Aloha!
I'm writing to you from my kitchen table in the evening after dinner while my (amazing) husband is washing our dinner dishes because I wanted to sit down and write to you and tell you about my amazing friend, Noelle!
But first, I just have to say—working from home is amazing for so many reasons including: having a flexible schedule, the ability to work from anywhere (home, coffee shops, gorgeous Hawaiian beaches, airplanes) but sometimes it gets really lonely and boring especially when dealing with the nitty gritty parts about owning a business.
Enter: Noelle. February(ish) of 2015 I met a woman named Noelle Herring (a filmmaker and photographer with Sweet Rain Media) here on the island. She is a part of the Hawaii Military Spouse Photographers group I am a part of, and it was the first meet up I had attended. Feeling very self-conscious and shy (it does take me awhile to warm up to new groups—I truly am an introvert at heart and big groups make me all nervous) I showed up and hardly said a word, but I met Noelle there and she was so sweet and friendly and fun and made me feel very welcome, despite all the inner turmoil going on inside my head.
Fast forward to June. Noelle had signed up to be a vendor at an event called Mama Mākeke, which was an amazing natural parenting exposé on the North Shore with lots of different vendors and birth professionals, geared toward connecting pregnant mothers and families with young children with quality services and products. Noelle asked if anyone wanted to come hang out during the event while running her table (because life is more fun with friends) and I said yes! It was a super fun day and we became instant friends.
Fall of 2015 we began working together. Collaborating on projects, brainstorming, (drinking coffee, chatting about our lives), bouncing business ideas off of one another for our own businesses. Honestly, it has been such a breath of fresh air. Working with Noelle has been so inspiring. She encourages me, and is a great sounding board for a half-baked ideas that just need a little tlc. Now I can truly say I have a dream job—the best of both worlds. Flexibility, the abillity to build my own schedule (a MUST with my husband's crazy schedule) and an amazing team environment that is difficult to come by in the solo-entrepreneurship world that I live in.
This photo was taken on one of our first work meetups! Photo and composite cred: Noelle Herring.
Through all of our work-meetups we've decided to working together in our birth photography endeavors because we recognize that things are better as a team. Because we each are so passionate about photographing births and find birth photography to be so rewarding, we have decided to form a birth collective. I can't wait to tell you more about it!!! Stay tuned for that—and I'll leave you with this list of things that are running through my head:
Amber DeCicco Photography is based out of Oahu. I, Amber, am a birth photographer, but would also love the opportunity to photograph your monumental events; your weddings, family reunions, family sessions, newborns, maternity photos, documentary sessions or anything that you want to remember in the years to come. Contact me and we'll come up with something great!
