My Girls- A Weekly Personal Project

I know it has been near silent on my blog this year. So I’m not going to lie, it has been a rough year.  There were the normal trials we all go through, but then my little world came crashing down. In late March my wonderful Mother was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. It was a shock to myself and my siblings, but we all kept positive and prayed the chemo would do it’s job. It was painful but we pushed on, supporting and loving her through her difficult days.  Then, less then 2 months later,  my beautiful older sister was diagnosed with the exact same Leukaemia. Shock and dismay doesn’t begin to describe the how we all felt. But, my family and I  tried to remain positive  and watched both our mom and our  sister put up the most amazing fight possible. In late August we received some great news, my sister had found a bone marrow donor and was able to receive a bone marrow transplant. What a tremendous  gift a stranger has given her and my entire family. She is still at Tom Baker Centre in Calgary, receiving excellent care and support. But sadly, my mother lost her fight against cancer in November after remaining positive and grateful the entire year through.  She was true example of living a life full of gratitude for the blessings we have been given. How lucky we were to have her as a mother.

So yes, it was quite the year over here. It all feels like a whirlwind. But even though my blog was neglected, my clients were not and I photographed so many amazing families and couples this year. I even kept up with a little personal project of taking pictures of my girls every week. They are always holding hands- a sign of the deep bond they share- and I decided I wanted to photograph their love for each other while they’re both still little. I know they might not always want to call each other “best friends” or beg to “sleepover” in each other’s beds, so for now I’ll document it the best way I know how and cherish these images of my little girls forever. I actually never thought I’d share the series publically as shooting for perfection was never my plan, but rather it was a way to keep my camera on me and capture our big moments and every day memories.  Now with everything that has happened this year it feels really good to write this post and show all the wonderful parts of 2015. It’s also cleansing to remember that life isn’t always perfect, sometimes it’s grainy and ordinary, but that’s what makes it life.

So here it is, 52 images of my girls holding hands from each week in 2015. We explored, we traveled, we camped, we read, we travelled some more, we played, we got messy, we laughed, we cried. 2015 was full to brim of every emotion I could imagine. And I’m grateful for it.

“Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary.

That’s just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.” -L.R. Knost