David's Diary: Friday, February 21, 2003

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

The Tube

The main goal of my trip to London is to find a market for my Mediterranean photographs. Today is my busiest day for meetings. I am up early and at the tube station at a good time, but with the Central Line closed all the other lines seem to be impossibly slow. I soon realize that I'm going to be late at the rate we are going so I get off, go up to street level, and try to flag down a taxi. When I finally do, the driver tells me that he won't take me because where I want to go is outside central London and he won't go there.

London Traffic

I eventually make my first meeting with Bubbles Photo Library ( www.bubblesphotolibrary.co.uk), arriving only twenty minutes late. Thank goodness for mobile phones so that I could call them to let them know what was happening. I had contacted them earlier in the week for the first time. Even on short notice, they were willing to spend an hour with me and go over my portfolio. I didn't have anything for them to use, but I came away with three pages of notes of things that I could take pictures of that they would be interested in.

Black Taxi

As the day moved ahead, I rush from meeting to meeting using all of London's transportation options. I meet a publisher and a London-based professional photographer, who I have lunch with. It all seems to go by in a blur, but I am learning a lot and that's the point. It's exciting to be working on something new.