Identical twins Martha Williams and Mary Heater were best friends while growing up in Elmhurst. But things began to change in high school. “There was a point where we needed to have different friends,” says Martha, who started studying photography around that time as part of an effort to “be my own person.”
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Things changed again four years ago when Mary–then a junior in college–got married, moved back to the suburbs, and gave birth to a baby girl. Martha started spending more time with her sister, but at that point she hadn’t considered photographing her, “Probably because I was still wanting to have my own identity.”
“Our parents lived in a religious community and the leader named us,” says Martha. (The family quit the group when the twins were five.) “She said to name the first twin Mary because she’s supposed to represent the spiritual world. I was supposed to be more interested in achieving things in the material world.
“Sometimes I’ll walk in on my sister doing laundry and I’ll say, ‘Stop. Stay there.’ I’ve already altered the situation. So I guess it’s more about experiencing an idea or capturing a moment. They’re idealized or symbolic moments.”
