This is the second part of Ali's story, courtesy of her mother Patty (tFS user modelmom). Ali's journal chronicles the beginning of her modeling career in Paris at 15 years old (which was in 2002).

Read Part 1 here.

As we are looking around, a nice lady that speaks English approaches us and ask if we are lost. She asks if I’m a model and what agency am I with. She mentions her name but it means nothing to me and we find our way to the first casting of the day After a few more castings and a test we return to the agency to find out the lady we met was Ellen von Unwerth and she would like to meet with me the next day. We still have no idea who the lady is but my agent says that she is a very important photographer and to dress in something that makes me look older for our meeting.

I went to Ellen’s office the next morning. She took some Polaroids and asked if I was available to work on Thursday. The answer was no—because of the age thing. That was my only contact with the world-famous photographer.

In the afternoon we walked to another casting that we thought was close by, but we ended up at the wrong address. While we were backtracking we walked across a bridge over the Seine River and sat down to rest. I’m not sure where he came from but a horrible street person started harassing my mom till he had her in tears.