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“We may lose and we may win; but we will never be here again.”
The Eagles
I’m taking it easy for the summer.
“Summer status” for me means jumping off the prep-shoot-cull-edit-share-ogle-design hamster wheel and taking a big, deep breath.
In summer, I only schedule sessions for newborns and Baby Planners. I’ll be tap-tap-tapping away at my laptop in my Breezy Point beach house in between those sessions making fun things like album design and business planning and marketing calendars and website updates happen behind the scenes, but … the magical family session cycle has otherwise been put on pause.
Summer 2026 has some fun things in store for me personally. We’ve visited kid #3 for a few days in Nashville in June and will bring in August with yet another epic Murphy cousins’ reunion in Croatia. (You know about my Murphy cousin reunions if you’ve been around here for a while. The epic photo above is from our 2017 reunion in Tuscany).
On top of that, we’ll be once again hosting a steady stream of family and friends here at the beach. Many nights of the week, we hop on bikes and join my parents to watch the sun set behind the NYC skyline from their bayside deck. It’s a pretty epic balance between busy and chill. Relaxing and exhausting. Resting and appreciating.
What else… the two “big” kids are living and working in the city now and are showing up regularly here at the beach via the NYC ferry for weekend escapes, usually with some other NYC escapees in tow.
Kid three is loving life in Nashville. He’ll be coming back for the Croatia trip — I can’t wait ot have all six of us (plus another 23!) together for ten days before he goes back to the Music City. (Have you heard his latest single? You can hear it HERE if you’re on Spotify).
The college kid is working as a beach lifeguard by day and scooping ice-cream at the local snack bar by night. He’s also playing in a new band in a lot of his older brother’s haunts, so I’ve got new groupie status as well. I just know that we’ll blink and it’ll be time to go back to school for his sophomore year.
I’ll be catching up, recharging the batteries, working on the business side of things, and spending good quality time with my family and friends. I’ll be back full-time in late August, ready to hit the ground running for yet another crazy fall.The summer schedule is fun, I tell you – and fitting work into all this fun takes some real discipline. But trust me — it’s still happening!
You can still keep up with me here on the blog and on Instagram, where I’ll be getting back to sharing photos from the last gajillion sessions, and possibly penning an occasional thought on life and photos and whatnot now and again.
So, that’s the story. I hope you’ll stick around and see how it goes.
Can’t get enough of my ramblings and this summer pace just isn’t doing it for you? I’ve organized some repurposed content here just for you:
Travel Advice
If you’ve got travel plans, you’ll definitely want to have a look at this article I wrote for the National Association of Professional Child Photographers about how to take photos on your trip that you’ll treasure forever. I shared some thoughts recently about what family travel means to me now — as a mother of ‘big kids’ — that you might enjoy. I’ve also shared some more general tips about Traveling with a Large Family more recently in response to being asked by so many clients how I get past the craziness and just do it.
Photography Advice
If brushing up on your photography is on your summer bucket list, you can take a peek at the various education resources (free and otherwise) I offer HERE. If that whets your whistle for some more in-depth photography instruction, my advice is the same — get yourself on my list for info when offerings and dates are announced.
Photo Organization and Printing Advice
If organizing and printing your personal photos is on your to-do list for the lazy days of summer, you might enjoy my “Cobbler Series” on the blog. I’ve got tips there for organizing and printing your photos as well as for making photo books that will keep the memories they hold at your fingertips to enjoy forever.
If talk of photo organization and album design sounds super interesting to you but you’ve come to terms with the reality that you will never find the time, check out my newest product offering — the Gabriel Companion Book. It’s genius, I tell you.
Remember This Was Beautiful
And whether you’re traveling or staying home, take a second for a refresher on my favorite crazy-time-of-year advice — It’s become a bit of a tradition for me to share this twice a year at Christmastime and every summer. It’s practically an antique at this point — over a decade old with a photo of a preteen who’s now covered in facial hair — but its message is every bit as applicable as it was when I first shared it in 2013. So many people have told me they’ve enjoyed it and taken it to heart, I’m continuing the tradition. (You know you’re curious. Go ahead, click on over. You won’t regret it. Promise).
That’s all for now, friends. If you’d like to book or to chat about anything at all, be sure to use the “contact” button above or shoot me an email. I may be a bit slower to reply, but I promise I’ll get back to you. Any updates are always shared first via email with my VIPs — you can become one here. My annual Christmas Card Micro Mini Session event will be back this fall, and clients who have already booked a date for 2027 will get first dibs on those slots when they’re announced in September.
Thanks for stopping by!
~Jaye
