Author Archives: Doug Cohen

A Pair Of Our Favorite Senior Twins – Claire First!

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A pair of our favorite senior twins came back for their senior photos which we were really excited about since we had so much fun the first time around on their spokesmodel session!  Ethan and Claire have been a joy to have representing our studio – we just love them.  This session included a scenario with a frog, Titanic reenactments and various other shenanigans but at the core we also had an amazing shoot that happened!  Here we are going to go “ladies first” and start with Claire…

We started out in the studio in the early afternoon on the black background for this simple and cute close crop…

Favorite Senior Twins

So pretty and she is such a sweetheart!  Next we went outside where we covered a lot of ground including a couple spots we don’t necessarily visit that often.  Big rocks are always fun to use:

Favorite Senior Twins

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of Claire including the scenario with the frog that I mentioned earlier…  haha!

Too bad the frog bailed right before Claire was about to turn him into a prince!  🙂

Next let’s highlight a photo of Claire and Ethan together.  This is part of the fun of photographing twins – you get to do fun shots of them together in addition to solo shots!

Favorite Senior Twins

Next we took a drive to the graffiti wall that we’ve used a few times over the years.  You never know what you’ll get since the graffiti can change, but it actually hasn’t changed the last couple times we’ve gone there.

Favorite Senior Twins

Lastly we made one more stop at the meadow we discovered just this year for a few more and we got this one with some beautiful backlight!

Favorite Senior Twins

So there it is – Claire’s photos from the session were wonderful, and next we’ll highlight our photos of Ethan as we continue to celebrate two of our favorite senior twins!  So stay tuned!

A Sunny Sensational Senior Morning With Sid!

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We definitely had a sunny sensational senior morning with Sid!  What an impressive, smart and engaging young man!  Sid is a busy guy with tennis and school and it took us a while to get a day that worked for all of us, but we finally made it work and our conditions were sunny and sensational – even if it was a little chilly out!  Like 30 degrees chilly!

We started on location on some trails and got this shot first against the tree…

Sunny Sensational Senior

You can see that we had some great backlight to work with there!  There were also some nice fall colors around which we see in the leaves surrounding Sid in this next spot.  We went to a different location on another trail where we came across a nice flat rock and we had been chatting about how when we find a new spot with a senior we name it for them.  That’s when Sid chimed in saying “Hey it’s Sid’s Slab!!!”  We love it!  Here is a shot of Sid on Sid’s Slab!  Haha!

Sunny Sensational Senior

Next we’ll share our fun behind the scenes vine of our morning…

Next it was time to head back to the studio for some photos indoors (and to warm up a little).  Here we started with the grey background which we really like for formal shots in suits and ties.  Sid nailed it and Ally always says she loves when the guys wear pink…

Sunny Sensational Senior

Lastly we broke out the black background which we are always fond of for this one:

Sunny Sensational Senior

Great times!  We look forward to big things from Sid and we had a sensational sunny morning with him on this session!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day!

O Juliet We Just Love Your Senior Session!

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O Juliet we just LOVE your senior session!  That’s the truth.  We had amazing fall colors, a new outdoor prop we never used before, a great girl and a great mom and our results speak for themselves.  Juliet is a sweetheart and a really impressive girl with big plans and a clear head on her shoulders.  We can’t wait to see what she is going to accomplish with her life!  But for now let’s focus on the wonderful morning we spent with her!

We started on location where the fall colors were at their absolute peak – just look at this wall of color, and we love Juliet in the maroon dress – she looks beautiful, confident and content here.

O Juliet

We spent a little more time in the natural setting but we also got some really cool urban photos – and then the studio shots are amazing too….  We want to get to all of that so let’s move on.  🙂  Our next photo is just a fun engaging photo of Juliet on some steps which we think brings out her personality.

O Juliet

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning…  🙂

Now we’ll take a look at the spot we hadn’t used.  This outdoor “prop/barrel/tube thing” looks so cool in black and white – love this.  We’ll call it “senior in a circle” haha!

Senior in a circle

Lastly we headed back to the studio where we went with our black and blowy set up and we have to say that Juliet nailed this shot.  Like it was made for her – so dramatic and pretty!

High School Senior Girl - "O Juliet"

And that concludes our highlights of this session, even though we could have easily kept going – no shortage of amazing photos of this girl from that morning…  We hope you enjoyed them!

 

United This Family Stands….and Smiles, and Hugs!

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This beautiful family came to the studio recently for a photo session and they were a pleasure to be with.  One of the kids was slightly under the weather, but I won’t even reveal which one because the kid was a total trooper and you would never know which one it was!  Meanwhile everyone got along and picked each other up, made each other laugh and generally had a good time, so yes we can definitely say that united this family stands….and smiles, and hugs!

We stayed with the black background for this session which always works well.  Our primary goal to start out with was to get a classic family shot to be displayed on canvas for the wall above the fireplace, so often we try to make the most important shot the first shot.  We had several to choose from but this one is the winner…

United This Family

What a stunning family right?  Next we spent some time on just the kids, individually as well as some group shots and that’s where we captured one of Ally’s favorite family poses – the family hug!  See what I did there?  You knew that was coming from the blog title….  ha!

United This Family

So cute!  Just great kids and we had fun with them.  Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning with the family hug in action!

Next let’s take a look at this combination of just the mommy with her babies!

United This Family

And lastly let’s celebrate where this family all started – with the happy couple responsible for all this love!

United This Family

 

So there it is – our wonderful united family!  They are totally worthy of being the subjects of the first blog post on our brand new website!  We hope you enjoyed the photos!

 

A Frameable Fun Fall Session With A Family Of Three!

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We have been buried in seniors from the class of 2015 lately which we love, but a frameable fun fall session with a family of three was a nice change of pace especially at the height of fall colors!  What a fun couple with what Ally would refer to as a squishy yummy little boy named Josh.  Josh gave us great smiles and we had much fun!

We went to one of our go-to spots in a neighborhood close by and the conditions were just right!  There are trees and bridges and just a lot to work with there.  We started with the bridge:

Frameable Fun Fall Session

How cute is the little man?  Cute enough that we moved on to working on some solo shots to give him the spotlight and Ally captured this sweet photo of Josh just being a happy little boy sitting in the leaves…

Frameable Fun Fall Session

Next we looked to get a few more family shots under a tree filled with and surrounded by pretty yellow and orange leaves – it was a great spot which gave us some great results!

Frameable Fun Fall Session

Love the interaction here of the three of them just being a family.  And we have a little of this on our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning!  You’ll see here that when we went back to the house afterwards to try to get a few more with the dogs that Ally got a little surprise…  haha!

As mentioned in the vine this part of the session with the dogs was a bit more challenging but we did get one last family shot on the deck that we’ll share here!

Frameable Fun Fall Session

And there you have it!  Highlights from a Frameable fun fall session with a family of three that we hope you enjoyed!

Rachel Was Resplendent On Her Senior Session!

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Rachel was resplendent on her senior photo session on location, in the studio, with her hair curly and straight!  Her session had it all and why not?  This girl has it all.  She’s got the looks, brains, personality, a great family and a great future!  We were proud to have her represent our studio this year as a spokesmodel and we were looking forward to photographing her again since her spokesmodel session was so great!

Rachel was torn between having her hair curly which is how it is naturally or wearing it straight which is what we did for the spokesmodel session, so we decided to do a little of both.  Her mom joined us and we had a blast!  We started outside on location with the curls where the fall leaves were all around…

Resplendent

Really pretty lighting here and as I said before – Rachel looks resplendent!

Meanwhile we had another “wildlife adventure” on this shoot as a snake decided to join us making Rachel scream which pretty much made me scream… kind of a chain reaction…

Ally was able to grab a photo of our little friend…

SNAKENext we moved over to a pavilion in the nature preserve that has several elements that we like to photograph with our seniors, but while we have noticed this mural in the next photo before, we never used it!  We’re not sure why we hadn’t but we’ll call it “Rachel’s Mural” from now on and we think it made for a really nice backdrop!

Resplendent

Here is our fun little behind the scenes vine of the day!

Next it was time to head back to the studio and Rachel went down the hall to get her hair straightened for the second half of the session where we focused mainly on the black background.  The black always has a nice dramatic look to it:

Resplendent

Straight-haired Rachel looks just as good as curly-haired Rachel!  And let’s look at one more on the black…

Resplendent

So that’ll do it!  We hope you liked these highlights from Rachel’s session in all of her resplendence!  We certainly enjoyed spending another day with her!

Admiring Annabel Always!

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We’ll be admiring Annabel always.  We always have and we always will!  We photographed Annabel with her dad and brother (her brother Harry is featured in this class of 2013 post with the flaming baseball bat) right when we opened our studio and we were impressed with her from the first moment we met her.  We had her pegged as someone we hoped would represent our studio someday as a senior early on, and meanwhile as we said in the post for her spokesmodel session she’s been “spokesmodeling” for us for years really… Giving us the rundown on who’s who and recommending seniors.  It’s not a total stretch to say Annabel has helped shape the direction of the studio – the girl knows everyone and she has given us great insights over the years!  We’re literally not sure what we are going to do without her when she goes away to college.

As for her senior photo session this is now the 4th time Ally has photographed Annabel since we opened and it was a bit surreal and very special.  Her dad came along and we had a lot of fun as we always do!

Admiring Annabel

We went to a familiar location but we photographed some of our favorite spots there in new ways with new angles, and then we found a couple spots that we hadn’t used before as well.  Pulling back on the crop for a full length on the dock is pretty cool and Annabel’s outfit is really cute in the shot above!  She looks fantastic!

We were able to take advantage of the pop of Michigan fall colors in this next close up – love it!

Admiring Annabel

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the day:

Next we headed down to one of the bridges in the park for this shot that we’re not quite sure we’ve done before and we’re not sure why – it really worked.  Not to mention that dress with those shoes…!

Admiring Annabel

Lastly we went to downtown Birmingham for some cityscapes and we went to the top of one of the parking structures which we hadn’t done in a while either and as the sun was getting low in the sky the angle of the light along with a little breeze produced this stunning shot!

Admiring Annabel

So there you have it!  We can’t wait to see what big things are in store for Annabel – we are proud to call her our friend and as I said before we will be admiring Annabel always!

Our Delightful Day With Danielle!

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Our delightful day with Danielle was one we will always remember for sure.  To begin with Ally and Danielle’s mom go back to their college days where they had classes together at Michigan State, so this was a little surreal for both of them.  It was particularly cute because the whole scene was making Danielle’s mom a little emotional – it was a special time for her to see her little girl all grown up and having her senior pictures taken.

As for the girl – Danielle is such a sweetheart that we fell for her right away.  This seems to be a recurring theme lately as we’ve had some fantastic kids this year, and Danielle really impressed us as we talked about her plans for the future and we just really enjoyed our time together.  She’s just, well, delightful!

Delightful Day

It didn’t hurt that we had the combination going of such a beautiful girl with such a beautiful day!  It really was perfect.  We started out on location and headed out onto some trails where we had great lighting and great colors.

Delightful Day

She’s adorable!

Next let’s take a look at our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning where Danielle’s mom was providing the soundtrack from her iPhone when we were on location, and providing the encouragement when we were in studio!  Haha!

Okay one more photo outside and the backlight on her hair on this one really helps make the photo – love it!

Delightful Day

At this point it was time to head back to the studio to get some photos indoors, and we are highlighting this one on the red background that really worked – you could see us working with the red in the vine.  We love when our seniors pick red as one of their selections!

Delightful Day

So we hope you enjoyed these highlights from our delightful day with Danielle!  We were certainly delighted to share them with you!

 

 

 

Our Triple Streak Of Guys Concludes With Good Guy Jeremy!

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It’s funny how our seniors can run in streaks, and our current “triple streak” of guys concludes with Jeremy.  If you notice I usually like to use words in my titles that begin with the same letter as our senior’s name, but there seem to be a shortage of synonyms for “nice” that start with “J”.  Jeremy is just a nice guy – pure and simple.  Fun, well-rounded, cool and relaxing to be around.  Ally and I talked about it when we finished – that we just like the kid!  His mom joined us on the session and the session flew by.  Time flies when you have plenty to talk about and you’re having fun.

We actually started out at Jeremy’s house for the location part of the session so let’s begin there:

triple streak

Photographing at someone’s home is often a nice move – it makes it easier for our senior to hop inside to change with access to all their clothes, and if it’s a chilly day it’s easy for us to duck inside to warm up a little as well!

Here’s another shot from Jeremy’s house:

triple streak

Next let’s take a look at the behind the scenes vine of our afternoon…

The barn is not at their house so as you can see we went exploring a little in their neighborhood where we came across a little trail with a stream and some nice fall colors where we captured this shot…

triple streak

After a successful outing outdoors we then headed back to the studio for a couple photos where we got this one in the suit and tie on the black…

triple streak

So that’s a wrap on our triple streak of guys and all three of them were fantastic!  Jeremy was a good one to end on for now before we return back to the next few senior girls!  Hope you enjoyed the highlights from this session!

 

Hanging Downtown With David!

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We were hanging downtown with David for his senior session – downtown Pontiac that is – for some cool urban shots.  We’ve hung out in and blogged about Pontiac before and we love shooting there!  Meanwhile we loved being with David and his mom and it was no surprise since we had a great time with David’s brother Alex a couple years ago for his senior pictures.  Alex was featured in the last photo on this blog post.  What a great family!

For David we started out in the studio and we spent a little time here with a couple different backgrounds before we headed out on location.  Let’s start with the grey…hanging downtown

Now that’s a good looking and confident guy!  Next we broke out the black for a few shots – here’s one:

hanging downtown

Just a good casual look for David there, and while David pulled it together pretty well for some nice smiles on these photos, we actually spent the better amount of the session laughing our butts off…  Our behind the scenes vine gives you a little taste of that…

The second half if you can’t tell is David “saving a sneeze”…  haha!

Okay so you could see from the vine that we are ready to move on to the location photos.  It was a chilly day but David was a total pro and was able to block out the cold for these shots:

hanging downtown

We love this particular set of steps of the entrance to this old building!  They’re the staircase to a big future for David!  Ha!

Here’s one more city shot against one of our favorite brick walls that you may have seen here before – the color just pops and we like David’s serious pose here.

hanging downtown

So we hope you enjoyed hanging downtown (and in the studio) with David!  We definitely did and we were happy to share these photos!