I don’t know how many people were aware of this, but last week, April 20-24 was not only Administrative Professionals Week but it was also happened to be

1. School vacation week and
2. Turn off TV week.

I initially thought this would present some problems in my household. My husband and I were taking it in turns to have days off work to be with the boys (we prefer to have our BIG holiday in the summer time when we can enjoy what I consider to be the best Maine has to offer; sunny beaches, camping, summer sports, etc.) However, once I got my cameras out, turn off TV became a breeze.

I was so impressed by how much my sons wanted to make photos! They took to the cameras like ducks to water. Composing shots, discussing their shots, setting up the image. I was so proud of them! We spent hours out doors walking around creating images. I almost want to say its a good thing they were shooting digital; if I had to pay for the rolls of film they shot, well….

The only downside to all this, though, is the thought that though they are shooting digital, I may never explain nor demonstrate to them the joys of the darkroom. And though I have all my darkroom equipment, I have yet to let them into the fabulous world of printing from a negative, much less show them how to develop a negative!

Still, I think I can be pretty pleased that they do love one of my majors loves so much! Just about all a mom could ask for, really.

Left: my five year old composing a shot of a daffodil.

Below: more shots of spring flowers

If you enjoy these images, you might like to check out http://www.angelacoulombe.com/flowers.php

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The Maine state legislature has declared May 2009 as Lyme Disease Awareness Month.

As a person who has struggled with not only the diagnosis of Lyme, but  some of the more debilitating effects of the disease, this is an important month to me.

Throughout my personal my journey with Lyme, which began in 2007, I have been fortunate enough to connect with people who were in the same boat as myself. At the time, though, there was one thing that they possessed that I did not: HOPE. They all had a message of hope to share with me that I could not find online, or in any book or brochure. I found their hope woven throughout  their personal stories which they so kindly and openly shared with me. These fortified and strengthened me allowing me to have the hope I too needed to fight this disease.

Without their support, I truly believe I would not be where I am today. When I was in the throes of the disease, I wondered, “why me?”  While I felt blessed that no one else in my family BUT me had the disease, I still felt the need to search  for meaning in the extreme pain that wreaked havoc with my mind and body.

I think I’ve found the positive in all of the negativity that Lyme brought into my life. This online photo essay,  “Living with Lyme; Faces of Hope,”  shares my and other survivors’ stories about the things that give us hope with our struggle with the disease. I strive to create a positive message for others with Lyme disease .

If you live in Maine and would  like to share you message of hope, please contact me either via email: angela@angelacoulombe.com or on 5905271.

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I’ve got to say, I really  enjoy Twitter! In this little world of tweets, I’ve been able to find out more about photography, web design, and a plethora of other things from following people who tweet about these things, than I probably  could have at any other time in history.

Some tweets are just too informative, beautiful, poetic, or practical to pass over. Today, for example, I started my day viewing images from a vintage advert for Citroen 2cvs, (courtesy of Lalla Porter, a whimsical, bygone-era start to the day), viewed work from the photojournalist Michael Kamber, which was so moving, I had to share it with my sons as soon as I viewed it. Staying with photojournalism, I then viewed  A People in Despair: Haiti’s year without mercy by Patrick Farrell and could only count my blessings whilst feeling totally humbled.

A pure arty shot presented itself in this lovely image taken by a photographer in Ireland, Stephen Kiernan.

I discovered a local photographer by the name of Donald Verger who has an exhbition on at the moment called Faces of Innocence and we’ve already arranged to meet up to discuss photography, upcoming projects, ideas.

I’ve started following CameraDojo, and as one who practices TKD, this logo is so up my alley its practically knocking down my door.

On the tech side of things I read about two new image captchas: Google’s new image captcha: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10222514-2.html and Captcha the dog at http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10217682-1.html?subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&part=sphere. I read up on Embedr,  a free service that lets anyone create a custom playlist of videos from the top video sites on the web.

I entered into a conversation about whether or not “pimping out your twitter background” is a good/ bad/ informative/ obnoxious thing to do and viewed some inspiring twitter backgrounds in the process.

And despite of all this reading & viewing, my sons and I still managed to get to baseball clinic, buy baseball cleats, take a two hour walk where we all did some photography, and had discussions based around the images taken by photojournalist Michael Kamber, have friends over for a playdate, and of course find the time to blog about these finds.

So, all that said, if you fancy learning more about inspiring photography, tech news, or just how many cups of coffee I’ve had in a day, please feel free to also follow me on twitter. I hope not to disappoint.

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