Przemek Vonau arrived in London in 1976 when his family relocated from Poland. He grew up in the city during the late 1970s and 1980s, and he had a camera with him for much of it. The photographs he took during those years are a genuine time capsule — street-level views of a city that looked and felt very different from the London of today.
The centrepiece of this collection is June 7, 1977 — the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee street celebrations. The Jubilee marked 25 years since her accession to the throne in 1952, and central London turned out in force. Flags, bunting, and crowds filled the streets from Regent Street through Piccadilly and into Mayfair.
Regent Street was one of the main arteries of the celebrations. Shops and buildings along the route were decorated, and thousands of people lined the pavements. Vonau’s photos capture the density of the crowds as well as the quieter corners — a parked car here, a shop front there — details that ground the images firmly in their era.
Piccadilly and Mayfair also feature throughout the collection. These neighbourhoods gave Vonau a range of subjects — the grand architecture of the West End, the mix of Londoners and tourists, and the everyday street life that continued even amid the Jubilee festivities.
What makes Vonau’s work stand out is the personal perspective behind it. He wasn’t a professional photographer assigned to cover the Jubilee. He was a young man who had only recently arrived in England, seeing these streets with fresh eyes. That outsider-turned-resident viewpoint gives the photos an unguarded quality that formal press photography rarely achieves.
The fashion, the vehicles, the signage, and the general texture of the city in these frames all point unmistakably to the late 1970s. Britain in 1977 was in the middle of a turbulent decade — economic hardship, labour disputes, and social tensions were ongoing — yet the Jubilee brought a genuine outpouring of public celebration.
By 1978, the Jubilee was over but Vonau kept shooting. The later photos in this collection show central London returning to its everyday rhythm — the same streets, the same landmarks, but without the bunting and the crowds.
Together, the 1977 and 1978 photographs show two sides of the same city. One is dressed up and celebratory; the other is ordinary and working. Both are equally valuable as historical records.
Regent Street in particular appears across multiple frames. Its curved layout and grand Victorian-era facades provided a natural backdrop for the Jubilee decorations, and Vonau returned to it more than once with his camera.
The Mayfair shots add another layer to the collection. This part of London sat just west of the main Jubilee procession routes and carried its own mix of residents, workers, and visitors. The streets there were quieter but no less telling as a record of the period.
Vonau’s collection as a whole spans barely two years, but it covers a remarkable amount of ground. From the packed celebrations of Silver Jubilee day to the quieter streets of 1978, these images document central London at a specific and well-defined moment in its history.
