Steven Meisel has shot every Italian Vogue cover for the past 30 years. He once produced 28 Vogue covers in a single year. And he collaborated with Madonna on her book Sex. Yet he has rarely exhibited publicly. Meisel’s decision to present work at Photo London this week is, by any measure, an event. The show focuses on portraits made in London, a city that shaped Meisel’s early career. It includes images shot in pubs, alleyways, Spitalfields, the Docklands, Portobello Road, and women such as Stella Tennant, Plum Sykes, Honor Fraser, and Bella Freud—faces Meisel found before the fashion world did. “I think I’m good with discovering people,” he has said. “I see things in them that they might not see.” —Elena Clavarino