Whether minutes or years apart, inseparable or worst enemies, siblings often epitomize that love/hate relationship we admittedly develop with certain people. Mindy Gallagher captured one of those (however rare) moments when siblings—if you’re lucky enough to have them—can’t help but love each other.
Laeney, then 6, and Fiona, then 4, had just come home from a birthday party on a warm summer afternoon with matching face paint and matching dresses. “They often surprise my husband and I,” Mindy says. “How they sometimes act like twins, even though they’re two years apart.” Laeney and Fiona seem to already have that sisterly bond—choosing to dress alike and often finishing each other’s sentences. In a way that subtlety defines the often-unintended similarities between siblings, Mindy captured the fact that “without them knowing it, every time they turned their heads to look at me or each other, their little painted faces were forming a rainbow,” she says. Like Laeney and Fiona, chances are you and your siblings, when put together, create something truly beautiful. But hey, the rules of opposites apply, right?
From snapping pictures as a young girl with a Polaroid camera to snapping pictures of her own young girls, Mindy practices her hobby of photography in the spirit of “capturing and remembering everyday moments that pass by too fast.” Photography can in fact serve as a way to freeze those beautiful moments in time, and “part of being an artist at heart is seeing and finding compositions around you and wanting to document it,” she says. In this particular frozen moment in time, the composition is truly beautiful and unaltered. It captures innocence, natural beauty and a pure joy for life. Hopefully Laeney and Fiona stay best friends.
As the classic movie White Christmas seems to put it best, “Lord, help the mister who comes between me and my sister…and Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man.” Ah, siblings. Can’t live with ‘em. But more importantly, can’t live without ‘em.
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This photo received an honorable mention in the People category in our 2013 Focus on Maple Grove photo contest. Catch the 2014 winner in the People category next month.
