Each summer my family endeavors to escape for a week, and in years past we have always fled to Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. This year was no different, but we decided to invite Melissa’s family from Cleveland to come along as well for the first time. She and I departed a day early to camp on the island, leaving Madelyn with my mother so they could travel down the following day. It was the first time we had together just the two of us, in a long while and we camped, swam, wandered and did nothing until the rest of the family arrived the next afternoon. The week was just what I needed, a time to turn-off and actually think without the tyranny of the urgent dictating my next move. This has hands-down been the busiest year I’ve had since first picking up a camera, but the summer was dreadfully slow, as it often is. This allowed me to stay home and spend some time with my girls while working on projects and proposals, though by the time vacation came around money was so tight that not working wasn’t relaxing anymore – quite the opposite. Thankfully some assignments started to trickle in while we were at the beach, giving me something to do after coming back home to a week of bachelor life while Melissa and Madelyn continue their vacation by visiting friends and family in Ohio. 

Every day on Ocracoke necessitated beach time and on several mornings the men got up early to fish before the rest of the family was ready to cool off in the often tumultuous waves. The shifts in weather during the trip were dramatic, from hazy mornings to hot afternoons, rainy evenings and starry nights. We all cooked and ate together in big family-style meals, read books, napped, fished, played board games and flirted with the rip tide. I drank good beer with my brother-in-law and had whiskey time each afternoon with my dad. Any family gathering is influenced by an undercurrent of existing conflicts or tensions, but those fell in line behind everyone’s mutual need to just be there and to remember that despite our independent lives, family is the stitching that holds us together. I can’t be more grateful for this reminder. 

A big thanks to Peter McCollough who cranked out a last-minute edit of this work, which I built on with some additional images. He also edited last year’s family vacation images, which you can see here.

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Matt Eich is a photographer who is based in Norfolk, Virginia.  His column, “In My Back Yard” appears every other Wednesday.  He is a Founding Member of LUCEO Images.

Each summer my family endeavors to escape for a week, and in years past we have always fled to Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. This year was no different, but we decided to invite Melissa's family from Cleveland to come along as well for the first time. She and I departed a day early to ...