Mom and Lorraine

Several summers ago my sister Lorraine and I brought Mom down to my Fort Worth studio “for a quick peek at where I make pictures.” The pretense was a tour; the motive was celebration. I’d photographed plenty of strangers, but rarely the two women whose love rehearsed every shot I’ve ever taken. I wanted a portrait that honored the easy shorthand they shared — not because time was running out, but because every season of their lives deserves its own frame on the wall.

The photograph didn’t freeze them in time so much as it crystallized an ongoing dialogue — one more stanza in the poem they wrote each day by simply showing up for one another.

We arrived after lunch, teasing one another about who was the better driver. I rolled down an off-white seamless, set a posing bench near the background, and adjusted the large softbox above them. No props, no elaborate wardrobe. Just Mom in a crisp white blouse that made her silver hair glow, and Lorraine in a T-shirt that said she’d rather be comfortable than theatrical.

With the camera ready, I stepped back and invited them to forget the camera. Mom’s smile appeared first — the same calm curve that soothed childhood fevers and launched a thousand birthday candles. Lorraine, the quieter counterpoint, eased closer, looped one arm around Mom’s shoulders, the other wrapping around to meet it, and closed her eyes as though leaning into a favorite song. The embrace wasn’t staged; it was muscle memory, decades in the making. My shutter whispered along, but the real authors were sitting on that bench.

When I reviewed the files later, small details kept tugging at me: the relaxed drape of the handmade necklace around Mom's neck, the glint of Lorraine’s bracelet catching stray light, the tilt of their heads that suggests nature and nurture sometimes braid themselves together. The photograph didn’t freeze them in time so much as it crystallized an ongoing dialogue — one more stanza in the poem they wrote each day by simply showing up for one another.

This image now hangs by my desk as a compass. On hard days it reminds me that grace can be practiced, that comfort can look like a simple hug, and that the best photographs aren’t trophies wrestled from reluctant subjects but gifts accepted when love steps naturally into the light.

Who do you love so much that you hate disappointing them, and what small everyday moment with them brings a smile to your face?

— Lawrence

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