mens attractiveness: Kurdish Connection : Heval **

When Heval first served me in Caffè Nero I thought he was Australian because of his accent but, because of his dark colouring, I thought he might have had a bit of Aborigine blood in him. I was wrong. It transpired that he was Kurdish and his family had emigrated to Australia when he was seven years old.

He left after a week because he found a job as a labourer, which paid him much more money. I thought I had missed an opportunity of getting some interesting portraits of him but again, I was wrong. He rang me a month later and asked if I would take some photographs of him. His girlfriend wanted him to be a model and he needed a portfolio.

He subsequently came round for a photo session but it soon became obvious that he did not have the character to succeed in such a highly-competitive profession. He did not want to take off his shirt because he did not like his hairy chest, he had no intention of building up his physique, and he said he would not stop taking five ecstasy tablets every weekend when he went clubbing. He also lacked any charisma whatsoever and his chin was too large for him to look really handsome.

When he came round a second time he was with his girlfriend. She did not think the photographs were sexy enough. She also said he only looked good in denim and would not model anything else. Heval had the sort of looks which might look good in a Diesel advert, but nothing else. She also kept telling me how he should pose and I became so annoyed that I wanted to hand the camera to her and tell her to take the photographs herself. If I could have had a bit more time with him, without his girlfriend present, I would have looked upon the session as a challenge and got much more successful photographs - but that was not to be.