This snippet from my 1986 Filofax diary reminds me of a few things about my early career as a photographer:

1. I didn’t copy many of the details from the written job sheets into my diary. Mistake
2. I didn’t keep a stock of film to hand and had to pop into the office to collect some rolls of transparency (trannie) film. Another mistake
3. Trying to get paid was a regular note in the diary for that year and most of 1987. This note referred to a job I had shot for a law firm a month previously
4. I have no memory of who Bill Piper is or was

I left college with a Higher National Diploma in Advertising and Editorial Photography in June 1986 and I had worked as an assistant for a couple of photographers whilst on the course. I continued to get the odd few days work from them until early September 1986 when I landed a three month contract to cover for one of the staff photographers at Haymarket Publishing who was off on maternity leave. For all sorts of reasons I also got to spend quite a bit of time working in the darkroom there but that was also fine because there was no better way to learn than printing the pictures of more experienced colleagues.

On Tuesday 16th of September 1986 I was sent to take some specific photographs at the London Stock Exchange. It was shortly before the “Big Bang” – the historic day when a high percentage of the share trades done moved from the iconic trading floor to electronic systems. My brief was to get a general view of the trading floor in colour from an observation window overlooking a section of it.

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