Street by ACC Art Books

STREET Photographs Phil Penman

Contents Foreword Introduction

Citizen Celebrity City Index About the Photographer Acknowledgments

Contents Foreword Introduction

Citizen Celebrity City Index About the Photographer Acknowledgments

CITIZEN 14

CELEBRITY 72

Pippa Middleton Matthews 82

Britney Spears Britney would come to New York a lot and if she did not come here I would be sent to her hometown of Kentwood , Louisiana. Kentwood was a small community, one road in and out. You crossed a rail track to reach her home. Watching her home was impossible. It was in the middle of the woods down a trail and I only ever got pictures there once. On one occasion I was following her car about half a mile back but with clear sight of her car. As she crossed the rail track I saw five police cars lined up waiting. I quickly pulled off the road and avoided any altercation with the local law enforcement. Even though you I wasn’t doing anything, I didn’t want to risk being put in the local jail for the weekend. Another time I had flown to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas for a story involving an owner of a luxury hotel resort who was alleged to having gotten into a sexual altercation with one of the hotel staff. Whom should I bump into in the middle of the Casino but Britney with her security guard. The next day I took pictures of her holding a Coke, not a big deal unless, like Britney, you’re getting a fortune from Pepsi. It did’nt matter where I went; Britney was never too far away. At one point, I was living in the East Village and was taking a day off. That day I saw her no fewer than three times, the last when she was parked 100 feet from my home. Her driver and I just laughed. I never did take any shots of her that day but just thought it amusing how it felt as though I was the one being followed for a day. A few years later, Britney came to New York. I was working with a couple of photographers and we had joined up to get whatever we could. One night we got great shots of Britney having drinks with her security guard in the lobby of the Regency hotel. She has gone into public toilet downstairs and returned in a stunning red dress. As I was shooting her, my colleague was photographing her husband Kevin Federline out shopping. The next day we were watching the Regency hotel but now we were joined by many other photographers who had seen in the papers the images we had shot the night before.

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I tried some of my tricks to throw photographers off the trail by planting fake sightings on celebrity sighting blogs and fan pages. On one occasion I’d made up a story that Britney had been spotted shopping for groceries at the Wholefoods market by Columbus Circle. The sighting never did appear online. One minute later I got a phone call from my agent: “Hey, watching the wrong hotel! She’s staying at the Mandarin Oriental by Columbus Circle!” “Oh really, how do you know that?” “A magazine has just called saying she was spotted grocery shopping at Wholefoods!” “Ah really? Then your tip is bulllshit!” “How do you know that?” “Because I was the one who gave that fake sighting.” This was valuable information as I now knew that this particular site was giving the public’s celebrity sightings to this particular magazine. None of the good tips ever went online. I should know: I sent a bunch. This was to prove very useful in the future whenever you wanted to get rid of your competitors. The rumor mill was churning out stories of trouble between Kevin and Britney. This was by far the biggest story out there and everyone wanted a piece of it. For a week nobody saw Britney. Kevin however was at the Regency. We all just gave up on it after we had followed Kevin to the airport and presumed that Britney must have gone as well. The next Monday morning I got a call from a source. “Britney is staying at the Mandarin Oriental and is due to go on the Letterman show later today.” “Shit, she isn’t scheduled on the show. You sure?” “Definitely!” I was not leaving anything to chance. This was a big tip but my worry was that at the Letterman show there were always about 20 to 50 photographers. We formed a four man team. Two guys would station themselves at the show and two of us would follow from the hotel. We watched as her SUV drove underground to pick her up. This way nobody on the street would see her.

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Kim Kardashian 116

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Kim Kardashian 116

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Hill Repeats Chasing celebrities around the city on a fixed gear bike had gotten me hooked on cycling and eventually I used the riding to get me into racing. A typical day for me was 50 miles of training at 5 a.m. in Central Park, get home by 8.30, shower and out the door by 9 a.m., ready to work. Work consisted of at least another 30 miles of riding up and down the city on my fixed gear bike. Sometimes I was flying behind an SUV, but most of the time I was crawling along at a snail’s pace, looking at everyone walking. Work and training had become my life and any chance to incorporate both was a good thing. One day I heard that Katie Holmes would start filming somewhere in Connecticut. My partner and I took off early to locate the set. We had a rough idea that the site involved a lake. With my friend driving and me hammering away on my computer, researching, I’d managed to find a picture of Katie and daughter Suri walking into shop in Kent. The shot has been posted to a family’s Twitter account. The member of the family had obviously photographed them without being seen. Kent is a beautiful village that attracts busloads of tourists in the fall, when the leaves turn. Quaint little stores, rowing boats on the river, and a covered bridge that was used in one of the Freddie Kruger horror movies. As a cyclist, I noticed that Kent had amazing cycling roads. I decided to turn the job into a cycling camp. I told my work partner that I would take the job from here. We both headed back to the city and I got my cycling gear and headed back up the next morning. The nice thing about being clad in stretchy Lycra and an expensive road bike is that the last thing anyone thinks is, “That guy is a paparazzo.” My plan was to hang out in town and wait to spot Katie, her security, or big blackedout vehicles rolling through. I sat outside a tiny coffee shop having a drink and a bite when a large SUV pulled up in front of me. Katie’s security guard jumped out, oblivious to me in my Lycra, and went into the store to grab a coffee. My car was parked just across the road. I chucked the bike on top of the car, jumped in, and followed the SUV to where I thought Katie was staying. It was down a 150

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CITY 158

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CITY 158

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“ The city’s ever-changing streets have become a muse for Penman, pulling him out of the kind of creative rut that even successful shooters like him can fall into.” –PDN Leica ambassador photographer Phil Penman understands New York City as a “kind of living thing in itself”—a creature of unrelenting motion and metamorphosis and a thing of serendipitous beauty. For over two decades, he has kept his fingers on the pulse of the city, pounding the pavement on the frenzied streets as a portraitist of local personalities, fine art photographer documenting the sublime cityscape, and a paparazzo, chasing stars who circulate through the world’s greatest city from around the globe. From undercover snaps of Michael Jackson to a high-speed race against law enforcement for Britney Spears, Penman’s personal anecdotes and unfiltered insights take readers behind the flashing lights, offering insider access into the mad-dash lives of the paparazzi. With years of hunting down the celebrity buzz all around New York City, Penman has also witnessed and documented all that the city has to offer, from its majestic urban geography to the colorful locals and their unapologetic idiosyncrasy. Always separating himself from the pack, Penman’s works evidence his deft eye for spontaneity and chance encounters and his mastery of the photographic medium. From the mundane to the sublime, the grime and glamour, Street profiles the citizens, celebrities, and the city itself with an artist’s eye, taking readers out to the center of the action in the city that never sleeps.

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ARTS

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