Balloons, Cake, Family And A Yummy One Year Old!

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Balloons, cake, family and a yummy one year old sums this session up, and I would even take that further and say that that sums life up!  Right?  That’s what it’s all about – moments like these.  This family was a delight and they actually came in with multiple family members and generations.  Everyone had a ball being together and celebrating this milestone with the youngest member of the crew!

A portrait photographer’s dream…

We started with some photos of the proud parents and our little guest of honor in traditional dress which is indeed a portrait photographer’s dream!  The feast of colors are just a joy to photograph.  Let’s take a look at one from this part of the session:

Yummy One Year Old

Just beautiful!  We love these.

Next let’s take a look at another family portrait that was a little more casual with our little guy up on daddy’s shoulders – always a fun playful shot!

Yummy One Year Old

Next let’s take a fun look at our behind the scenes vine from the day!  You’ll see a “smashing” preview of what’s to come!  Haha!

Yummy One Year Old and Yummy Cake!

Yes our little star was ready for his cake at this point and he had a smashing good time alright – his parents brought in a huge “H” balloon which as you can guess is the first letter of his name, and he made a fun mess!  Check it out:

Yummy One Year Old

Look closely at this next photo – you can see that he has a full handful of cake…  haha!

Yummy One Year Old

So fun right?  We enjoyed it as we always do when we have a yummy one year old at the studio.  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day!

The 13 Types Of Periscope Scopers – A Survival Guide For Chatters!

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You may have read our post about the 13 types of Periscope chatters and you may have seen the ensuing broadcast about it on Periscope which was an epic laughfest for all involved.  For that one I wrote the article first and then we did the broadcast.

Periscope Scopers

Ally and Doug probably being one of the 13…

Well the reception to that broadcast was so fantastic it inevitably required a sequel, and this time we did it in reverse.  I made a few notes, put together a slide show and we did another broadcast once again with Ally providing the demonstrations.  So now here is the companion blog post.  Now that we exposed all the different types of chatters we encounter on Periscope, let’s turn the tables on the scopers!  Here’s the actual broadcast and the breakdown of the 13 below.

The 13 Types Of Periscope Scopers…

  1. The Too Close For Comfort Scoper – this scoper isn’t going to be satisfied until you have become completely acquainted with their nose hair, teeth and eyebrows – or as some chatters pointed out in the broadcast, the pores in their skin.
  2. The Distracted By Comments Scoper – this scoper will literally try to start the same sentence 23 straight times and won’t be able to do it because they just can’t stop answering all the comments.  Always a challenge since you want to be social and talk to your viewers, but sheesh – get on with it man!!!  This scoper may also graduate to being a juggler – more on that later.
  3. The Multitasker – in the scope I referred to this one as the “JUST Missed Your Comment Scoper” but I realized this scoper isn’t paying attention to the screen because they are multitasking.  They often will ask a question and then get distracted by something else going on and then come back to the screen to catch your 3 line typed out question just as it’s fading into extinction and they’ll only get the first line before it’s gone…
  4. The Bad Lighter – this scoper is scoping in the dark while asking you your opinion on something that’s impossible to see because, well, they’re scoping IN THE DARK.
  5. The Earthquake – tons of turbulence here…  in the broadcast you’ll see that everyone was getting dizzy and nauseous because the scoper is unaware of how important it is to try to steady their smartphone.  Watch, I’ll end up feeling bad about this one if someone is scoping during an actual earthquake.
  6. The Shy Scoper – curious that someone would download this app and start scoping if they don’t want to be seen, but some scopers are nervous and they scope the floor or the wall while talking to you…  Or maybe they haven’t figured out how to double tap their screen yet.
  7. The Thankful Scoper – these people are SO happy that people have showed up to their scope!  They will gush and jump for joy when people show up, and sometimes a certain special scoper will pop in that will make them lose their mind completely.
  8. The Beggar – a potentially annoying scoper to be sure, the beggar will campaign for hearts, shares, follows, tweets, and invites.  They will find any number of creative ways to get you to tap your screen – they are completely addicted.
  9. The Overscoper – as you can see a couple people got nervous when this slide popped up in the broadcast.  Periscope can be addictive in nature, and overscoping can be dangerous to building a following especially  for those chatters who haven’t changed their notification settings and have their iPhone doing that “hello” whistle at them courtesy of the overscoper 10-20 times per day…
  10. The Unable To Gauge What’s Actually Exciting Scoper – as a side note I’m pretty disgusted with myself for misspelling “gauge” in the slide deck for the broadcast on this one…  In any event, this scoper sees a squirrel in a park and thinks it’s going to be ratings gold.  Most people have encountered squirrels.  Seeing someone else encounter one by watching it happen on your iPhone isn’t quite that exciting.  You don’t need to scope the squirrel.
  11. The Off-Topic Scoper – pretty self explanatory.  This scoper will entitle their scope “5 Things To Do In Detroit” and end up scoping about, well, a squirrel, or maybe Game Of Thrones.  Sometimes this is partly the fault of the Off-Topic chatter who throws the scoper off-topic.
  12. The Juggler – the juggler sometimes starts out as a “distracted by comments scoper”.  The juggler tries to keep three or more separate conversations with three different chatters going at the same time.  It never goes well and this inevitably can lead to injury.
  13. The Long Goodbye Scoper – this scoper says they HAVE to go.  They are signing off, but wait – they can’t leave while hearts are still flowing, comments are still going, and chatters are still showing.  These people are often closet beggars.  These goodbyes seem to go on forever and sometimes something is said that restarts and extends the scope which proves that the scoper really had nothing else to do in the first place.
  14. The Unprepared Scoper – note the title indicates that there are 13 scopers for this post, but in order to demonstrate the importance of scope preparedness we snuck in this 14th scoper which proves the point.  Prepare for your scope so you aren’t scrambling in the middle of a scope to find something else you meant to cover and can’t find.  This can be uncomfortable for all involved.

So there you have it!  The 13 Types of Periscope Scopers!  There are plenty more where they came from and I’m sure this will be good for at least a couple more scopes of categories of chatters and scopers, so stay tuned….

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
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Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

 

Photos From A Special Night At Club Sedona!

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We are proud to present to you some awesome photos from a special night at Club Sedona!  This was another unique opportunity to watch our amazing event photographer Angela in action at a special occasion that we attended as guests.  This is a very rewarding experience because we get to celebrate such a special day with friends on a personal note and we know we can have a part in making their day even more special with amazing photos from a professional standpoint.

Sedona becomes a bat mitzvah

We have known Sedona since she was tiny – almost her whole life and she is growing up to be a beautiful, nice, smart, and funny girl.  It was a delight to be at her bat mitzvah, and as with most bat mitzvahs we photograph we’ll start at the Temple on the bimah with Sedona and her family.

Angela also captured a couple of really nice moments between Sedona and her siblings at the Temple:

So sweet right?  Here’s a nice one of the bat mitzvah girl by herself:

On To Club Sedona…

The party was held at Emagine in Royal Oak which is a great venue for a party!  Music, great food, dancing, candle lighting, and even a little bowling!  What a blast.  Let’s start with a photo of Sedona in front of one of the banners featuring a photo that Ally did at the studio…

Club Sedona

So fun!  Now let’s give you a feel for the party which Angela captured splendidly!  Take a look:

Club Sedona

Club Sedona

Club Sedona

Club Sedona

A great time was had by all and Sedona was the star on her special day!  Great girl, great family!  Club Sedona was a huge success!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights, and once again big credit to our event photographer Angela who captured the day!

The 5th Annual Senior Spokesmodel Party With The Class of 2016!

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If you have walked by our studio then you have seen the long white mural of high school senior spokesmodels that graces our window.  Maybe you’ve noticed that we change it up every year with our new crew, and we take those photos at our annual get together with our team when we PAR-TAY at the studio!

Spokesmodel party time!

We gathered at the studio with our peeps and as we always do, we brought in food from the Pine Lake Market who does a fantastic job of catering (ask for Nick).  We even had a birthday cake for Caitlin since it was her birthday on the day of the party!  This year we incorporated a couple new platforms that we weren’t using last year like Periscope and we broadcasted our crew introducing themselves – take a look:

Squad goals…

Next we premiered the new Spokesmodel Video which is a big highlight for us every year.  This represents months of photographing these awesome kids who we get very close to, and we are very proud of this…

The video includes this collage that we also worked on this Spring – because just (Frameable) FACE it – the class of 2016 is a B16 DEAL!!!

Spokesmodel Party

Next it was time to take the pictures for the mural which is always a lot of fun, and we posted a little behind the scenes vine as we usually do for sessions, but this time we managed to get a glance at all of them posing!  Take a look…

A Celebration of Murals…

Since this was our fifth mural we thought it would be fun to celebrate that milestone on Instagram – check it out:

Spokesmodel Party

And let’s give the new one its own spotlight – it’s about to get its own spot in our window where you’ll be able to come by and see it in all its glory!!!

Spokesmodel Party

So there you have it – another great new team to represent our studio as we roll into a new season of seniors!  WE CAN’T WAIT!!!

The 13 Types Of Periscope Chatters – A Survival Guide For Scopers!

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So Periscope comes along and it’s super cool.  We all have visions of reaching an audience in an exciting new way and connecting with new friends, being entertained and seeing the world like we’ve never seen it before.  We download the app, we start to follow some scopers, we tell our friends and we start scoping……..and then they show up.  The scope chatters who tune in and, well…. make it interesting.  Just to clarify for the purposes of this survival guide for scopers, the scopers are the people broadcasting, and the chatters are the folks tuning in to watch and “chat” (type comments to the scoper and each other).

Survival Guide

Doug and Ally checking out Sock Cop and Cathy Hackl on Periscope

Scoping can be stressful, it can lead to post traumatic scope disorder, and it’s largely the fault of these 13 types of scope chatters (and here’s a clue – we’re all guilty of being at least one if not several of these at some point).  So without further adieu I bring you:

the 13 types of chatters – a survival guide

  1. The First Comment Chatter – the first comment chatter is quick on the draw and that’s their M.O. – when they see a scope notification they pounce and furiously start typing to get their comment in before the others start scrolling.
  2. The Chatty Cathy – the Chatty Cathy is usually just so excited to be on a scope – their exuberance is often activated by a simple acknowledgement of the Chatty Cathy.  If you say hi back to a Chatty Cathy the flood gates will open and they Won’t.  Stop.  Commenting.  Relatively harmless because they are generally extremely happy people, but they can still make you a little crazy.
  3. The Troll – yes this is obvious.  Not new to social media by any stretch, the troll will usually ask a female scoper to see her boobs, or like my troll yesterday they may just stop by to tell you that they “just crapped their pants”.  Trolls are not cool, but luckily there is a relatively easy remedy for handling trolls and that is to simply block them.
  4. The Topic Trumper – the topic trumper loves the opportunity to show off their vast reservoir of knowledge by jumping into your room to spill the beans on the tip you are about to reveal.  While this may allow the topic trumper a fleeting moment of self validation, it usually doesn’t make them look so good to the other viewers/chatters.
  5. The Drop In Chatter – the drop in chatter is extremely busy.  They have a ton going on and they are probably busy with multiple million dollar generating projects or maybe they just have 5 kids but they still find the time to drop in and say hello even if they can only stay for a minute.  The drop in chatter can actually be a welcome guest, but habitual drop ins can lead to being classified as a scope hopper.
  6. The Scope Hopper – the scope hopper is a mysterious character.  Also known as “ghosting”, they like to hop around from one scope to the next, sometimes staying just long enough to make a hit and run comment.  They may genuinely want to just see what is going on around Periscope or their motives may be more sinister – they may just want to be seen or make the scoper think they are interested in their scopes when they really aren’t.  This can lead to the scope hop of shame.  6a. The Scope Hop Of Shame – just a footnote to the the scope hopper, this happens when two hoppers by coincidence hop into two consecutive scopes at the same time and discover that they are both indeed scope hopping.  The best thing to do in this case if you are one of the busted hoppers is to form an alliance with the other hopper and swear this unfortunate incident to secrecy.
  7. The Social Butterfly – the social butterfly loves to say hi to everybody in your room.  Actually a welcome chatter, the social butterfly brings all the chatters together and fosters a sense of community in your scope.  The only danger is when the social butterfly moves into the more serious and dangerous category of being a side chatter.
  8. The Side Chatter – the side chatter will recognize a friend in the scope and start an entire unrelated side conversation that sometimes goes way too long.  This can be very disruptive to the flow of comments that are actually on topic, can badly confuse the scoper, and might actually squeeze relevant comments off the screen too quickly for the scoper to respond.  This is a borderline double troll result that can sink your scope and in extreme cases may even be a premeditated conspiracy to destroy your scope.
  9. The Off-Topic Chatter – this chatter will come into your chat entitled “3 tips for sharing scopes on YouTube” and notice that you’re from New York and tell you about a restaurant they ate at in New York…. because they once lived in New Jersey about 90 minutes from…. New York so they didn’t get to New York too…. often but one time when they went they did go to said restaurant…. are you a Giant fan?
  10. The Attention Seeker – this chatter usually gets stressed when the room is very crowded and will repeatedly use 30 emojis and/or ALL CAPS in their comments to get noticed.  You may need to acknowledge the attention seeker to quiet them temporarily.
  11. The Slightly Awkward Chatter – this chatter isn’t quite a troll but makes comments that make everyone feel just slightly uncomfortable – just not enough to warrant a block.  No one has found an adequate solution yet for these people.
  12. The Lurker – the lurker never comments.  They kind of just sit in the corner and stare and their presence can be a bit unsettling.  Don’t let them bother you.
  13. The Interrupter – very often a scope begins with welcomes and introductions and even a little bit of chatting which is great.  Hearts and engagement throughout are the hallmarks of a successful scope.  But at some point the scoper might have some valuable information they want to get across.  The interrupter doesn’t understand that.  Just when the room goes quiet and the scoper gets on a roll the interrupter will ask a question that may have already been covered or they are jumping ahead.  This is very stressful for the other chatters in the room and if left unchecked can extend a scope to unbearable lengths causing a chatter exodus.  You can give the interrupter one free pass if you like, but it’s best just to ask them to DM you on twitter afterwards.

So there you have it!  Be aware of these chatters, learn to recognize them and keep this survival guide close and you should be okay!  Feel free to add to this list if there are any I’ve missed…

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

 

An Urban Senior Photo Junket With Jon In Birmingham!

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A junket is defined as “an extravagant trip or celebration, in particular one enjoyed by a government official at public expense”.  Well, our urban junket with Jon was a celebration for sure – even if it wasn’t official government business!    Birmingham has some of our favorite spots and even though we sometimes contrast Pontiac and Birmingham as “grungy vs. cosmopolitan” we can still find some gritty locales in Birmingham too.

Meanwhile Jon is a great kid – the weather was a little windy and chilly but he handled it like a pro.  We’ve known Jon’s family for a few years now but we hadn’t really spent much time with him before his session, and we found him to be a really nice guy!  So let’s get to some photos shall we?

A Senior Photo Junket With Jon…

We met up together in Birmingham and started shooting, and the first photo we are sharing is with a background that we often present in black and white – it just works…

Senior Photo Junket

Cool right?

Now let’s switch to full color as we explore some alleyways…

Senior Photo Junket

Now let’s take a fun behind the scenes look at the day with this vine that we posted:

Fun right?  Now let’s take another view of the alleyway segment of the session before we switch it up again with this full length photo of the whole scene…

Senior Photo Junket

At this point we made a location switch and headed to a secluded area where we knew we could get this photo through a fence.  We do this once in a while and it always makes for a dramatic image.  What do you think?

Senior Photo Junket

Love that one, and it’s a good one to finish on for now!  We hope you enjoyed our urban senior photo junket with Jon!  We certainly had fun on location with him!

Doug’s Rant – Image Quality ISN’T Everything On Instagram (and more)

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Yes it’s that time again… time to RANT.  I have 4 basic topics to cover so let’s get to it.

Rosh Sillars tweeted the link to an article about Instagram this morning written by Andrew Hutchinson for Social Media Today which I thought was good.  You should read it.  Now while I do NOT disagree completely with the idea that image quality is everything for certain strategies on Instagram, I do disagree with this as an overall statement.  So those of you who know me will know that I feel the need to respectfully present the counterpoint in the spirit of healthy debate.

Three reasons image quality isn’t required on instagram:

  1. Think about the name of the app – INSTAgram.  The “Insta” in Instagram implies an instant and spontaneous sharing of photos made right from your iPhone.  Granted you can post images that aren’t taken with your iPhone but the app is clearly designed with that in mind with the basic camera and editing interface in the app.  Many brands post professionally crafted and edited images on Instagram with a ton of attention to detail to the author’s point and it works for them.  But sometimes when you capture something fun and immediate you might not have it set up for perfection, and that’s actually what can make an Instagram perfect.  I would take it a step further and say that even as a photography studio our strategy on Instagram is typically not to show off our finished work here but to rather bring people behind the scenes and have fun, which leads me to number two…

    Image quality

    NOT a professional photo!

  2. Instagram is social.  Perfect art might not always be.  A collage or a funny incident can tell a story or start a conversation – an interesting one.  A perfect photo can too I suppose, but when you go to an exhibition or art museum they don’t hang a white board with a marker under the display for people to engage and leave comments.  Tell a story and have fun with your followers and don’t always worry about the quality of the photo.  To borrow something that Mark Shaw (one of my favorite Periscopers) might say, it’s not Autogram – don’t just broadcast perfection at people to show top quality.  Now don’t post total garbage either, but keep the focus on being fun and social.
  3. There is a ceiling on how awesome your images can be for your following because of the platform.  Many people are looking at these images on an iPhone.  Is that really the best way to see a professional photo?  It’s not a bad way per se, it’s just not the best way.  An EZ Bake oven isn’t the best way to bake a top notch cake, but it could be the most fun cake of your life if you do it with a child.  Our clients come to our studio to get images to hang as their centerpiece on a wall – not just to look at on their iPhone.  So once again – don’t always worry about the quality.  You typically can’t show off the very best of a quality photo on an iPhone.

Okay moving on…

Why I Don’t Like Email Lists

This is another one I go against the grain on.  I do not like email lists.  I’ve never sent out regular email newsletters or tried to build an email list of clients.  I’m not saying they don’t work, I’m just not interested in sending emails to clients.  Email has been around since well before social media existed, but it’s done on a computer or some other electronic device so it’s not as old school as say, junk mail, so let’s call it “post-old school”.  I suspect it works largely as a numbers game – not because getting another email is sooooo awesome.

Will YouTube come back for brands?

I’ve been posting more video to YouTube since I started Periscoping.  I like to repurpose some of my scopes and upload some of my tips to our YouTube channel.  It has led me to hang out on YouTube with a renewed sense of purpose as a brand, and I’ve connected with people on Periscope who are doing the same.  When I went back to the channels and brands I had subscribed to before I saw that many of them hadn’t posted anything in months, but I think this could change…  Just my guess – this is one where I’m just wondering aloud.  This is a whole other topic in itself on ways to effectively build your brand on YouTube which I’m exploring in new ways now.  I’ll keep you posted.  What are your thoughts on this?  Do you subscribe to channels and organize your YouTube channel with playlists?  As an individual?  As a brand?  Are you social there?  Subscribe to our channel and let’s connect!

Image Quality

Yes I’m slightly addicted to Periscope

Of course it comes back to the game-changing monster that is Periscope.  I wrote a post for MCP Actions about 5 very specific ways you can use Periscope for your photography studio… and I also wrote a post here about what you need to know about Periscope (so far) back in April.  At this point I’m totally hooked – I’ve built some great relationships in ways I never did before on any other platform.  I notice however that many people still don’t know what it is yet and haven’t given it a try, so I think I’ll be writing another post soon about what you can accomplish with Periscope.  The people who aren’t early adopters might want to know what the “why” is…  While I’m at it I may write one about who you should follow there.

That’s it for now – I’d love to hear your comments on this whether you agree or not.  Thanks for reading and join me on Periscope where we can discuss these further!