Amber... BamberBoo

Sometimes you know you want to help...

...but you don't know what to do. Sometime, someone thinks of something and you know you can do it!
Last Sunday, tragedy struck. A true, real-life tragedy hit randomly and cruelly. It fell on the unsuspecting life of a very dear friend of mine, and my sister's best friend... Delann lost her husband to a heart-attack. A cruel twist of fate for one of the fittest men I have ever know. He was 44 years old with 3 beautiful children and wonderful wife... It has left those who know the family shocked, shaken and stunned. So sudden, so unexpected, so... unbelievably sad. I can't bear to think how it has left my friend!!
Not even the strong belief that this wonderful father and husband is in a better place now helps my heart much. I still feel like I should be doing something to help.
What I want to do is throw my arms around my friend and make the pain ease a little, but I can't... it is just too far away. I'm not even sure that is what she needs the most right now... she has an amazing network of support from her family and nearby friends, but I know in the weeks to come, as life around her tries to normalize, it's going to hit hard and be starkly 'abnormal' for my friend.  
My gut reaction is that she needs something to look forward to... she needs a visit from a 'best' friend... she needs my sister there. In the weeks and few months to come, when the dust of the shock begins to settle on the reality of the loss, she is going to need the comfort you can get from a best friend. They need need to cry together, they need to sip frothy lattes together, they need draw on the depth and strength of their friendship.

Ireland and Oklahoma are as far as ever from each other... and at the moment, for my sister, I know she feels like the distance has quadrupled. So I now know what to do. I will do my damnedest to make it possible for her to visit Delann. I have donated what I can. And now, I'm going to ask you (I swear, I have never done this before!!) to help me help them. If you can and you have it in your heart to... donate at least the cost of a coffee out with a friend, or what it would cost you to treat someone dear to you to a lunch out... It's all good. I believe that what goes around, comes around. Call it love, call it Karma, call it the Golden Rule...

If you feel you want to join in and spread the love, click the donate button below... or you can go to my PayPal Widget on Facebook. I have already had some of my dear friends donate that don't know my sister or my friend and I am overwhelmed by the evident goodness in humanity.

Thank you for, you time, your monies and your prayers... They are all effective...

Another of Nina...

Working on an Angel...

Half of the fun of a "baby shoot"  (that still sounds so wrong to me) is the photography session.  Actually, in any shoot for me, the photography is only half the fun!

I love to get 'the shot'.  I love the eye contact and love achieving 'the communion' between me, my subject and the lens.  I love seeing something in my minds eye, sometimes days or weeks before a shoot, and then making it happen on the day.  And I like 'winging it' when I need to.  I like the whole process.

But that is only half the fun for me.  I use to feel guilty because I loved the post processing of my work so much.  It seemed that somehow I was cheating when I took them into Photoshop and worked on them.  It was like I was trying to compensate somehow for... something, or the lack of it!  It was like I could take an 'ok' shot, but I had to have photoshop or lightroom to make it a 'snazzy' shot.  Well, I've gotten over that!

I had a wonderful lecturer for photoshop that made me believe and understand that the post processing is just a whole 'nuther' slice of the art.  And it's a slice I love!

This week, I've been working on a little angel.  Nina. She was 8 weeks old at the time of the shoot and she played along like a little pro.  She coo'ed and smiled at me, let me snuggle her in and sway her to sleep. Then she let me poke, prod and pull on her while she slept so I could pose her... then, she woke up happy!  Gave me a few wide awake smiles and silly face... and she didn't even poo on my blankets!!

It was great! I stand there lovin' on those babies as much as I can to ensure I don't get too broody again, but when that's all said and done... I still get to play and create!

Here's little Nina...

Pretty durn cute, huh?

Boo's back to blogging...

...but she has to figure it all out again.  

Yeeears ago, I started blogging with Typepad. I loved it.  But then all the cool kids moved to ExpressionEngine so I decided to move too.  My friend, Ben, *hi Ben*, exported all my posts to EE for me, because I am a very lame techie-person, but then was annoyed that I couldn't make it pretty like all the cool kids did.  Mindy *hi Mindy* got tired of looking a my ugly skin, and got me a lurvly design. But, alas, being a very lame techie-person, EE overwhelmed me and the blogging on the very pretty blog started to wain.

Then there was flickr!  Flickr was easy.  Flickr was full of wonderful, bright, colourful pictures and it stole my heart and fed my need for attention.  But... I miss blogging, I really do.  

I can't blame all my lack of blogging on my technical un-suaveness.  There has been much happening in Bamberboo Land, much that would have been fun to blog about...but I just couldn't catch up to date. 

We moved back to Scotland, I went to college part time to learn how to take proper pictures.  We bought a house and started tearing it apart and putting it back together again. I started being a 'real photographer' and wasn't sure how much of 'me' should be google-able, a bunch of 'real live' people started reading and I found I was censoring myself silly and... the kids started growing up.  They started reading the ol' blog... and so did their friends.  Was it fair to them to blog all the cute stories about them any more?  Hmmm?

So, my bloggy friends (do I still have any bloggy friends?), Amberbamberboo is back... but it might taste a little different now.  Who knows what flavor it will assume, but I am sure it will take into consideration the age of my children now, it will certainly refract my new found passion and profession, and hopefully it will reverberate with good times!

Hubby still needs to redirect my url to www.amberbamberboo.com, because I am lame and can't do it myself, but other than that, I am ready to roll.  

I will try and put a prettier skin on so you like to come and visit me more, but until then, you will have to suck it up or go play on Twitter or Facebook.

But YAY!!  I'm blogging again!