In 1951 the Picture Post photographer Bert Hardy said that it did not matter what camera you had, it was the person behind the lens that mattered. Challenged by his editor to prove it, Hardy was stripped of his Leica and sent to Blackpool with an amateur's Kodak Box Brownie; he found two showgirls, sat them on some railings and made what is probably his most famous picture.

Sixty years on, Peter Dench was commissioned by Olympus to work in one of America's most iconic cities armed only with a compact camera. For a man used to lugging a heavy body on assignment this was daunting: an unknown city and a piece of equipment he had never used. In his own words: “It made me a better photographer. I was inspired to explore more intensely; I paid greater attention to the movement of light and tightened up my compositions. The lightweight camera saved me energy in sweltering conditions and its performance gave me the confidence to discard the flash in many low light situations. I was excited to point the camera at people and people wanted the camera pointed at them.” This is what two weeks produced.