Tilion is my little brother, and not surprisingly one of my very first photographic subjects. When all I knew about photography was what I absorbed from obsessively reading the “how to” guide that came with my parent’s old camera, Tilion would obligingly pose for me. Back then, we spent most of our time outside of school together. We would read for hours, ride our scooters, play street hockey at the school behind our house, and eat as many popsicles a day as we could get away with. We understood each other without words, the easy love of siblings.
As kids seem to do, we grew up. I moved away for school, and he went climbing mountains in Nepal and exploring in New Zealand. We didn’t talk as much. Then, one day last summer while I was wrangling a puppy and Tilion was off in London, I got an excited text. He had met a girl. Since my brother will forever be the most picky and opinionated person I know, I didn’t have to meet her to know there had to be something special about her, but as soon as I did I knew I’d been right. Emanuelle is just as loud and passionate as Tilion is, and they bounce off each other like dancers moving to some wild song. They talk over each other, make each other laugh, argue happily about anything and everything with a sweet stubbornness. Their love is not a quiet thing.
I was lucky enough to spend a whole month with Tilion and Emanuelle over the holidays, and I think these playful beach photos that we captured together at Camp Westwind represent them perfectly. Though to be fair, it’s easy to be this happy and in love on the Oregon coast (AKA my favorite place in the world.) Who isn’t in love in the soft salty breeze of the ocean?
