London Diary is part of Peter Bialobrzeski’s long-term City Diaries project, which he has been pursuing since 2013. The book records a single week in London, from December 1 to December 8, 2022, and marks his return to a city he had left nearly thirty years earlier. In a prefatory note he observes that the megalopolis now presents itself differently, and that the financial and economic hub is slowly but steadily turning into a kind of Singapore. That observation sets the book’s tone: London appears not as a monument but as a working system, with photographs and diary entries registering how political and economic pressures leave marks on ordinary streets.

The method is consistent across the series. Bialobrzeski works with a seemingly objectifying aesthetic, holding the camera steady rather than reaching for rhetorical heat, so that cultural differences increasingly hidden by globalization can be seen rather than merely asserted. Because every title in the City Diaries shares the same format and page count, individual volumes can be read against one another; Bangkok and Unna, Wuhan and Wolfsburg occupy the same shelf, and comparison becomes part of the reading. Current political and social developments are also reflected in Bialobrzeski’s images and diary entries.

London Diary is issued by Hartmann Books as a softcover with flaps at 14 by 21 centimeters, 96 pages, with 45 illustrations. The design is by Sarah Fricke of Distaff Studio, and the text is by the photographer. Peter Bialobrzeski’s work has been exhibited worldwide, and he is the recipient of numerous awards, including two World Press Photo Awards (2003, 2010). In 2012 he was granted the Dr. Erich Salomon Award by the German Photographic Society.