I met these beautiful 4-year-old twins, Aylin and Andrea, the first day in Mary Ellen Mark’s photography class in Oaxaca, Mexico. The girls were students at CORAL, a school for the deaf. Mary Ellen said the intimate style of my work and my love for children made it a perfect choice for my introductory class with her.

As I left the room, she warned me the work could easily fall into sentimentalism. Don’t let it, she said. Take control. Don’t let anything get in my way. And don’t come back until I’d nailed it.

Thus began a now 15-year relationship with the girls, their parents, their grandparents and their two younger sisters, Lore and Lupe. Along the way, we navigated a cochlear implant for Aylin, which was a learning experience for both girls, and four quinceañeras, traditional 15th birthday celebrations — theirs and their sisters’.

I’m not sure any of them knew what to do with me at first. When I didn’t get enough photos that first day at the school, I asked the girls if I could follow them home. Eight years later, as my husband and I sat in the hospital while Aylin had her implant surgery, their mother, Lorena, confessed she thought I might kidnap her girls. But she soon came to see I was simply in love.