't I'm trying to get to you can see they're trying to figure out how to get somewhere. And someone will say, someone will say, where you have to ask them, Where are you trying to go? And then they're like, I'm gonna go here. Like, somebody will look around, like, anybody go in there? And then, yeah, I'm going there. I'll stay, you know, I'll let you know when you need to get off. Yeah, it's,
Phil Penman 26:16 it's, it's crazy. You don't, you wouldn't get that in a lot of cities. And so it's like, it's a great place we all have, like, you know, New York as you have a love, hate relationship with it as well. Like, there are moments where you like, it's kicking your ass, you know, yeah. But so I go out there, I want to photograph, I want to do it honestly, you know, depict New York as I see it, and it's just how I see it. So that's, that's the game plan. Whenever I go out there, I know it's,
Casey Fatchett 26:47 I feel like New York has a very is very direct. She doesn't beat around the bush. It comes at you. It doesn't, it's, whereas you might have like, like Paris is more aloof in in some ways, it's just sort of like the My Favorite Things when my wife and I went to Paris, and one time we were like, listening to the Metro in New York, it's always like, this is the stop. It's 42nd street. Get off the street. Get off of this. You're getting into 42nd street. Whereas, like in Paris, it's like, in Paris, it's like, Saint Germain du Pre like, it's like, it's like, is this your stop? Is this your stop?
Phil Penman 27:31 Yeah, yeah. Tokyo has an even lighter twist to it as well. When it's telling you this away, everything's so calm and fell out. You got the birds chirping. They, like, pump in these bird noises and stuff, yeah, here is just very aggressive. Like, get out the way, Second Street, yeah,
Casey Fatchett 27:49 don't stand in the way, yeah.
Phil Penman 27:52 But it's, um, yeah, it's, you know, it's why I wanted to be here. And it's also, like, coming from England as well, like, over there, you know, we have, we really have that class system, okay? Like, there's this, this thing of, like, if you, if you do well, a lot of people don't like that. They definitely don't want you to say that you're doing well. Like, I learned within the first, first year of going back to see my friends, I knew when they asked me, What am I up to? I knew not to say, just lie nothing, because if you said, hey, yeah, I was doing portraits of Christopher Reeve last week in his house. It's just like, Who the hell do you think you are like? But here is like people and people like you can succeed. Over here you can do really well if you're willing to work hard, because people don't realize how hard you have to work here. Yeah? Like, it's no joke. It's not just Americans coming here as people from all some of the best of the best from all over the world coming to New York to compete against each other,
Casey Fatchett 28:55 yeah, and they you know, it's whether or not you can, can you hack it? Like, can you take it? Any of you willing to put in the work to survive? I had a good friend from high school who moved here to work for Marvel in the 90s, late 90s, this was before it was a yeah, they started making money off of movies. But he lived in Brooklyn for about six months. It was just like, can't do it. I can't, I can't do it. Like we were like, moved here at about about the same time, and he was like, yeah, it's too much for me. I can't, I can't do it. Nia, when we talk, I'll still be like, oh, you know, I wish, I wish. So I have a question. And yeah, looking at your photos, especially in New York, there are certain locations that you seem to frequent, how do you decide on looking like if you're going out for a shoot, just to go out, I don't know what's. Your process for, for deciding where you're going to go, or do you, do you decide on the location? Or do you decide on, like, what kind of moment that you're looking for when you're going out, or just is, yeah, What's that process like? Do you say, like, I'm a lot of,
Phil Penman 30:18 a lot of it's influenced by the weather. So if it's really, you know, I do a lot of research on light and you know, if it's like, a bad day, like today, and I want to, like, it's pouring down outside, I know that, right? I probably want to be close to the rivers, because I want a little bit more atmosphere in the background. If I go into Midtown, it might be that I'm looking for. You know this? I know that when the when it's raining and it's cold, the steam pipes are going to be exploding like crazy. So I might say, You know what I know of a few steam pipes in Midtown that might be pretty good. Generally, I start pretty early in the morning as well when I go out for myself. So the weather will dictate, if it's snowing, right? It might be that going back to like your, you know, the 40s, 50s, 60s, look that's because those are areas that I would have loved to have been around photographing in. So I figure, right? Well, what are areas of the town? If I want it to feel like those eras, the snow is going to instantly get rid of half the background things that's going to date an image, right? So I'll go, all right, maybe I'm going to go and hit Park Avenue in the 70s, because a lot of the buildings up there, if you shoot in the snow, and it's really thick blizzard. People are not going to know
Casey Fatchett 31:43 Right. You can't tell the difference, no.
Phil Penman 31:46 So if it's like that, that's one thing, then you have like, all right, I know that at probably one week of the year, Grand Central is going to get hit with amazing sunlight coming through the windows. I have it marked down on my calendar when that week is and I'll start researching or at least one to two weeks before I know it's going to hit because, you know, I don't know if you ever look, but it's a tiny window, and it comes through there from that you've got the UN blocking the street at the end of the road. So if it's not in a specific place, I'll go right. I'm gonna, I know that I'm gonna shoot that. Or it could be the Oculus, like I go in the Oculus, I know that there's going to be 20 to 30 minute windows where that light is going to come down through the top. And then the best ones are the ones that where it's like, you just stumble across something, or you see someone really interesting, like an interesting portrait or a quick, candid moment. But I can't go out thinking that way, just like I'm just going to capture moments. You know, I have no people feel that they can just point a picture at people and take a shot and that's a shot, and it's like, no, it's not. It's like, Okay, what else you know? What else do you have to add than just shooting from the hip of a person walking towards you, right? Like anyone, anyone can go do that. So what else do you have to add to that picture? So you're not setting stuff up, other than when you're, you're doing a portrait and you're chatting with people, but you're, you know, the I, those are the things I strive for, but I'm, I know enough that I'm just not going to bump into pictures like the, you know, the one that I have where you've got the dog looking in the window of a bunch of dogs. Yeah, but it's just not gonna happen
Casey Fatchett 33:44 You're not gonna go looking for that and find it. It's just gonna,
Phil Penman 33:47 it's, it's gonna, you're gonna, you're setting yourself up for failure. And I'd rather go out there and shoot a bunch of steam pictures and have fun enjoying doing it. And then if I stumble across a really cool image, then great. But you know, I always tell people you're gonna see, and you can see it with like the greats, they might have five to 10 great images to their names. So if you go, if you think that you're going to go out there and just capture great images all the time, again, you're setting yourself up for massive failure. So figure out you better really enjoy what you're doing, right?
Casey Fatchett 34:26 You know, what's the point? They're not all good. I think that's a big trap that people fall into. They're like, Oh, you know, I gotta, I gotta have so many, like, great photos from every shoot. No, you might go out there and not take anything good, like it might
Phil Penman 34:43 Just get one good one. Yeah, just get one good one. When you go out, just think like that, I just need to get one good one. Not great, you know, I can honestly say to myself, like, I probably have two big ones in my collection, and from 30 years and now came down to the fact. The event that I was photographing, not their pictures themselves.
Casey Fatchett 35:05 I think that it's really interesting that you the way you said about, like, researching the light and knowing when the light is going to be in certain places I happen to I know exactly, like, what week you're talking about with the light in Grand Central, because when I was first moved here, like, I just discovered it by accident. And I was like, wow, the light in here is great. And like, Oh, I'm back here. And then I was like, two weeks later, I'm like, huh, this sucks now, yeah, oh, it's because the shadows from the buildings and like, that's how I discovered it. But there are also shots in your portfolio, I think, very specifically, someone like, look like, not like an alley, but like a side street, but where there's just, like, this geometric shape of light that people sort of like walk into, like, you've got, like, right a shadow, and then just like people coming into this, these shapes. I'm like, Okay, this is why I asked that question to begin with. Was, I'm like, do you know that that light is going to be there?
Phil Penman 36:05 And that's just chasing, like, that's something I do for myself, to keep my skills, to keep, like, pushing myself. So if I know it's gonna be a really sunny day, like, we're lucky. We have the canyons that kind of block things out. A good, a good way to just train yourself is just to walk around and just get used to Chasing Lights. So you see, like a pocket of light hitting a wall down the street, go towards it, practice shooting in that one spot, and then move on to the next spot. And then every time you do it, you keep learning something new. And then the thing is, you're trying to, you can't just take pictures of people, silhouettes of people in light, right? All right. It's gonna, it's gonna get really boring after a while. So then you have to start figuring out, or, you know, how can I use this pocket of light with an interesting background, with interesting looking people, and framing it some unique way, right,
Casey Fatchett 37:01 and waiting for the moment where that all sort of corresponds and like comes together. It's not just like, you're just gonna walk up there and like, Oh, I'm gonna take this picture everything, because you have to, like, be patient. I think patience is a lost art form. Next photographers too. Like, like, okay, you know, I'm gonna have to sit here and I'm gonna have to, like, at least for a little while, like, look for the things that are interesting and wait for that.
Phil Penman 37:32 Yeah. Well, I think, I think a lot of photographers as well, they kind of limit themselves. I It's, it's so foreign as well, like coming from a press background, you know, we, we were doing a job, different job every 30 minutes, every hour, and every job was different, and you needed to be able to shoot each job differently. You had to become a different photographer each every 30 minutes. And so, I don't understand a lot of the time you'll get photographers who will, you know, they just shoot and move, shoot and move, and then you're, you know, the thing is, you need to learn how to be like, All right, I need to be patient on this one, like they always say, right? You're either a hunter or a fisherman, right? Right? Those, those, those are the two expressions. So why? Why do you want to listen to that? Why do you want to limit yourself to just one? Because you made it so easy for the rest of us, right? Because you need to be able to do both. Yeah, he's not just and know when and know when to do
Casey Fatchett 38:36 it, right? Like being like, to know, to have the presence of mind to know what mode you should be in is a, I think determines average from good, yeah, great. I think that's a, that's a big thing so, so here's the thought with there's so much visual stimulation in New York. You were just mentioning Tokyo, how do you maintain that sense of observation and not sort of getting lost in all that's going on to when you're when you're hunting Yeah. Like, how do you maintain the feeling of, like, okay, you know, I'm looking for things when there's just so much going on. Is there like rituals you go through, or is it just like, sort of like a mindset that you get into before you you get into that mode?
Phil Penman 39:41 Well, you're my old man. He told me. Said, whenever you travel somewhere, start shooting immediately, because your your eye will adjust to your environment. So you what you find interesting immediately is not going to be interesting to your eye two, three days from now. So. So it's a good practice to get in the habit of, as soon as you go anywhere, just get the camera out and stop, start shooting. So that's a good trip. Good tip, whenever you go anywhere. Another thing that I tend to do is I'm always trying to outdo myself, like I'm always trying to beat my last picture. You know, the old, famous expression is you're only as good as your last picture. Yeah, and my last picture wasn't very good, so if by that logic, you go, right, well, I'm going to go out and all I'm going to do today is practice things and forcing yourself this is like a newspaper trick as well. Is whenever you're hired to do anything, you have to figure out every single angle. Like if someone said to you, I need you to photograph this building, you would have to give them 20 different images of that building, right? So if you You're literally struggling to figure out all right, what else do I have around here that I could use to make this different. And I do that on everything I shoot. I'm always just trying to figure out, like, right, how can I make this better? How can I outdo the last picture? And it just forces you to see things,
Casey Fatchett 41:12 yeah, see things differently, yeah, from like, assignments in print, whatever they think. We need a picture of this installation, I do a lot of stuff with, like, art publications, like a photo of this. I'm like, Okay, well, you're gonna need like, a dozen different photos of this, different angles, orientations, because, depending on how they lay out the page, like, and to have that in mind, like, oh, they might need a vertical image. They might need a horizontal image. They might need a couple
Phil Penman 41:42 different get that. Yeah, people, it's newsflash to everyone. You do not get to dictate the paper or the newspaper or magazine that you're working for. Most of the time the page is already being pre laid out. Yep, and there is a box, and if your picture doesn't fit that box, you're in trouble.
Casey Fatchett 42:00 Yeah, you the you are in a lot of trouble because they're not, re laying out the page because you got an awesome, like, landscape shot, but they need something that can fit in a square, or, like, that's, that's all you've got to go with. Yeah, interesting. Okay, so the minister using that myself to start immediately taking pictures once I get somewhere. So, okay, so let's get a little bit technical. Would you say that there are any
Phil Penman 42:36 you lost me at aperture! Sorry
Casey Fatchett 42:40 I didn't say it. I didn't say it. I was gonna say, Are there any specific techniques in street photography that you find when you get somewhere to, like, start with, like, get yourself going. I know you're just shooting what you said, what you're shooting, what you find interesting. But like, technically, are there any things that you do to, kind of, like, just to warm yourself up in that space, whatever, like, city that you're in? Are you, like, I'm just gonna you have a very distinct style, I think, personally. But like, there's, you have your long exposure stuff, and there's like, other things, like, do you start with things like that, and then bring it down to more, I guess, sharp things, like, after you kind of get a feel of where you're at.
Phil Penman 43:34 Well, I try to get a feel for the place that I'm where I am. Like, when I was in Tokyo, it kind of, what I liked was like, there was this, it kind it felt like there was this constant flow of motion, but everything was just very peaceful. It's not like here, where people are erratic. There it was. Everything was very peaceful, but it was constantly flowing. So I in my brain, I'm like, you know, maybe that's a way that I could show something in pictures where I'm just doing a series of images, where it's just constantly moving motion, but you'll just have like, little like, so you're doing, like, panning on different on different shots. And then it might be, you know, I was in London, and it's like, they're really smart with the advertising billboards. So like, you know, they'll, there'll be a picture of a woman on a taxi door, and then you've got the driver, right? And then you, you think, you, you start seeing all these different shots everywhere, all these built amazing billboards with people. And you're like, all right, you know what? For London, for this trip, I'm going to home in on that, right?
Casey Fatchett 44:42 I know you're talking about, like, how these the advertising sort of lines up with actual people in the space.
Phil Penman 44:52 So I'll adjust based on the city. Like, you know, I go to Paris and it's like, I love the way that everyone dresses there. Classic looking. It lends very well to timeless images. Also the, you know, the lighting, the light there, you know, that might influence my trip as well, and then the next time I might see something else. So those, those are things I like. Again, it's like a feeling that a city gives me. I was just in like, two, three weeks ago. I was in Basel, Switzerland, doing something out there, and it was like very old and timeless feeling again. So I kind of gravitated to that. But then I also have like, these rituals of like, you know, again, from press where, all right. That's my background. That's my that's one layer I'm going to use these kinds of people in the shop, like, but are there reflective surfaces I can use? Is there something that I can use to frame the image? Maybe a car door, maybe it's a rear view mirror or something off of a side of a bike, like I'm looking for things actively looking at everything, kind of behind me to see what I can I, what can I use to capture what I'm seeing, rather than just shooting a very flat image,
Casey Fatchett 46:13 looking for layers to put on top. The more layers you have on that. You don't need a million of them. But like, you know, layering creates more literally depth to the image than just sort of this, you know, flat shot. This kind of brings me to a question we had from our audience, from at JC, dot Kodak on Instagram, what's your favorite city to do street photography in?
Phil Penman 46:43 I don't think I really have one.
Casey Fatchett 46:45 He takes the easy way out. I know they're all different.
Phil Penman 46:49 They're they're all They're all different one. They're all different each one. Yeah, no, it's not a it's, it's an adrenaline rush. Okay, so whether you've been fortunate enough to experience it, yet, there's a certain rush you get from taking certain kind of picture, and it's almost like a high. I've had it. I've had it maybe two or three times in my life where what you're seeing or what you're capturing, like you don't even need the camera, but what you're visually seeing is so overwhelming that it's like you almost well up. Yeah, right. And you're chasing that high. And it doesn't matter what city it's in, I'm chasing that high. So I've had a one or two in New York. I know I've had one in Paris. That's what I'm chasing. And that, again, that's like the paparazzi mindset. Like you were always, you were adrenaline, you're we're adrenaline chasers. That was the high. And then the biggest thing was getting the picture, and then knowing how much it just sold for.
Casey Fatchett 48:05 Yeah, there's, that's, that's, that's a, yeah, a high for sure
Phil Penman 48:12 It was, it was a huge high. You could make more, you could make more money on one day than some people make in their entire lives. And you, you can't take that for granted. So I'm not as far as, like, cities, obviously, New York. I love New York.
Casey Fatchett 48:31 It's an impossible idea.
Phil Penman 48:34 Yeah, it's I have, I'm very lucky in I have a very amazing lifestyle. Now I've, you know, worked 30 years to create doesn't happen overnight, but where I can travel every month to a different city around the world and meet great people and get to shoot in those cities, and
Casey Fatchett 48:55 take the time to be able to go out and take pictures, it is one of those things like, I think that we, if we go back earlier in our conversation, people talking about wanting to be influencers, they're like, Oh, I'm gonna travel all over and I'm gonna take like, well, you there's a certain amount of like legwork involved in that you don't just like it just
Phil Penman 49:14 they made it easy. They made it so easy for us after you have to remember that, like most people, it aren't prepared to work, or they don't know what work is, and they're, you know, don't get me wrong, there are, there are kids out there today who work their asses off. Oh yeah, and I, and I, I support that, but the majority, they don't want to work. And so if you have any kind of drive, or you you realize how much work is involved, your chance of success is a lot higher these days, like back when, when I was growing up, it was like there were other things that were keeping us back. You had, you had the gatekeepers, where you still have the gatekeepers now, right? Who decide who's going to make it or not, but a lot of us have bigger followings than they ever could have, right? Like you could, you can now create your own thing where no gatekeeper has any control. It's purely around. Do people like the work? Right? Not, not that you're the son of a billionaire, or the you have some you know you're within a certain circle. So if you're willing to work hard and you produce good work, you have as just as good as opportunity to be a success.
Casey Fatchett 50:36 Speaking of not wanting to do the work, I recently got one of your one of your Instagram captions was said, AI, actual imagery, which I found very poignant. Because recently, I found two Instagram accounts that I was following because I was really like, found very interesting that we're both entirely AI, and I have a very critical eye. And I was like, oh, man, this is not good, because it's it only gets better from here. And being able to fool people like it's not good, the technology is not going to get worse. But there was this guy, and I'm not going to name names. Maybe I will at some point, but it's he. I'll send it to you afterwards. Okay, and see, yeah, but it was all this very avant garde looking fashion stuff, and I just kept looking at it, going, like, this guy's he's really like, doing stuff like, obviously, some of it looked like it was like, taking, like, cutouts of photos and like, painting over them, and some of them and other ones were just but then there were like, full body shots, and the limbs look correct, and the hands are right and everything, and you're sitting there going, like, Man, this guy's really, he's pretty good. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there's, like, one that is so obviously AI, and you're just going, and you're shocked out of it going, like, what we're all and it's like, went back, and the captions are long, and there's a little, like, there's one hashtag at the bottom that says AI art, so you really have to dig in and like, see that. He's like, and you're gone. And then there was another one that was, which your comment about saying, like, get up off the couch and actually, like, go out and take a picture. Got me, because this was a landscape photographer, yeah, and he's, it's actual places. And I was like, Oh, these are really good. And then, like, I started, there were a lot of carousels, and I would only because I was, I don't try not to spend too much time on in the sea. What's that in the sea carousel? No, just a carousel of images. And I wasn't, like, swiping through all of them, yeah, because I just don't like to spend a lot of time on social media, yeah, but I look at a couple and be going, Oh, these are pretty good. And then one time I, like, started going through and, like, the last two were, like, this doesn't look real. What's going on here? There's something off about these. So I started going through, back through them, and, like, going to the end, and I'm like, these, like, the last two are always kind of off, like, as somebody, and I was like, what's going on? And then I started again. It was somebody who put in, like, these huge captions, and then at the very end saying, like, this is all created with, you know, AI software. It's a combination of my imaginings of what this location looks like, and whatever, but also, like, it's totally presented at the top of the caption, like, I went out and took this photos of this place, and then within the end, you're getting, like, this very like, you know, after like, it's like, yeah, 20 paragraphs. And then at the bottom, it's like, you know, I
Phil Penman 53:57 Do you know? The scary thing is that caption was created with AI.
Casey Fatchett 54:01 Yeah, I'm sure, and I'm sure it's huge. I'm sure it's huge to keep people from knowing, like he's saying, Oh, I'm telling you, it's AI, but at the you know,
Phil Penman 54:12 give me a you know what it's like, if that's what you want to do, good on you. If that gives you kicks, good on you, but you're not a photographer.
Casey Fatchett 54:22 Well, that's the problem I had with it was because people, other people who were fooled in in the comment section, were saying, like, this is a great photograph, and he'd be like, Oh, thank you.
Phil Penman 54:33 Yeah, you're not, you're not a photographer,
Casey Fatchett 54:35 you're not a photographer,
Phil Penman 54:36 you're not a photographer, you you could be a you could be an artist. Yeah, you're you're more a creative curator that works for a creative gut, you know, an art agency. Yeah, that's, I would probably attest more to that, like, you know, obviously photography we're going to see. Well, not photography, but commercial marketing. That's going to go down that route, because they can save on their budgets, but it's you kind of missed the point. Man, yeah, you know, the whole point of it is being out there and meeting people and feeling what it feels like to be there. So, yeah, and there's like this, you know, I whatever. There's, there's lots of famous photographers that have done that themselves, where it's not AI, but it's like Photoshop, where they're manipulating, removing people from pictures to make the compositions. Like he used to piss me off, because I would be measuring myself by other people, growing up on by other photographers. And then you find out that none of it was real, like it was photoshopped and hacked. And you're like, you know, I was, I was measuring myself against something that never happened, right? And you just like, well, you know, I wouldn't have felt so bad. Like, kick knocking myself. Like, well, why? Why can't I do this? Why can I not be this good?
Casey Fatchett 56:01 Why can't I find these moments, yeah,
Phil Penman 56:05 yeah, why they're not either they're not that good either. And then problem is, once you know that about someone, then you everything they've done has been second guessed, like I know, with the World Press Photo like, I think every year, 1/3 of the entries get thrown out. But so i What are you doing it for? Again, for like, so then you find never, you're never going to be happy. You're never, personally, going to be happy. Anyway, if that's what you're doing it for, yeah.
Casey Fatchett 56:35 And then you see the people who, like, will win these awards. And then somebody's like, is like, actually analyze this is horribly photoshopped. Like, somebody, like, they, you know, like, they did a lot of work on this, and they're like, Oh, well, we gotta rescind their win, or whatever, and, like, take it back. Like, well, it just encourages other people. It's like, how
Phil Penman 56:55 you're, you're never gonna win it. You're never gonna win that battle, though, because you look at like, you know, you take it away from photography, right? What are people willing to do in the finance world to make money? What are people? What are people? What are people? Athletes like and I've been caught up in this myself. I use I was a professional cyclist, well, semi professional, let's say. But when I was racing some, you know, most people that I knew were busted doing drugs, yeah, and you're just like, well, you've missed the point. Like so in every, every kind of field of life, someone is going to be willing to to cheat, to try to get ahead, but it doesn't mean they're going to be happy
Casey Fatchett 57:39 Or that, you know, I think that a lot of things, something that photographers in general could benefit from, like the stop comparing yourself. Just Just stop. Like, there's, there's a like the not comparing, but judging yourself in comparison to other people. Everybody has a different journey. Everybody's trying to do their thing, and like, you need to find your thing. And like you're competing, like you said earlier, I'm trying to outdo my last picture. Like, stop thinking so much about like, looking at somebody else's work. You can look at and go, like, that's an amazing picture, whatever, like that that like inspires me to do something or whatever, but not sitting there going like my the value of my photography to me, depends on what someone else did, because I think if when you can get out of that mindset, there will be a lot less like you said. You're never going to stop people from, quote, unquote, cheating in some way to try to get a better picture or whatever. But if you're only competing against yourself, like there's no
Phil Penman 58:56 it's only cheating if you are trying to portray yourself as something that you're not right, like you're you're saying you're a photographer, but then you're creating it with AI, and you're trying to hide that if you, if you are creating AI images, and it's your art piece, and you you full disclaimer about it, and it makes you happy, Good on you, but you're not a photographer, yeah, yeah.
Casey Fatchett 59:23 The funny thing was, is, like, plain and simple with the the guy who was doing the fashion stuff, I was interested in, like, how he was doing it, because, like, the people look very real, the eyes looked real, like the and I was like, Oh, is he using his own images and doing something on top of it. Like, is there something going like, is Is this some combination? I reached out to him and said, Just curious, if you'd like to come out and discuss this, because people have a lot of feelings about AI, like, your stuff is really, really interesting, and I'm curious. He's like, I refuse to discuss my process with anyone. I. And I was just like, okay, that's your thing, man, go ahead. Like, if you're guarding that for whatever reason. But, you know, I was just like, wondering if you used your own photos. It's like, I refuse to answer that question.
Phil Penman 1:00:12 Some people have some some people are fine with it. I remember I got asked to comment on it. There was a debate between two podcasters talking about it. And one of them was very, you know, it was like, the two sides, one was pro, one was one was not. And it was like, that it's not going to affect the industry. And I'm like, and this was going back a few months, and lots of my friends have lost their jobs because of this. They've so, you know, my point back then was we, you know, what do I think about it? And said, I can't really support anything that's gonna lose my friends their jobs, yeah. And it was, and the point was made that, oh, you're just, you know, you're just making it up, and this is not going to happen. It's like, Well, okay, I was right, yeah.
Casey Fatchett 1:00:59 I mean, unfortunately, in my opinion, commercial product fashion are probably there's all going to be, like, huge impacts there, if you're not already feeling it, just because, like, you said, the expense people don't realize how expensive it is to put together some of these fashion shoots. Or, like, you know, like, Oh, I'm going to do products like Levi's like, I think it was two years ago, maybe, maybe not quite so long. But like, we're saying something about like, Oh, we're going to start using AI models and our advertising to help support diversity. And people were like, Oh, why don't you just hire diverse models? And like, that's that they're trying to save money, they're gonna sit there and like, oh, we need somebody like, we need more diversity of size. Like, different sizes of people, different shapes of people, the amount of time it would take them to do casting calls to get all the different sizes they want, the people they like, the look whatever like, I'm not saying it's right, but I get where it's kind of the mindset is coming from. It's easier for me to have people, a bunch of people of all ethnicities and sizes, whatever, if I don't have to actually go out and hire them. Like, well, think, think
Phil Penman 1:02:11 about, think about it like, all of a sudden, you know, I, I've done shoots where it's like, you know, two, 300 grand on the on the line, yeah, okay, for a pro commercial shoe where you've shut down city roads, you've got police involved to create a picture, right? That, you know, people don't realize the cost you're. Say you have a $300,000 job. The job might actually cost 200,000 to produce it. Yeah, all right, you're, you're paying for parking on the street that lost money, any parking lots that you've had to take over. You are now paying for that, all of this stuff, and now, all of a sudden, you could be some small company that doesn't have 200 300 $400,000 budget, and create the same image for a fraction, right?
Casey Fatchett 1:03:05 Yeah. And getting all the logistics together of getting all those, like, not just the the regular expenses, but all of the logistics involved, I get it. I understand why it's really appealing. Do I think it kind of sucks for people who are losing their jobs? Yeah. I definitely think it sucks for the photographers who are losing their jobs. I also think that, you know, other like photographers, need to understand the seriousness of it in the sense of how it's going to affect them, but they are there also, I think, like you said, there are places for it. I wish there was a
Phil Penman 1:03:41 Look at the film industry. Yeah, right now, what's going on with the film industry there? Right now we're witnessing basically the battle going on between these people trying to save their industry versus studios, who know that all this technology is there where they don't need these crews, they don't need to even have sets anymore, and you you're effectively asking an entire industry to go under, right?
Casey Fatchett 1:04:12 Well, the people don't understand when, when the actors were striking, and the you're like, well, what's the big deal? Like they want to scan their bodies and use their voices in perpetuity.
Phil Penman 1:04:24 Sell them, yeah, in perpetuity the agencies were selling that like, and I don't know why certain stars were like, Yeah, I'm gonna sell my voice and my look,
Casey Fatchett 1:04:36 yeah, you're It's over once they have control over it once you're giving it to somebody. The one that got me was I used to do voiceovers, and one of the things was for voiceover people, like people who do cartoons or anything they're like, once you record an episode or a season or whatever, we're going to own your voice, and we can make as many seasons of this. Show as we want to and use your AI, reproduce, reproduced voice, and never have to pay you another dime. Like, it's just like you are without any sort of repercussions, like it's just like they now own you as a performer and can, like, do whatever they want without compensating you I was like, that's what that's about. And I think that, you know, there's, to an extent we need to be concerned in our, you know, in our industry, about how it's going to affect, you know.
Phil Penman 1:05:39 Well, I think, I think it to me, it's, you know, none of this is none of this is new, right? They've been using this in government for the last 1015, years. So, like anyone that thinks this stuff is new technology, sorry, it's not. You know, the biggest thing that I see is the copyright issue, and they all know it like the the lawsuits are coming. You know, if you ever searched on chat, GPT to create an image in the style of it means they can be sued, right? And I know for a fact, like the bigger companies are having to scrape the servers right now, because everything on there has to be,
Casey Fatchett 1:06:23 they have to have the copyright license to use
Phil Penman 1:06:26 it, which is like that's going on right now,
Casey Fatchett 1:06:30 which is why all those people who like use AI filters and their Instagram or Tiktok or whatever you have given Given your license to use your image in future data sets. Just Adobe.
Phil Penman 1:06:45 Try that. Recently,
Casey Fatchett 1:06:46 Adobe has licensed images they use their like Adobe stock that was like what was used to train and also people were being compensated like the owners of the copyright for the images are being compensated for the use of their images. So that's more ethical when you think have things like, whatever dolly and mid journey, whatever things get do a way grayer area of like, how they source things, and like they were putting things in. And like, oh, surprisingly. Like, after an artist, I can't remember who it was, somebody passed away. And like, immediately the next day, there were over 200,000 queries in mid journey to, like, create art in the style of this artist who had just passed away the day before. So they're like, that's not everyday users. This is the developers of the AI, like, force feeding this person's images into this so that you can create images in their style. Because they're saying, like, Oh, this is gonna go up in popularity because they're dead now, they're not creating anything new. It was that was really disturbing. And that's part of, like, what the lawsuits that are going on now are about, about scraping those data sets and getting like on like retraining, but retraining those AI data sets and the models, whatever. But in the time being, all these people who are giving their faces, and I don't think realize it, whenever they use one of those AI filters. Part of the agreement there is that when you use those filters, you're allowing them to use your image for which is why I don't use them, not that people want my image of me, but like, I don't. I just don't, not giving away my my image for free, or my voice or anything like that. Like, that's not right. I'm sure somebody could this podcast is all over the place, and they can obviously take it if they want.
Phil Penman 1:08:46 They actually did that years ago, the MIT commencement speech with Obama. Yes, where he did, he did a five, five minute monolog welcoming everyone to MIT. And then they said, Hey, that whole thing was fake. Yeah, it never happened.
Casey Fatchett 1:09:01 I remember that it really scared me, in a way. I was like, oh, yeah, when they talk about a post truth society, that's, that's where I'm like, becomes more and more difficult to discern things. All right, we're kind of got enough topic. So how to finish up? Like, bring it back around. So for people who are aspiring street photographers, who are trying to find their place in that space, what advice do you have for them for sort of finding their voice, their eye, finding a direction to go into, not to like, copy someone, but like, I mean, what advice do you have? Like,
Phil Penman 1:09:54 tough one, right? Because you kind of it. What's your end goal? First off, like, right? If you, if you think that you're going to come in and you're going to make a ton of money, okay? I was saying somewhere earlier, probably no point. No, no, no, no. 1% actually make it. Like, the chances, okay? So if we're very realistic and we go, Okay, I'm going to do this for fun, like I'm going to do this because I enjoy it. So that's the first thing. Do you enjoy what you're taking pictures of? And if you like shooting in the rain, go ahead, just shoot everything in the rain. But one got to be willing to work very hard, which I touched on earlier. But really, you, you have to show me you, and you have to figure, right, if everything is out there on Instagram, what? What is someone? What's going to make somebody stop on your image, right? So it's you have to define your not only your style of what you take pictures of, but also if you start thinking of yourself as like well, what's the look of my edit as well? Like? That's important. It might be your brand image. How do you present the work? Okay? Because to me, it's always like, it's not finished until it's presented. So there's the presentation, the shooting of the image, how you edit the image, the presentation of the image, all these things like you can you can influence someone the way that they look at your work. It could be the way that you do the carousel and come up with something, some something unique and creative. Like I realized when when Instagram went and turned around and said that we're not doing we're not promoting picture posts anymore. We're only going to do video, then it's like, Well, shit, how am I going to, I still need to be promote my work, right? And it's like, you know what I'm going to I'm going to take people on the journey of how I take the picture. I'm going to film the back of my camera when I'm taking the picture. And then all of a sudden that blew up, right? And then there was a million people cloning, copying that. So start thinking about, like, all right, what am I going to take pictures of? How am I going to edit it? How? What is a unique, fresh presentation? Way that I can do this as well, right? There are there? The thing is, there are people on social media where you can flick through the feed and you instantly know it's their picture.
Casey Fatchett 1:12:39 Yeah, I feel that way about your photos. I like, instantly know, like, if i is the cover up, the names, whatever the captions, I feel like I can identify your style so in that, like you've accomplished that for yourself. I think that's
Phil Penman 1:13:00 just to just just enjoy it though. Like, I think everyone puts so much pressure on themselves, you know, like, I didn't really start really shooting some good stuff until I really just started, like I didn't give a shit, like I wasn't trying to, I wasn't trying. I wasn't trying to please anyone. Like, you know, it took me, if we go by the follow account thing, right? Took me, like, six years before I hit 10k and I'm looking at the other workout and going looking at some of these accounts, they got five, 600,000 followers. And I'm, like, that works, really, not that good, yes. Like, well, hang on, I'm not bad, like, why can't I make it so don't get caught up in that shit either. Yeah.
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Speaker 2 1:15:57 Hey, now for my favorite part of the show, what's that? Say? Useless information. This is always death.
Casey Fatchett 1:16:09 Phil, did you know that Napoleon was not actually short?
Phil Penman 1:16:15 Oh go on. Was it like six or four?
Casey Fatchett 1:16:18 No, it was foreign propagandists, but basically his enemies in other countries who displayed him as a comic figure, as being very short. He was actually five seven, which, at the time, was taller than the average Frenchman. He was not a very, very short person.
Phil Penman 1:16:40 Did you ever hear the one about him with the the tomb? No, to his deathbed. They claim he went in when they were doing archeological digs in the in Egypt, and they were going into the tombs. And he said that it was, it was, I can't remember the name of the king or the Pharaoh, but it was, he wanted to go in there on his own, without any of his troops. He they said, he came out, and he literally looked white as a ghost. And they were like, What did you see? And he went to say, and he basically said, I can't I can't tell you. And then apparently he was going to say, it on his deathbed, and he stopped himself again some context.
Casey Fatchett 1:17:27 He feared whatever it was. He was afraid of it, whatever it was. Phil, thank you very much for being on the show. You're always welcome to come back. Let me know if there's anything you want to talk about. Where can people find you? Where can they find your book?
Phil Penman 1:17:40 So done. Two books now, 2019 book called Street. The latest one brought out was called New York Street diaries. Both of them are available on Amazon, or you can get New York Street diaries signed on my website, Phil penman.com, and then I'm on every one of the 8 million social media platforms, but yeah, just I thank you so much for the time today. You know, great chatting with you
Casey Fatchett 1:18:07 You're very welcome. People can find all of those links in the Episode Notes. I'll include all of those so that you can go directly find Go, go get Phil's books. They're really great again, Phil, thank you very much for coming on.
Phil Penman 1:18:20 Thank you, Casey
Casey Fatchett 1:18:27 you call those buildings teeth?
Casey Fatchett 1:18:40 Maybe show a little less teeth. Oh, hey, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Phil Penman. Be sure to check out the links to Phil's website to see when he might be teaching a workshop near you, as well as his socials, and you can check out his book. It's fantastic while you're at it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review and or tell a friend remember and, or preferably and but possibly or you can also follow along on our socials, Instagram, Tiktok threads, Reddit, at the nerdy photo, all one word, no underscores, dots or dashes, at the nerdy photo. Tell us what you think about this or any other episode that we've put out. Leave your photography related questions so we can you know, answer those in future episodes or on the live Q and A's I do on Instagram and tech talk, or tell us what topics you'd like to hear about in the future. No, I haven't forgotten about you until next time. Friends stay safe and stay nerdy.