The love of sisters is hard to explain. By photographing that relationship, I’m able to show without having to necessarily explain.
With only 23 months separating my oldest daughter from my twin girls, there’s not much that they don’t do together. And part of my joy and excitement of being a mom and a photographer, comes from capturing all facets of their sisterhood. There’s the good, and the bad, and the just plain ugly. It’s all authentic and worth capturing as part of their unique sibling relationship. Over the last 4 years, here are some dynamics that I’ve gravitated toward when shooting their sisterly bond.
Love and Rivalry.
Happily playing one minute, and then hitting each other the next. It usually doesn’t take long for things to go from one extreme to the other. The times that they are loving and affectionate towards each other are some of my favorite to capture, but the rough and tumble stuff is also a side of them worth documenting as well.
Serious and Silly.
My girls know how to quickly flip the switch from serious moments to silly ones, and back to serious again. I love how I can get such a great range of emotion from them in such a short period of time. Over time they’ve learned that just a moment of seriousness and cooperation usually earns them the right to be silly and do whatever they want for the camera.
Older and Younger.
Because I have twins, I don’t really have a middle child, even though I have 3 children. So I have a first-born and two “babies”. And in typical first-born fashion, my oldest is such a mature and independent child, whereas the twins are the babies of the family and certainly exhibit those kind of behaviors and characteristics. Also, my oldest often times gets to do things “first” and the twins are left waiting around until they are old enough to do it too. These images were taken close to 2 years apart at our neighborhood park. When the twins could finally flip over the bar, it was a momentous occasion!
Big and Little.
As I mentioned earlier, there’s less than 2 years between my oldest and the twins. My oldest is tall for a 6-year-old whereas the twins are on the smaller side. It’s interesting to capture their size difference when they are so close in age. There are also times when the twins will gang up on my oldest because they know that with two, they at least have a chance to win, even though she’s bigger.
Alike and Opposite. I have three blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls but that doesn’t mean they are all the same. Between the three of them, there’s a mix of tomboy and princess, rule-follower and rule-breaker, and independence and clinginess. I love when those characteristics translate into perfectly photographable moments that authentically capture who they are, separate from being someone’s sister.
