My Penman Project – Finding Stories Close to Home
For the past two weeks I’ve been working on a small portfolio inspired by the style of Phil Penman — a street/documentary photographer known for his ability to tell human stories without showing identifiable faces. To make the project easier to do over that time I set myself the constraint that every image had to be taken at home — in and around Wadswick Green. This meant finding inspiration in familiar places and noticing details I might normally walk past.
The creative aim was to portray human life and presence without direct portraiture, using gesture, environment, and the subtle traces people leave behind. This required paying more attention to how a space feels, how an object is used, and how light shapes a scene than to the person themselves.
I began by photographing a range of subjects:
Close studies of hands, capturing texture, connection, and movement.
Public seating — from croquet chairs to park benches — as stand-ins for social gatherings and conversations.
Quiet indoor spaces where the absence of people still suggested community.
Observational moments, such as a man seated alone, gazing out of frame. (OK, so this one is identifiable, but I liked the shot)
Working through the images, I realised that while several were strong on their own, the most effective set came when I narrowed it to three complementary photographs that together created a narrative arc from intimacy to environment:
Linked Hands – An intimate, tactile gesture suggesting connection and history.
Man in Chair Looking Out – A solitary figure, lost in thought, hinting at unseen stories.
Indoor Café/Lounge – A calm communal space, waiting to be filled with life.
These three images share a consistent monochrome style, a contemplative mood, and — most importantly — the Penman principle of telling human stories without showing a face.
The full portfolio (click to view) includes more images that I enjoyed making, and narrowing down to three was the hardest part of the exercise. It’s a lesson in editing and in thinking about how photographs talk to each other, not just how they stand alone.