Penson was born into a poor bookbinder's Jewish family in 1893 in the small town of Velizh in Vitebsk Governorate (present-day Smolensk Oblast, Russia).

[2] He moved to the Uzbek capital of Tashkent and from 1926 through to 1949 worked for the largest newspaper in Central Asia, the Pravda Vostoka (Truth of the East).

In 1940 Penson met Sergei Eisenstein who said of him: "There cannot be many masters left who choose a specific terrain for their work, dedicate themselves completely to and make it an integrated part of their personal destiny.

It is, for instance, virtually impossible to speak about the city of Ferghana without mentioning the omnipresent Penson who travelled all over Uzbekistan with his camera.

[5] The latest exhibitions of Penson's works were at the Russian Cultural Centre (London)(Commonly known as Pushkin House), from 30 November to 2 December 2010 and at Nailya Alexander Gallery in New York City from 5 April to 13 May 2011.