Model of the Moment: Diandra Forrest

One new model that is causing a lot of tongues to wag on message boards is Diandra Forrest. Discovered by Shameer Kahn who said of her:

It was a couple of months ago when I first met Diandra. She was walking down 34th street and I took one look at her and was like "Wow... That girl is beautiful!" She was moving soooo fast and I was not going to let this one slip by! So I finally caught up with her and spoke to her about modeling and she was very interested. We met up a lot of times after that and then I started to take pictures of her as often as we can. There was something specific that I wanted to do with her because I knew she was a special girl and we both worked towards achieving that. I finally presented her to agencies when she was ready to be revealed, and it was such a pleasure for me to finally share this precious diamond that I have been keeping under the radar. I am proud to say that Diandra is now signed to Elite.

There's a certain "ick" factor to what he says there, at least in my reading. I especially don't like the part where he speaks of her being "revealed" to agencies like she's some exotic bird.

Generally speaking, the depiction of albinos in the media hasn't been very positive. Chances are that if a movie has an albino character, that person is usually the bad guy or something not quite human and witchy.

This is not to say that the woman is not striking. She has truly beautiful features that have nothing to do with her skin color. If she were brown skinned and this beautiful, I wonder if Kahn would have walked right by her without a second glance.

That said, I think she photographs beautifully and I sincerely hope that she's just not used as this season's latest runway gimmick next season. I hope that her presence will change, if even just a little bit, the average person's perception of albinism and beauty. Most of all my hope for her is that she gets to work with designers and photographers that will see her for more than just an "interesting contrast shot" and book her because she's a lovely model and not just to exploit her looks in the same manner that some very dark skinned black models have been exploited.

Opinions?

source: TFS, Elite