Maxime Michelet was doing a photoshoot with three sisters when he got the idea to photograph sets of siblings. “It was the first time I’d worked with models who were related,” says the 29-year-old from Marseille, “and the connection between them was just so obvious. I immediately thought, ‘I have to do that again.’”
As he worked on the project, Michelet became increasingly fascinated by the chemistry between people who are related by blood or have simply grown up under the same roof – as he puts it, “the bond that unites and sometimes divides them”. Subjects were initially recruited from his circle of friends, with the net growing wider as word of the project spread. Michelet set up a separate WhatsApp group for each participating family, where creative discussions could take place.
“It was a collaborative process. We discussed their childhood memories and how people wanted their bond to be represented. There weren’t any major disagreements, though some fought hard for their particular idea,” he says. “None of them were professional models. They all had to feel comfortable. There was a degree of therapy involved, too – participants reflected on what it meant for them to have grown up together.”
Inspired by techniques used in fashion photography, Michelet encouraged his models to bring props and accessories to help him stage their ideas, and items found on the day were also used in some pictures.
Most of the participants were in their 20s and 30s, and many now live far away from each other. In some cases, the shoots were the first time that siblings had been photographed together in years, so as well as being shown on gallery walls, the resulting pictures have taken pride of place in family homes. “For so many of us, the earliest photographs we have of ourselves shows us with our siblings,” Michelet reflects. “In revisiting those moments, we ended up creating images that happened to make great gifts for the models’ parents and grandparents.”
Adrien and Adèle
“We wanted to recreate a memory of these two playing on their terrace and in the garden as kids,” says Michelet. “The idea of using a paddling pool came up and I jumped on it. The pose – the older sibling sitting while the younger one stands with her hand on his head – speaks to the power dynamics I felt on the day. We usually expect the eldest child to be bossier and more confident, but as a model, Adèle was more on top of things than Adrien. That sense of competition is central to many sibling relationships, and is something I explored in a number of the photos. This was taken on quite a cold day, so the swimwear was a bit of a challenge. Plus we were in a park, so there were quite a lot of passersby. It was in central Paris though, where people dressed in seemingly random outfits don’t really attract attention.”
Lucie and Rémi
“There’s no specific meaning behind the gigantic helpings of spaghetti and meatballs in this photo, I just included them to make the picture more impactful. I was keen for it to be quite messy. Mealtimes are often when we see family dynamics unfold – I was thinking about that at Christmas, while spending time with my own family. These two are friends of mine, and their family history has shaped their bond as adults and made them strong allies. This photo was taken in a rooftop garden on a very windy day and the backdrop kept falling down. It’s a miracle we got one good picture, it was so chaotic.”
Darius, Attila and Virgile
“A lot of people have embarrassing pictures of themselves in the bathtub as kids. These brothers remembered taking baths together, so that’s what we recreated. They’re close in age and still play rough. I saw that during the time I spent with them. Sometimes two of them would gang up against the other, but the roles kept changing and it was never the same brother being bullied for long. They’re very integrated into each other’s lives – they call all the time, have friends in common and go on holiday together. This picture makes it clear these three belong to each other.”
Margaux, Philippine, Martin and Adelaïde
“This was shot during a storm, and everyone was soaking, but we couldn’t reschedule. Four kids in one family is quite a lot in today’s France, and I was trying to introduce an element of competition. I had them stand in order of age, with the oldest sibling far left. She mentioned that she had always felt like an only child, and each time a new sibling arrived, she thought of them as a new ‘contestant’. I wanted to speak to this by having them engaged in sport or a game. I also asked them to dress as if they were characters in The Matrix, because those movies are so full of fights. However, I got the sense with this family – as with so many others – that the youngest child would ultimately be allowed to win.”
Emma, Tess, Lise and Fanny
“This is about the magic that happens between siblings regardless of blood ties. Emma and Lise (first and third from the left), have the same parents, who later divorced and each had another child with someone else. So the other two girls are not sisters, but still have two half-sisters in common. Tess and Fanny are the same age, go to the same school and hang out together. There was never any question they wouldn’t be included. All four would have sleepovers and this shoot plays with that idea. The father of the older sisters owns some farmland, and we took a bed into one of his fields and staged a pillow fight. Some photographers say the best picture sometimes happens after the action, when the subjects slow down and breathe, and that’s what happened here.”
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Annabelle and Margaux
“These sisters are the only members of their family to have moved to mainland France – everyone else lives thousands of miles away on Réunion, an island in the Indian Ocean. The idea was to show them picking daisies, but on the day of the shoot there was frost on the ground and the daisies weren’t open. I rushed to a shop to buy the flowers you see on the rock. When I started shooting, I spotted the swans approaching across the lake. I’ve had a bad experience with swans before, and at first was worried for the safety of my models, but I think they just wanted to see if we had anything to eat. We ended up luring them into the picture with food. The rock represents where the sisters are from, and also how they’ve become each other’s island.”
Agathe, Max, Louise, Jeanne and Juliette
“One of these siblings is autistic, and she wasn’t involved when we started discussing the shoot. But the others said the thing she most loves doing with them is playing dress-up, so that’s the approach we took. This was taken at their home, where there’s a huge chest of costumes. I just let them play and didn’t direct them in any way – the autistic sister would often become distracted and wander off, so the others were working hard to keep her focused and in the frame. This picture tells a beautiful and deep story about the way the five of them interact. They’re playing different characters – a soldier, a pirate – but they’re all very much equal parts of a family, like five fingers making one glove.”
Marilou and Maddy
“This was improvised on the day, using whatever was available. The first thing the sisters told me was that Maddy, the older sister (right), was pregnant, so I’d asked her to bring a scan and assumed it and her belly would be the focus. The shoot was in Marilou’s tiny apartment. They told me they’d spend hours snuggling together and chatting, so I thought, ‘OK – a bed, two sisters and the image of the baby in the womb.’ There were clothes scattered around and I gathered them up and wrapped them around the sisters, like a textile sculpture. That meant you can’t see which sister is pregnant, and the scan is only just visible. The poster was already there, but it fits – like the two hands you might place on a pregnant belly.”
Marine and Maxime
“Every time I did these shoots someone would ask, ‘Why don’t you pose for one of these yourself?’ I knew it wouldn’t be easy as my sister lives in a different city, has a young daughter and a busy life. And she hates being photographed. But eventually, one weekend when we met up in the Pyrenees, she said yes. It has been snowing, and I had to act quickly. The red liquid in the bottles is meant to represent the blood we share, and the cheap plastic bottles reflect our working-class background. I feel a little guilty that I asked Marine to sit on a frozen lake as she’d just told me she was pregnant with her second child. But that adds to the lyricism of the picture.”
Lili and Jacob
“These two are twins and British. At the time, they were working in the same bookstore in Paris. This photo is meant to demonstrate that although they are comfortable looking the same and even happy to dress alike, Jacob and Lili like very different things when it comes to reading – we made books the theme for their photograph. The shoot took place in Jacob’s flat. After we’d tried some other poses, I asked him to grab a book at random for the last shot, which we agreed was the best. As it happens, Sempé is one of my favourite illustrators. The fact the book is called Face to Face is a great coincidence, as is the fact that the colours on the cover match what they’re wearing.”
