My time at The Times

Wednesday:
Photographer stalking: Richard Pohle
Was sent an email about what I was doing on Tuesday. Meeting Richard at the Old Library on Uxbridge Road, which meant me trying to find it. Got the tube to Shepard's Bush station, and was early so I could find the building, walked around the station looking for No7. In the end I called Richard asking where abouts on the road it was, and eventually found it (I was at the completely wrong end). He was shooting some portraits of Francesca Annis for an interview, and got excited about the building. It was a old library, obviously, which was being turned into theater, and the play was a way of trying out different parts of the main room to see which bits worked best. Francesca was very nice, and cooperative with the photographs, and let me take some while Richard did his. It was a really interesting setting, one of the walls was covered in pages from books and it was generally quite a rugged place. It also had a really big window which let in lots of natural light. It was a really lovely setting.
After the portraits we went to the Crussh cafe place, where we waited for the next job. There was a call about an event going on at The Imperial Collage London, where a group of Eton boys were having physics lessons with a group of secondary school boys from around London. Richard seemed apprehensive at first, considering the fact that we knew hardly anything about what it was going to be like, just there were these 2 very different set of boys from different backgrounds going to be working together. So could be interesting. We met the journalist at the building and then met one of the London Headmasters, he led us to the room. It then became clear we weren't altogether expected. Turns out the Eton lot had no idea we were coming and refused to let us take any pictures of their boys or interview them. There also wouldn't have been much good taking pictures of them all together, as when we got there they were all sitting at computer desks, mixed up and in regular clothes (no fancy uniforms) and mostly working from the desks. In the end, the session finished and the Eton boys left, which meant Richard had to make do with what he had. He asked them to sit together with the head and discuss anything, and he took pictures from all different angles and the journalist jotted down notes from this and asked questions about the experience. I tried to take down the names of the boys, but richard finished it off. When we left he said they almost certianly wouldn't use the story, but it was important for him to get some pictures to prove he had gone and tried to make something out of a terrible situation.
Before I met up with Richard at 11, I had gotten in at 7:30, and I spent some time going round Covent Garden and the British Museum.