One of my favourite films is Koyaanisqatsi, directed in 1983 by Godfrey Reggio with a sublime score by Philip Glass. This is the film that inspired every time-lapse sequence that is now a cliché in adverts and documentaries.

I saw it again recently and was struck by how old-fashioned the world it documents looked but how pertinent the ecological humanist theme still is. Towards the end there is a moving sequence in which people just stare motionless into the lens accompanied by the mesmerising chorus of the soundtrack. I find myself drawn into an intense bond of humanity with these anonymous citizens. I was reminded of these shots when I visited the website set up by Hal Satterthwaite to accompany his exhibition 1,000 Faces of Walthamstow.

Satterthwaite had the idea for his project when he returned home after working for two years in Sydney as a nurse. He was struck by how happy multicultural London felt after Australia, where he thought they had handled racial integration very badly. He wanted to portray and celebrate our world-class melting pot, the largely cheerful co-existence of all the different races and cultures. It is a mixture that makes our capital probably the most diverse place on earth.

For 14 months, twice a week for five hours, Satterthwaite would hang about in Walthamstow Town Square and accost passers-by, asking if he could take their portrait. He had a little trouble getting some Muslim women to participate, but he was usually able to strike a deal with them as they always wanted their children included, so he said that he would photograph their kids if they let him take their portrait as well.

This policy of including all groups paid off. When he checked the racial mix of his subjects he found that it tallied exactly with the official statistics, 54 per cent white, 22 per cent Asian, 21 per cent Afro-Caribbean, 3 per cent other. With funding from Awards for All he has printed the A4 portraits on Foam-X board. The result is to be displayed — as he always intended — in the location where they were taken, in the town square.

The idea of photography as a leveller and bonder of humanity is by no means new. In 1955 Edward Steichen curated a show called The Family of Man at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. From two million images sent in he selected 503 pictures by 273 photographers from 68 countries. The idea was to put together a snapshot of the global community inspired by the utopian zeal of 1950s humanism, a reaction to the cataclysm of the Second World War. The result was probably the most popular photography show yet mounted. It toured 37 countries and was seen by more than nine million people. The catalogue is still in print. Like Koyaanisqatsi it was criticised by the intelligentsia for being dangerously naive and for treating photography as a means of communication rather than an art form.

Considering the title of his project, I was surprised that Satterthwaite had not seen a book called 1,000 Families: The Family Album of Planet Earth by the German photographer Uwe Ommer. Ommer spent four years travelling 160,000 miles round the globe and photographing families from every continent against the same white backdrop. It is a book that cannot fail to delight for it touches on a deep human interest — other people, in all their subtle variety and weird familiarity.

It would be easy to criticise 1,000 Faces of Walthamstow for similar reasons to the flak levelled at Koyaanisqatsi and The Family of Man but I think Satterthwaite has achieved his goal of showing a dignified representative sample of the borough’s residents. The treatment does have a democratising effect. Compared with how I feel after seeing a thousand living Walthamstovians, looking at the photos I do find myself feeling a tad more generous towards the residents of E17. Everyone is given a chance to meet our eye on equal terms. Divested of their corporeal presence that may provoke more strongly our fear or lust, annoyance or ridicule, in the photos everyone is given his or her moment of calm nobility that is often hard to spot or appreciate in the street.

This collection of photographs has echoes of that most civilised Mediterranean ritual la passeggiata. A whole community outside, strolling, meeting, posing and looking at each other in the cool of a summer’s evening. 1,000 Faces of Walthamstow is open till 8pm so you could combine a visit with a walk mingling with the real thing.

1,000 Faces of Walthamstow will be on display in Walthamstow Town Square from Monday until August 13 (www.1000faces.co.uk)