And usually when I travel, I stay somewhat plugged into my work from the road, but this time was different.
This trip was something we've been waiting for for a long time, and I chose to stay unplugged from my laptop the whole time. It was awesome. (And the cool thing was that I still made money even though I wasn't working, thanks to residual income, which was also awesome. But that's a conversation for another day). :)
Brielle is 5'10" and skinny, and beautiful. She's had a dream for a long time to be a high fashion runway and editorial model. She's been researching the industry, watching videos and training herself on how to walk, working out to stay in the shape she needs to be in, etc. She takes it very seriously.
Once she got her braces off in September, she got scouted by a local modeling agency and we interviewed with them.
She decided she wanted to hold out for one of the bigger agencies. She had a list of the ones that she really wanted to get in with... and the process was tricky because of COVID- the in-person castings that would normally be happening were no longer happening, and everything was moved online.
Since everyone was submitting their applications online, it became very hard to be seen at all.
Then, one of my friends who is an actress sent Brielle's photos to some of her friends in New York who have agencies. Most of them said she would need to wait to be seen by them until she's 18 (she's 16 now)... but one of them liked her photos and wanted to interview her.
The interview went well and she was offered a contract, but she decide she still wanted to hold out for one of her top agencies.
Well, the guy who we had interviewed with, although he was disappointed that she didn't want to sign with him, sent her pictures to an agency out in LA who thought would be a good fit for her (he did this without us knowing about it).
Long story short, they liked what they saw and wanted to meet Brielle. And, it turned out to be one of the agencies on her list!
We interviewed with them a couple of times, and she ended up getting signed.
This has been super exciting excpet that we had to wait for several months to get started because of the quarantine in NYC due to the pandemic.
We've been waiting for that to be lifted so that we could go meet with some photographers in New York City so that Brielle could get her test shoot done... and, in the meantime, we got her passport underway, because the agency wants to send her to Asia (another dream of hers!).
So, last weekend we finally got to go to NYC for a couple of photo shoots. It was absolutely incredible.
I can honestly say that it was one of the most amazing experiences in my lifetime, watching my daughter's dream come true, and just watching her, and the photographer, in their zones of genius.
The photographer was AMAZING, and so was Brielle. I had tears streaming down my face the whole time as I watched all of her hard work paying off.
She worked hard for 6 hours... she had a makeup artist, a stylist, and they dressed her in 6 different outfits throughout the day and had her do all kinds of different poses, etc.
The photographer, a total perfectionist and genius, even changed the music accordingly to get Brielle into the right 'vibe' for each of the shots.
It was so cool to see her in all of these amazing designer outfits and, although I knew she'd do great, seeing her in action was mind blowing for me.
I received feedback from the photographer (who has worked with a lot of famous people and tons of models) such as,
"I cannot believe this is Brielle's first photo shoot. She gets it."
and
"Brielle was born to be a model."
And more, but you get the picture.
Here's a shot of Breille during that first photo shoot:
