Modelling! – uhh, who, me? (a short and fun read)

I was recently asked to model for a terrific artist, who’s name I’ll disclose in a minute. I was a bit shocked, truth be told, because I’ve never considered myself a model. Anyone seen Sex and the City where Carrie Bradshaw was asked to model on a catwalk, but she did it as a writer and not an actual professional runway model? Well, that’s me, except I’m not a professional writer, but I’m no runway model either. What I’m trying to say is that anyone can be considered a model, in terms of who you are inside and out. I’m not the so-called appropriate height to be a runway model, and as for the rest of me, well, judge for yourself in the photos below. I was named “model of the month” and the photos were put up for display in the window of a hair salon, which is in one of the hippest and happening neighbourhoods in Madrid, during the month of December in 2016. A copy of one of the photos sits on the wall in that very salon. Who is this mysterious person artist who put on my makeup, styled my hair, made me look like a fabulous Christmas ornament, and finally, snapped pictures of me all day? His name is Shimada Kemp, and he’s the owner of his hair salon, Shimada Kemp. All I’m going to say for now is that he’s the most professional hair stylist and makeup artist I’ve ever met and he does a darn good job of everything involved in his work.

I’ll be signing off now but this won’t be the end of hearing about Shimada, as I’ll be writing more posts about him in the near future. For now, indulge your eyes in his glamorous artwork he did on me. There’s also a video on the “making of” which you can watch and an interesting article written by Traneka René, who interviewed me. Traneka founded a unique and amazing group called Melanin Madrid (click on the group name to follow the link).

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To watch the “making of” video, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsnMA4QotLM#action=share.

To read the interview about being model of the month, go to https://lamodelodelmes.wordpress.com/2017/01/09/making-of-la-modelo-del-mes-december-2016/.

There’s also a translation of the interview in Spanish.

Signing off –

Shamim Sobhani