London

Comfort Popoola
Forest Hill via Nigeria
‘I chose this picture because when I first moved to London and was married, Battersea was where I started my family life. I came to this country in my early twenties, a trained nurse, and studied advanced midwifery in Yorkshire. It was friendly but there were very few of people of my colour so I was quite a sight.

'I ended up in London in 1970. None of the Nigerians of my era wanted to stay here forever – we called it “doing a term”. But then I got married and the children arrived. England was tough then: in my career, I was always kept down but they certainly made use of my skills! I was cheap labour in that sense. People used to make comments like, “Oh, Comfort, did you go to school here? You’re so well spoken!” I used to say, “English is our common language in Nigeria. I went to a top school! What do you expect?” You had to have thick skin. Feature continues

'In the early 1980s, I initiated a divorce. You were supposed to put up with it. But I wasn’t going to, I had to think of my children’s future.’

Saratu Mamman
Vauxhall via Nigeria
‘I’m a petroleum engineer; I came to London in 1999 to study. In the build-up to the 2012 Olympics, my image aims to capture London from a modern perspective. My picture captures the stillness of the city at night, in contrast to the daytime buzz. It’s not as chaotic as Nigeria, a developing country where modernity clashes with the traditional. It’s much more organised here. Will I stay in England? I’ve given myself a year to decide. It can be lonely in London as well.’

Dzifa Benson
Stroud Green via Ghana
‘I was born in London, but when I was six I went to live with my grandmother in Africa. I came back at 17. I’m a performance poet; I also work for an MP. My soul is in Ghana but my heart is here. My boyfriend and I thought it would be funny to photograph our trainers as if their owners were falling into the gash in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. We weren’t prepared for the stir it caused: we had a circle of people around us exclaiming what a good idea it was.’

Meriem Aissaoui
Kilburn via Algeria
‘I arrived in the UK 12 years ago from Algiers. My parents chose England, even though the natural place for North Africans is France, because of the negative image of North Africans there: we wanted somewhere more neutral. My photos tend to be split-second: I do my thinking afterwards. I love London’s richness and diversity and that here, people don’t care how you dress. It’s liberating compared with Paris, where you feel the heavy pressure of conformity.’ To view more of Meriem's photography, see www.flickr.com/photos/meriem.

Image of Africa will launch a photography competition across Africa in September. Winners will be exhibited in London in February 2009. See www.afford-uk.org for details.