The one sister, Vicky, standing straight up, looking at the camera with a soft, tender smile on her five-year-old face. It is a relaxed expression, a somewhat neutral smile: it could be a smile and it could not be a smile. But the smile lives in her eyes; they give meaning to what the lower half of her face does not commit to. With her back to the sun, no squinting is needed for her to look at us, her viewers. Bright sunlight plays with the fine, loose hairs around her head and those long braids—the right one is looped back up and attached to its beginning; the left perhaps hangs down her back but is mostly hidden from view. Short bangs sit this way and that on her forehead. Although she fully presents herself to us, she also hides something. What that is, I don’t know and would never learn. The younger sister, Vivian, is scrunched up, laughing, looking over to the left, tongue between her teeth; you don’t want her to laugh too much for fear she’ll bite down on that tongue. Her hair is braided too, but her laughing, hunched-up shoulders mask them from view. No loose hairs have escaped her braids. Vivian’s bangs mostly flow in one direction from a cowlick on the left side of her forehead, and the remaining few bangs turn in the opposite direction. Her eyes squint in merriment; what does she see? Not the photographer, who had no need to tell her to “say cheese,” or if he did, she did not hear, being too taken with what she has her mischievous sights on.
Excerpt from Living in Two Worlds: A Memoir
This is an adorable photo. You both look so happy. Your description is lovely.
I absolutely love this picture. She framed it. I now have it. ❤❤❤ this my Auntie. I definitely captured both of your personalities well.