Every city has its own language, and you don’t need to speak it to start a conversation. Faces, gestures, advertisements, posters, and strangers’ expressions offer clues about where you are and who lives here. Walking through London, in the Tube and in the park, there’s plenty to read, even when you don’t understand every word.

In her poem Immigrant, New Zealand-born poet Fleur Adcock captures a small moment of uncertainty and self-awareness in St James’s Park, eight months after arriving in London in 1963.

Immigrant

Fleur Adcock

November ’63: eight months in London.

I pause on the low bridge to watch the pelicans:

they float swanlike, arching their white necks

over only slightly ruffled bundles of wings,

burying awkward beaks in the lake’s water.

I clench cold fists in my Marks and Spencer’s jacket

and secretly test my accent once again:

St James’s Park; St James’s Park; St James’s Park.

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London has welcomed, bewildered, challenged, and entertained generations of newcomers, each finding their own way of interpreting the city. Sometimes the signs are obvious; sometimes the messages get lost in translation. For a street photographer, it’s an invitation to look a little closer.

Here are some of the faces, characters, posters, and personalities you might encounter on London’s streets. Some are selling something, some are making a statement, and others are simply going about their day. Together, they offer a lively, unofficial introduction to a city that never seems to run out of things to say.

All photos Steven P. Harrington

All week BSA is in London with Urban Nation Museum to talk to people about the street art and graffiti scene and Urban Nations’ celebrations of 10 years of existance.