Amanda Barnes’s Story: The sexually unprofessional photographer

Hi, my name is Amanda Barnes. And I am a victim of sexual assault by a well known photographer in mostly beauty pageants in the southeast. He constantly stressed to me what a “favor” he was doing for me by shooting me for free, when he normally charges 100s of dollars for shoots. Making a long story short, I showed up, expecting one of his employees to be present during the shoot only to find myself alone with him. He got me intoxicated the entire time, every time I felt uncomfortable and tried to leave he would tell me I had to stay because I was too intoxicated to leave at that time. He took photos of my private areas every time the wind would blow and they would be exposed, 100% against my will and without my consent. I remember it somehow went from there to me laying on his couch while he stuck his fingers inside of me and began to Please himself. It was the beginning of my modeling career, and given his power in the industry, I was terrified that if I spoke up about it when it happened that no one would believe me and that it would ruin my career before I had barely even gotten it started, so I forced myself to forget, and I apparently did an amazing job in doing so because I did, entirely. Until I saw his name on social media just a few days ago and every memory I had of this came rushing back. At the time, I didn’t even know what had happened to me was sexual abuse, but after hearing all the girls in the Nassar case give their testimonials, I related to every single one of them in regards to what he did to me. He should not be allowed to continue working with and shooting all these pageant and swimwear models whatsoever. I’ve reached out to a few girls he has worked with in the past, and almost all of them gave me similar stories of how he made them Feel as uncomfortable as he made me feel. This deserves to out there in the public eye. He does not deserve to be able to continue this career of his without any action being held against him. He is the definition of a sexual pretador and should be seen as nothing short of it. He hurt me in more ways than I could’ve ever imagined. I wish for the life of me I would have never even met him. He is disgusting.