For the past several years, my family and I have had a groundhog-day-summer. At this point, I don’t really have to think much about where we are going for the holidays. The schedule goes something like this: Tokyo to St. Louis to Asheville to Toronto (well, Brampton) and then back to Tokyo.

Some summers we might make a slight deviation from our usual schedule. This year, we spent a few days in Chicago to catch up with some good friends and lazed a week away at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (I hadn’t been in twenty years). My wife and I had our first weekend alone as a couple without our son (we had a staycation in Asheville and enjoyed our mountain home) and even managed to spend a night in Durham, North Carolina to see Ali Wong (I love a crass, liberal comic).

Summertime is downtime. June and July are reserved for relaxing together, to do a bunch of nothing which, in reality, means that we are doing everything. My family gets quality time together. We hit the pool, play in creeks, and eat a lot of good food (I gained 11kg this summer thanks to southern breakfast plates and as many BBQ ribs as I could pop into my mouth). We watch the fireflies in the yard at dusk and lay in the hammock for as long as we can. Most importantly, we spend time with the people we love the most but who live furthest away, the tribe that has been by our side for as long as we can remember.

Another pleasure of summertime is that I take a break from professional photography. With few exceptions, I rarely take editorial, commercial, or portrait commissions when I visit North America. The time is somewhat sacred. Our annual North American journey is a mini-sabbatical. The summer grants me the opportunity to rest my eyes from the hours upon hours of editing required from a pro photographer. The break gives my arms and back respite from the strain of my photography kit. The summer holiday provides me the mental space to reflect on what I want to do (and not do) in the season that will inevitably kick off as soon as we return to Japan.

But just because I take an eight-week break from constant shooting doesn’t mean that I don’t pull out the camera every now and then on vacation. Instead of commissions, I get to turn my camera to the thing I love the most; my family. I also get the opportunity to point the camera at anything I damn well choose without the pressure of producing quality work under deadline or creative constraint.

The images below are a small collection of the snapshots I took this past summer. These shots aren’t groundbreaking or magazine-worthy. These pictures weren’t shot for any purpose other than to simply click the shutter for the love of it. These snapshots serve as souvenirs from the summer of 2019 and are a reminder of a time when life was simple, easy, and full of joy.