100 Faces of London

With 100 studio portraits, Milan Svanderlik celebrates, through the photographer’s lens, the extraordinary diversity of people living in London.

London is truly an extraordinary place and what perhaps makes it most extraordinary is the people who have made their home here:  they have brought with them an amazing diversity of traditions, cultures, and habits, of faiths, expectations and hopes, and these are reflected in the appearance of each and every one.

100 Faces of London features studio portraits of one hundred Londoners, reflecting the huge diversity of people who make up this great city.   All photographed within a twelve-month period, mostly during 2010, the youngest sitter was 20 and the oldest 100, with every effort made to embrace a broad range of ethnicities. 

From the outset, the aim was to invite only ‘ordinary Londoners’ to join the project (ie those who were not famous, not familiar personalities, politicians, or stars of stage and screen, all of whose faces would have been frequently photographed and exhibited).   However, once the photography was completed, not one of the sitters, any of whom might have been seen around the capital, could have been described as an ordinary Londoner;  they all proved to be quite extraordinary people and personalities.

This was an artistic, not a commercial project.   All the sitters were volunteers and were photographed just as they were, or as they wished to present themselves.   Clothing, hairstyle, make-up, and jewellery were left at the discretion of the sitter, with minimal influence from the photographer.   The sittings often took several hours and the portraits were deliberately formal, revealing the character and spirit of those who illustrated the astonishing diversity that was the underlying inspiration for the project.