For the past eleven weeks we have been bringing you the story of Ali Turner, courtesy of her mother Patty (tFS user modelmom). Ali’s journal has chronicled the beginning of her modeling career in Paris at 15 years old (which was in 2002).
Read Part 3 here,Part 7 here,
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January 2003
It’s my first night in Honduras and it’s been a really wild trip. My flight from NY took off this morning at 4:30 am. My first stop was in Houston, Texas. Then I took a much smaller plane to San Pedro, Sula, then another plane from there to an island called Gahula.
At that point, I thought I was where I needed to be, but that was not so – my last flight was to an island called Rotan. The island is very under developed.
The roads were made of dirt and the houses were very small. People were riding bikes everywhere and there were dogs roaming free all over the small town, but when you look out the ocean, you forget about all that. It is beautiful and so blue.
A man introduced himself to me as Mr. Romes, a local rancher and told me that he would be taking me to the hotel where I was staying. He told me he would return in the morning and take me out to pick out the horses I would be riding in the photo shoot. The hotel was small but very nice and it had a little restaurant downstairs where I ate dinner. I ordered spaghetti and a salad and it was very good.
I’m off to bed now….the rest of the crew are already here doing another shoot and I will meet with them in the morning. So much for the stylist being with me for the trip. I’m not even going to mention it when my mom calls.
I woke up early today, had breakfast and went to a ranch to check out the horses. I rode six of them and managed to pick out the ones that i thought would be best for the shoot. The owner has a son and he has been following me around all day.
His name is Devon and he wants me to go out to DINNER TONIGHT! Devon picked me up at 6:00 in a big white pickup and we went to a little restaurant to eat. During the course of dinner it turns out that he is only 14 and DRIVING!! He’s still cute though. I had to be in early. I have a 5:00 am wake up call.
Thursday January 23rd
I am exhausted. The other model was the main girl today and I was in the background in a lot of the shots. The location of the shoot was fabulous.
There are expensive homes on the island and the shoot was located on the beach in front of one of them. I had a couple of shots taken in the water, and the rest of the time I just sat around till we finished at 6:00pm. The other model is leaving tonight and I will have my shoot with the horses tomorrow.
The photographer ask me if i was sure i could ride the horse I had picked out. I told him that I grew up riding and I thought I had picked out the best ones for the shoot. When I returned to the hotel, Devon was waiting for me again. I told him I was off to bed but that I would see him tomorrow. I am going to bed without dinner, I am so tired.
January 24th
Today was very exciting but I am worn out. I had to meet with the crew at 5:00am.again today. The hair stylist had to sew extensions in my hair. I never realized how bad it hurts to have that done. Then it was on to hair and makeup. I ended up looking like I have enough hair for three people.
They brought the horses down to the beach and they looked like they had been to the stylist too. They’re beautiful. They made me wear so many strange clothes but it was all worth it because I loved messing with the horses. It didn’t feel like work to me. We had to switch horses when one of them started rearing up and almost threw me.
A storm was moving in and I guess it scared him. I split my pants during that one. Alban took a couple more shots in the rain and then we took a break for lunch. Devon was at the shoot to take care of the horses and I found out later that he had 73 pictures of me.
Alban even gave him some polaroids. It never stopped raining, so we finished up in the rain and then headed back to the hotel.
I’m leaving tomorrow but I will remember this place for a long time.
