Charlie Kwai is photographing the excited faces of Piccadilly Circus

London-based street photographer Charlie Kwai has dedicated a whole year to documenting the crossroads at Piccadilly Circus. The busy interchange – home to passing commuters, tired shoppers and ‘whelmed tourists – makes for a great subject for cataloguing a cross-section of people, behaviour and street food etiquette.

Charlie explains that it is this contrast, “of pace, people and culture” that brought him to recording life at Piccadilly Circus in such detail. Regularly focussing extended periods on specific locations and events – whether it be Golden Week in China or river cruising up and down the Thames, Charlie gives time and attention to animating the character of the places and spaces as much as the characters passing through.

Like a modern day August Sander, his dream is to collect enough photographs of Piccadilly Circus that his work can serve as a historical document, a record of the cross-section of society collecting in the West End.