Positive Exposure originated from one chance encounter — and one groundbreaking idea. Rick Guidotti, an award winning photographer, worked in NYC, Milan, Paris and London for a variety of high profile clients including Yves St Laurent, Revlon and L’Oreal. His photography credits spanned household publications like GQ, ELLE, and Harper’s Bazaar. Yet, he worked within the industry’s restrictive conventions. He was always told, who was beautiful! Rick founded POSITIVE EXPOSURE after a chance encounter in 1997 with a young lady living with albinism at a bus stop in New York City. Albinism is a genetic condition that results with the absence of pigmentation in the hair and skin. As an artist, Rick was taken by her extraordinary beauty. In a quest for a better understanding of albinism, Rick sought out medical textbooks, where he was affronted by the dehumanizing images depicting disease, lacking all humanity. It was this experience which forced Rick to turn his lens from the more traditional ideas of beauty, to the beauty and richness of human diversity. In June 1998, Positive Exposure was launched in a LIFE Magazine cover story entitled “Redefining Beauty.” Guidotti’s five-page photographic essay featured people with albinism and powerful quotes addressing stigma, discrimination, prejudice, hatred and exclusion simply because of a physical difference.