Author Archives: Doug Cohen

A Breathtaking Example Of Maternity And Serendipity

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Serendipity is an amazing thing when it happens.  When you get swirled up in it and you know something special is happening it’s an amazing and rare experience.  Do you know what serendipity is?  Here’s the official definition:

Serendipity

Now here’s the way it went down on March 16, 2016 at Frameable Faces…

Me: Frameable Faces this is Doug!

Phone Caller: Uh hello – we have a bit of an urgent situation here with a maternity session….  um – you see my wife…. well are you available to take photos of my wife today?

Me: Wait – is she in labor?????

Phone Caller: Well no she’s not in labor – it’s not an emergency like that or anything.  Let me explain.  Here’s what happened…

What happened was that Nick and Jen were 36 weeks pregnant and had a maternity photo session planned with another studio that day.  They were all prepared with clothing and Jen had her hair and makeup done only to be told that the studio had double booked them and they were out of luck.  Sorry, no go, thanks for playing.  Nick did a quick search on Yelp, came across Frameable Faces and took a chance with a phone call.  Now keep in mind that this is NOT how we do photo sessions here.  We don’t take walk-ins as a general rule with no consultation ahead of time to plan the session where we can get to know the clients and make sure everyone is prepared and on the same page.  But these folks were in a bind and we didn’t have any appointments that afternoon – and my gut (after checking with Ally) said to go with it.

Serendipity…

We were not expecting a session that day, and they were not expecting to have to shift gears and drive almost a half hour to a studio they didn’t know on the fly for a maternity session which can be a relatively intimate affair.  But from the moment they walked in we connected – it felt right and it turned out to be one of the best maternity sessions we’ve ever done.  What a wonderful couple – we even broadcast some of the session live on Periscope and you can watch the replay below, but before we get to that let’s see a couple of the photos!

Serendipity

How cute are they?

We used two different backdrops starting with the black above and the next photo is also on the black with the sari stretched out behind Jen and her hair gently blowing – beautiful!

Serendipity

Now let’s take a look at our behind the scenes action from the session.  First we have our fun 6 second looping Vine:

Now we have the replay of the live Periscope broadcast from our YouTube page!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you should do so immediately!  You can follow us there (and just about everywhere else) at the handle @frameablefaces at this link:

Here is the link to the broadcast.

Now let’s get back to a couple of gorgeous photos of Jen on the white background.  So beautiful, so angelic!

Serendipity

Breathtaking indeed…  And we’ll leave you with one more:

Serendipity

We can’t wait to meet the baby!  Maybe, just maybe you’ll have a chance to meet the baby here too!  We were thrilled to be able to meet these two, photograph them and present them to you!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights – serendipity indeed.

 

Maya Mia! Maya Is A Fabulous Spokesmodel!

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Maya Mia!  See what we did there?  Another fabulous spokesmodel and especially one that is keeping the developing tradition of amazing seniors from Birmingham Groves!  We love all of our seniors from all of the schools (obviously our North Farmington Raiders for example since we are Raiders ourselves) but it is worth mentioning the love we have for our Groves peeps as a whole – there’s just something about those Falcons!  Maya is our latest Falcon and you’ve already seen Maya a couple times on the blog since we posted a behind the scenes fisheye shot from her double spokesmodel session with Aria and she already appeared in the broadcasts that we posted with Aria’s highlights.  We will post those broadcast replays again here for those who have landed here for the first time.  But first let’s look at a couple photos of Miss Maya shall we?

Maya Mia!

We started out in the studio with the blue/grey fabric backdrop before we headed downtown to Detroit – here’s one of those:

Maya Mia

Love the color coordination here and Maya looks gorgeous!

We also have to say that Maya is a total character once you get to know her a little – she definitely had us cracking up.  Her mom Julie is pretty awesome too…  To prove we’re not kidding here’s a little example of “spokesmodel parkour” with Maya – hilarious….

Maya Mia

“Spokesmodel Parkour” lol

As you may have seen on Aria’s post we didn’t spend a ton of time in the studio and at this point we headed down to Detroit.  For Maya’s highlights we are going to focus on the Belt Alleyway – such a cool spot!  There is a lot to work with there starting with this little alleyway within the alleyway!

Maya Mia

So cool.

Now let’s get to our fun behind the scenes action – first with our 6 second Vine for your looping pleasure!

Next we have the “encore” presentations of our Periscope broadcasts from our Katch.me page.  You can download the Periscope app and follow us so you can come along for the ride on future photo sessions and lots of other fun stuff at @frameablefaces at this link!  First the broadcast from the studio:

Next we have the broadcast from the Detroit location!

Now let’s get to a couple more photos of our wonderful spokesmodel!

Maya Mia

Those eyes!!!

Okay we’ll leave you with this last one with one of the cool murals that are all over the place down there…

Maya Mia

Maya Mia!  Right?  Beautiful girl!  Okay so there you have it!  We are pretty excited to have Maya representing our studio as we keep rolling right along gearing up for the class of 2017 season!

Ahhhhhhhh It’s Aria! Our Latest Spokesmodel!

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Ahhhhhhhh It’s Aria!  The surrealness of the class of 2017 continues as we present another upcoming senior we’ve known for almost her entire life!  Aria and our Lacey have been friends since they were toddlers and Aria’s parents are friends of ours (you’ll see Rachel in the broadcast replays later).  Aria is our latest spokesmodel from this awesome crew which has us so fired up!  She has appeared on this blog before in photos from her younger sister Sedona’s bat mitzvah and now it’s her turn in the spotlight as a spokesmodel.  Aria is one of the nicest people you will meet – smart and beautiful, she’s the whole package and we were excited for this day which led us to downtown Detroit again where we’ve been hanging out a lot lately.  If you watched the live broadcasts from this session then you know that this was also a double spokesmodel session with Maya whose photos we will be posting soon – you’ll meet Maya in the replays below as well!

Ahhhhhhhh It’s Aria!

But for now we are going to focus on Miss Aria for a bit….  We started off in the studio on the fiery red fabric background for this full length serious pose…

Ahhhhhhhh It's Aria

She’s a stunner!

Aside from the black and blowy which we’re doing with all of our female spokesmodels we didn’t spend a ton of time in the studio for this session.  The rest of the shots are in Detroit where we found some great murals and locales, but before we get to those let’s have a little fun with the behind the scenes of our day and then we’ll look at more results.  First we have our Vine of Aria for your 6 second looping pleasure:

Next we have the replays of the live Periscope broadcasts of the day from our Katch.me page which are always a lot of fun.  If you haven’t downloaded this amazing app yet you can do so and come along with us on future sessions at @frameablefaces at this link.

First we have the studio broadcast:

And next we have the Detroit City broadcast!

To the D

At this point we headed downtown to The Belt alleyway where there are amazing murals in the alley as well as the adjacent parking garage and we got some great shots!  Here are a couple – first in the garage:

Ahhhhhhhh it's AriaI like the match of the earth tones of the mural and the earth tones of Aria’s clothes…

Next we have a photo from The Belt alley…

Ahhhhhhhh it's Aria

So pretty!  Love the timely breeze giving the slightest lift to her hair there…

At this point we relocated to the Wayne County Building for this photo that we’ll leave you with:

Ahhhhhhhh it's Aria

Cute smile which says it all about Aria – she’s a happy sweet girl and we love her!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our time with her!

Our Very Own Spokesmodel – Lacey Lights It Up!

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Lacey lights up the blog with these highlights from her spokesmodel session, and why not?  She’s been lighting up our lives for almost 17 years – heck she was the original inspiration for the existence of what eventually became Frameable Faces when her arrival inspired Ally to pick up a camera!  We’ll try to contain our glee for sharing these photos and keep it somewhat professional, but it could be tough…. lol.

Our Very Own Spokesmodel

It is a bit surreal to say the least to be coming up on Lacey’s senior year and to have her (and even a few of her friends) spokesmodeling for the studio.  She is used to being in front of Ally’s camera as you can imagine but this was different and we approached it like we would any other senior and she delivered with the best of them.  We spent most of the session in Detroit – the city is seeing a massive comeback the likes of which we haven’t seen anything like in our lifetime so we’re spending a little time down there.  We’ll be offering Detroit sessions for an added fee this year to account for the time and travel.  Detroit is in demand and we’ve enjoyed hanging out down there a lot lately – for sessions and just for fun.

Lacey Lights

That’s our baby!  Let’s give a shout out here as well to Mandy at Mandy Rose Salon in West Bloomfield for Lacey’s makeup!

Keep in mind that there are some amazing photo ops in Detroit, but at the end of the day it still comes back to the senior.  The stunning photo above could have been any brick wall – it’s the lighting, the talent of the photographer, and the GIRL that makes the photo…

Now having said that, this next photo isn’t one you could find just anywhere and there are plenty of great spots in the city, more of which we’ll explore with other spokesmodels.

Lacey Lights

Pretty cool huh?

Before we move on to a couple more photos let’s take a look at our behind the scenes footage of our day – first with our fun 6 second looping Vine:

Next we have the replays of our live Periscope broadcasts from the day on our YouTube channel.  If you still haven’t downloaded the Apple store app of 2015 you can do so here, follow us at @frameablefaces and come along on our senior photo shoots for the rest of the class of 2017 along with lots of other shows that we broadcast!

First at the Russel Industrial Center:

Next at Belle Isle:

And lastly at the Dequindre Cut:

Lacey Lights It Up!

At this point as you saw in the broadcasts above we headed over to Belle Isle and explored a little and that’s where we captured this one:

Lacey Lights

Oh hello Lacey!  Hehe…

Lastly we headed over to the Dequindre Cut and this was one of the last shots of the evening with a little off camera flash as the light started to fade…

Lacey Lights

Love it.  And LOVE her.  And there you have it – Lacey lights us up whenever we think of her and she lit it up that day!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights of her session!  We’re pretty proud of the photos and of our girl.

Lily Leads The Way For Our Class of 2017 Spokesmodels!

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Lily leads the way for the spokesmodels of the class of 2017 with these highlights from her session and we are thrilled about it!  It’s that time of year again where we start to introduce the young peeps who will represent our studio for the upcoming class of seniors for the school year of 2016-17!  This is such a fun time for us as we put together our new team, build relationships with new friends, have amazing photo sessions and present these awesome guys and gals to you!

Lily Leads…

Lily will be a senior in the fall at Bloomfield Hills High School and she’s a really talented dancer!  She is also a friend of our daughter Lacey (also a spokesmodel) so we got the “seal of approval” on Lily….  haha!  We definitely fell for her the first time we met her – actually Ally met her before I did at a Starbucks when she was with Lacey and Ally raved about her.  Her mom Amy is a delight as well – she joined us on this session and we had a ton of fun!  We’ll start in the studio with a brand new backdrop that we got from Ambrelee Taylor at Peek A Boutique Design Co.  We actually met Ambrelee on Periscope (more on Periscope in a bit) and this is the Hollis backdrop:

Lily Leads

How adorable is she?  We love kicking off the new class with Lily!  The rest of the photos we’ll share for now are all on location at a graffiti wall and then at Heritage Park in Farmington Hills.  First the graffiti:

Lily Leads

We’ve always been a fan of that look!

Before we head on location we will continue as we did last year with our behind the scenes fun, first on Vine for your 6 second looping pleasure:

Next we have the replays of our live Periscope broadcasts from our day on our YouTube channel.  If you download Periscope you can tune in live at @frameablefaces, join in the fun and get some ideas for your own sessions at this link!

Periscope was the app of the year in the Apple Store for 2015 and it’s owned by twitter – you can join our worldwide audience in our broadcasts and you can comment along and be part of the show!  Here is the broadcast from the studio:

And here is the broadcast from on location:

Lily Leads us to Heritage Park

We had a perfect day for our location – mild as can be!

Lily Leads

And we’ll leave you with one more for now… we love hats and headbands – accessories make for some fantastic photos!

Lily Leads

Gorgeous!  If Lily’s photos are any indication, we are going to have an amazing class of seniors this year!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day with her and we hope you’ll come along for the ride!

Blair’s Beautiful Wintry Blast of a Session!

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Blair’s Beautiful Wintry Blast was…..well…..a blast!!!  We alluded to this before but this winter of 2015-2016 was a tricky one.  I say that because this winter there really was no winter.  We only had a few seniors who were waiting for snow to do their sessions and we literally had just enough days with snow to make it happen.  No extras at all – no room for error or rescheduling.  When we got our precious snow we had to scramble the troops and get outside to shoot!!!  We did luck out with Blair since the day that worked out for us saw plenty of snow on the ground from a snow fall two days earlier.  Not to mention that it was considerably warmer at this point, so the conditions worked out very nicely after all!  Blair deserved it because she is a total sweetheart, and I think her pups enjoyed it too as you’ll see in a bit!

Starting in the studio…

But before we get to the white stuff let’s start in the studio where we spent a little time before heading out on location.  First on the simple white backdrop:

Beautiful Wintry Blast

Love it!

Next we brought out the black backdrop for this one:

Beautiful Wintry Blast

Beautiful girl!!!

Okay now we have a little behind the scenes action from our day for your enjoyment.  First our fun 6 second looping vine:

Next we have the full replays of our live Periscope broadcasts from our YouTube channel for your extended viewing pleasure.  If you still haven’t downloaded Periscope you can do so and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link.  First the indoor scope:

And now the outdoor scope!

Beautiful Wintry Blast, Beautiful Senior

At this point using Blair’s home as a base we headed out into the commons area of the subdivision where she lives (also the one I grew up in) for some wintry photos, and for this first one we had a couple of furry family members join us!  Say hi to Kramer and Jelly!

Beautiful Wintry Blast

Love this photo!!!

Okay one last one of Blair having a little fun in the snow…

Beautiful Wintry Blast

So pretty!  And so there you have it!  Certainly a beautiful wintry blast of a session with a beautiful Blair!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day!

 

 

 

A Frameable Day Starting in Detroit & Ending in Birmingham!

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We had a fun and Frameable day two days ago that started in downtown Detroit and finished up at Social Kitchen and Bar in Birmingham!  It was such a great day that we just had to pop onto the blog and talk about it!

Class of 2017 spokesmodel season in full swing

We headed out with two new spokesmodels from the class of 2017 to get some photos in Detroit and it was an epic day with Aria and Maya along with their moms and Aria’s little sister Sedona, complete with burgers for lunch in Corktown at the Mercury Bar.  We spent some time photographing the girls at The Belt Alley which was our first time doing a session there.  We will have plenty more to come from the session but here’s a little behind the scenes fisheye shot made with my iPhone and an Ollo Clip.

Frameable Day

Frameable Day

After we finished our day we had dinner plans with some friends at Social Kitchen and Bar in Birmingham.  We had been meaning to get there for some time since we had heard nothing but great things about it and the owners are clients of ours with a current class of 2016 senior – Cooper.  Let’s just say all the great things we heard were true.  The food and the drinks were amazing – Ally got the sea bass and I got the short rib French dip sandwich.  I also had a Social Mule to drink which was amazing….  and speaking of drinks, the bartenders were former seniors of ours!!!  Mark and David from the class of 2012!  We hadn’t seen them in a while and David’s name had just come up in conversation recently…  Crazy!

Here are a couple of photos from their sessions which were both done in Birmingham:

First Mark – this was the original fence shot we did…  Hard to believe these two sessions took place over 4 years ago already…

Frameable Day

Next David – a night time shot using off-camera flash with the rain starting to fall…

Frameable Day

And here we are with them the other night!!!

Frameable Day

With former Senior Friends Mark and David at Social in Birmingham!

So much fun!  Great weather, great city, great spokesmodels, great food, and a great little reunion!  A truly FRAMEABLE DAY!!!

Let’s Take A Look-a At A Handsome Little Guy Named Luca!

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Luca is a handsome little guy and he’s a total character!  He’s smart as a whip and has no problem asking questions and challenging the answers!  We had him here for a photo shoot and he delivered a ton of personality.  Several different styles and a ton of different expressions!  Gotta love it.  This kid has a bright future and we think you’ll get a kick out of these highlights of his session!

A Handsome Little Guy…

This session took place completely in the studio and his mom Karen was here to help out.  She brought him for the initial consultation as well so we were looking forward to this.  We started out with a casual look on the black background.

Handsome Little Guy

What a little stud.  Great pose and fun little half smile!

Next we moved to the brown muslin background for a fun classic look – love the outfit!

Handsome Little Guy

The bowtie, the ivy cap on backwards with the untucked shirt – this was one of our favorites from this series.  Before we continue we’ll now take a look at our fun behind the scenes action from our day with Luca.  First we have our 6 second Vine for your looping pleasure:

Next we have the replay of our live Periscope broadcast from our YouTube channel!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you can do so and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link.

Now let’s finish out the session as we moved to the white background…

Handsome Little Guy

Man in black!  Gotta love it with the leather slung over the shoulder!

Okay one more close up and personal with this dude.

Handsome Little Guy

Just a great smile – a kid being a kid!  And that should wrap it up for now.  Luca is definitely a handsome little guy and we had a good time with him.  We hope you enjoy the highlights of our session with him!

5 Fun Tips On What To Wear For A Family Photo Shoot

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What to wear for a family portrait session is obviously an important topic.  What do you recommend?  Do we need to match?  Can we wear jeans?  These are the questions we get from our clients all the time for family portrait sessions, and they are very important questions!What to wear

What to wear….

Whenever we meet with a family (or the family member in charge) to discuss the game plan for their upcoming session we usually spend a decent amount of time discussing clothing.  Many people have anxiety over this, and while it’s certainly important to look your best when you invest the time and money to get professional portraits, there is no need to stress!  Here are 5 fun and practical tips and ideas that may help…

  1. Consider Casual.  If you are comfortable you will feel comfortable and therefore you will look comfortable.  There is nothing wrong with jeans and t-shirts, polos, or simple blouses.  A family that appears to be relaxed and naturally enjoying being together makes for really nice portraits.  Keep in mind that formal portraits can be beautiful as well, just know that it’s not a rule that professional portraits = formal portraits.  Sometimes the decor of the room or rooms you plan to decorate can help you with this as well.
  2. Coordinate Loosely.  You don’t have to match exactly.  You can put the boys in a blue and the girls in a pink just as an example, with everyone wearing similar style shirts.  Everyone can wear different style shirts of the same color as well – white shirts are fine.  Coordinate by color or style – just look like you are in the same group and belong together.
  3. Avoid crazy patterns.  No Hawaiian shirts for example.  Just use common sense – you want the focus of the photos to be on the people and not on a pattern or a slogan like “I’m With Stupid” on a shirt.
  4. Try a theme.  We had a family do a Detroit sports theme with different jerseys of the 4 major pro teams – the Tigers, Lions, Pistons, and Red Wings.  It was really fun!  You can do it with your favorite college / alma mater too.  We had a family where the dad and son had maize and blue Michigan sweatshirts and the mom and daughter had pink ones on and it was really cute.  I used to think it was silly when I would see a U of M sweatshirt in pink in a store, but from a fashion standpoint it worked for the shoot!  Anything that your family shares together can serve as inspiration.
  5. Be true to yourself and your family.  Certainly you can look to professional photographers for advice because they have plenty of experience with this, and they can make suggestions that work with different backdrops and settings.  Always ask to see examples!  Also remember however that you are the customer and you know your family best.  Be careful of a photographer who won’t listen to you and insists on doing it his or her way.  This is your session after all…

Always remember to have fun and savor the moment.  You deserve credit for wanting to celebrate your family with a professional portrait session and you should enjoy it!  Feel free to add to the discussion – what have been some of your favorite choices for wardrobe?  What say you on the subject of what to wear?

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Frameable Faces Photography
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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!

Doug’s Dubious Debut in Sales

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I’ve been in sales of some sort for a long time.  Almost 25 years actually.  I took a long and winding road to get to Frameable Faces Photography where I’ve spent the last seven years with Ally and this is by far the most fun “job” I’ve ever had.  It doesn’t feel like work at all most of the time.  For years working in a corporate environment I always dreamed of the day when my clients would actually come to me and be happy to do business with me.  No cold calling, no massive RFPs, no representing a shabby product that I barely believed in, no politics and stupid bosses who couldn’t even keep their time zones straight or were having affairs with the incompetent staff responsible for supporting my accounts (true story), no territory issues…. the list goes on and on.

Dubious Debut

Okay Doug – calm down – it’s over.  That was way in the past.  You’re good now.

The fact is as much as I hated that environment for many years I was able to navigate it and I was pretty “successful” for a long time.  I sat in “high level” meetings with CEOs of Fortune 50 companies, and “low level” meetings with cashiers at dry cleaner shops, and everything in between.  I closed big deals, trained, hired, and fired people.  Yeah – I was a real “big deal”.  Yuck.  When I joined Ally I took the good I learned, left behind the bad I wanted no part of, and I’ve used it all to build a community here at our studio.  It’s our own and I love it.  I love marketing our business.  I love social media.  I LOVE live streaming on Periscope.  Fulfilled and alive, I feel like a “big deal” again – for the right reasons.

Dubious Debut

But it didn’t start that way.  No one steps into the business world fully polished and accomplished the very first time.

Dubious Debut

Dubious Debut

My first sales job was over the summer in Ann Arbor while I was still in college at The University of Michigan selling latex medical gloves to medical practices.  My dad spent decades in sales so he got me all set up – took me to TJ Maxx (!) and bought me a couple of short sleeve dress shirts and a couple ties, got me some business cards printed up, gave me a few sales tips and turned me loose.  I meticulously made up three boxes of samples for small, medium, and large gloves with each glove in a baggie with a color coded sticker on each bag.  My first stop (and first sales call ever) was at a Veterinarian’s office near the corner of Packard and Platt.  They were pleasant and I left them a couple samples and was told I could call to follow up.  I left and went to my next stop feeling proud of myself.  When I got to the next stop I noticed I didn’t have any of my samples.  Annoyed I turned around and went back to the vet’s office to grab them.  They claimed they hadn’t seen them.  I knew that was impossible since it was my only stop and I was convinced they kept them for themselves (I was still young).  Man was I mad.  I pulled away steaming and trying to figure out what to do about it when I pulled up to the intersection.

Keep in mind that back in those days the car I was driving (a brown Pontiac Phoenix inherited from my Grandpa Louie may he rest in peace) had this thing under the door handle called a key hole that you actually had to put your car key into and turn to unlock your car.  So it became clear that with my briefcase in one hand and the samples in the other I obviously put the samples on top of the car as I fished around for my keys when I initially left the vet’s office.  I found this out because when I pulled up to the intersection of Packard and Platt it was completely covered with latex gloves……

A dubious debut indeed.  Everyone has to start somewhere.

**********************************************
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!