Category Archives: Life In General

Let’s Talk About Our Plans For 2024!

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Hey everybody!  Okay – so there has been so much going on here at the studio and in our lives, and while it may seem like there’s been a lull in the action it’s really been more like a duck who seems calm on the surface but is paddling like mad underneath.  We’ve got BIG plans for 2024!

Plans For 2024

We thought it would be fun to let you in on some of the things we have on tap for the year – Frameable Faces related AND otherwise!

Plans for 2024

Imaging USA

We last went to Imaging USA in Nashville in 2010 – which is hard to believe… Imaging USA is an annual national photography convention through the PPA, and while we’ve always said we should get back to another one we’re finally doing it next weekend in Louisville!  Last time we were at Imaging USA we did a little video recap to document our trip – it seems a bit crude to us now lol… but that was a great trip and we learned a ton.

Funny too because Frameable Faces was really still a fledgling studio in the grand scheme of things…

This time is going to be way different.

For starters we are going with the dream team from our preschool division Angela and Michelle!  You know Angela as our event photographer for many years which she still is, but last year she was joined by Michelle here in launching our schools division for day care centers and nursery schools and the two of them are doing an amazing job!  More on them soon with a separate tab here on the site with their bios and more info, so stay tuned (we got a bit behind on that).  Neither of them have been to Imaging so this feels like a next chapter in the growth of the studio and we are thrilled!  It feels like coming full circle a bit and now we’re “grizzled veterans” with a long running and successful studio with a wonderful community, thriving at our beloved home of 15 years now – Orchard Mall!

The Usual but a bit more…

As much as things may change many things remain the same and that is our love of high school senior photos – so we’re assembling our new Class of 2025 (how is that possible) spokesmodel crew – a couple are already on board and we are so excited to start photographing them!  But another thing has happened that has steadily grown that we love that we might not have seen coming 10 or even 5 years ago and that’s COLLEGE senior pics!  Okay they’re not quite the same as high school senior pics but boy are they a blast. 

When spring rolls around we are finding ourselves in Ann Arbor, East Lansing and hopefully elsewhere in the future bopping around campus usually with a crew of friends in their caps and gowns or fun college gear…..and quite often champagne lol.  So that’s another thing we get to look forward to these days which is a recent development.  And of course we still photograph plenty of corporate headshots, families and newborns.  Including newborns of our former seniors – that’s also a newer development!!!  Talk about full circle and surreal….

Other updates with the fam

Doug is still jamming in his band Vintage Playboy and the next gig is on April 13th at the B1 Tavern in Keego Harbor – come on out and jam!  The B1 Tavern actually has really good food – not just bar food – so come early, eat and make a night out of it!

Doug also still has digital marketing clients with his company M10 Social – if you haven’t been to the website Doug has added a lot to it.  There are now THREE blogs there!  The M10 Blog for Doug’s thoughts, tips and news in the digital marketing space and social media.  Doug’s Music Snobbery where Doug reviews albums, concerts, album rankings, band profiles and lots of other stuff.  His Prince album ranking is the second ranked one just behind Spin Magazine!  Lastly is Doug’s History Blog – you know he’s a history freak and there are a bunch of photos there from roadtrips to battlefields, president’s homes, national parks and much more – including our epic family western road trip last year where we hit NINE National Parks, THREE president’s homes and more.

We also moved last summer – back to Farmington Hills and we love our new place.  Lacey is in Brooklyn having finished up her M.F.A. in creative writing at Long Island University and you can visit her website at www.laceycohen.com!  Tony graduated from MSU and moved home and what is he doing you ask…..?

It’s Detroit Jerky Time!

We bought a company called Detroit Jerky!  It’s a plant-based jerky – vegan, cruelty free and gluten free and we are so excited to get that going – so we’ve been pretty busy needless to say.  Tony is the CJO (Chief Jerky Officer) and we’ll be working out of the Proud Mitten Shared Kitchen in Plymouth.  We expect to be in production and selling jerky sometime in March if all goes according to plan.  Visit the website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn!  It’s delicious – you’ll love it.

Whew!  That’s about it for the moment – and that’s plenty.  We are so excited for 2024 and we look forward to seeing all of you this year!

Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

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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
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Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
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?
**********************************************
 
Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW

Hello HAPPS! The New Home Of The Doug & Ally Morning Show!

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HELLO HAPPS!!!!!

It feels good to be recharged again with this incredible new app called Happs, but first a little context to explain why…

Hello Happs

Periscope Changed our lives and then……nothing.

We’ve written and talked at length about Periscope – the livestreaming app that launched on March 26th, 2015 and we started broadcasting on on March 31st, 2015 at my buddy Alex Steinbock’s suggestion.  Right away we saw incredible potential to reach people around the world and share our studio in real time.  It took off for us pretty fast, and we made a big splash in the community with the first of several posts accompanied by livestreams where we did a fun take on the types of chatters and scopers you might encounter on the app.  Before we knew it we were trending, gaining thousands of followers around the world and being invited to speak at the Periscope Summit in San Francisco – which we did!  That was a magical weekend and a magical time in general – it’s hard to describe what it was like in this shared community of streamers from all around the world.  If you were there, you know.  Even the Periscope team was there to hang out even though it wasn’t “their” summit.  That was nice and they were cool enough, although I’m not sure they ever totally got what was happening on their app…

It was around this time that we went beyond just scoping for fun and it became The📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show!🎙☕️  which we did daily and are still doing to this day (more on this in a bit), along with a whole schedule of other shows on the platform including one we developed with our friends from the Periscope network channel Parachute TV called “The Photo Shop” and a game show on the Play For Stuff TV network called “The Frame Game”!  We were having a blast.  We continued to meet people at meetups in New York City, here in Detroit and we met more Periscopers on roadtrips in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi!  We even photographed some of them.  Periscope eventually monetized the app which was nice as our generous community tipped us for the work we put into the show to help make the time and “effort” sustainable (even though it didn’t usually feel like “effort”).  Twitter owned Periscope and integrated it into Twitter so we thought the future was bright.  Periscope had a VIP program with verified badges for people who had bigger audiences and we became silver VIPs.  They had “office hours” in a Slack group to answer questions from VIPs and presumably to get our feedback as valued members of the community.

But then it changed… 

Office hours suddenly started happening less and less and then they canceled the Slack group altogether.  A solid year or more went by with no updated features to the app.  Accounts started being randomly suspended and people – like us – got stripped of their monetization status leaving money contributed by their communities in limbo…with no explanation.  What a shame.  A real shame.  It seemed it was only a matter of time before yet another thriving app/community would be destroyed by Twitter (Vine anyone?).  We still kept on because our community was still tuning in and we were still having fun with our morning show, even starting up the Doug & Ally Morning Show Podcast, but we weren’t really innovating on the show itself anymore.  Like the app, it was running on autopilot.  And then just this week the announcement came – Periscope would be going away as a stand alone app.  Going out with a whimper.  Pathetic.

Hello Happs…

Almost instantly the buzz in the community turned to a livestreaming platform called Happs.  I was a little skeptical because so many livestreaming apps have come and gone such as Meerkat, YouNow, MeVee, Blab, Busker, and yes, Periscope.  But we downloaded it and set up a profile out of curiosity, and were immediately WOWED.  HELLO HAPPS indeed!

Hello Happs

This app has a dizzying array of features and yet is very intuitive to use.  People suggested we move our show to Twitch for example, but I’ve spent some time on Twitch before and find it to be the most confusing user interface ever.  It makes my head spin.  On Happs I had us up and running in a matter of minutes and I’m blown away at what you can do there.  It’s monetized which is great, you can multicast from Happs to other platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all at the same time with all the comments from the other platforms in the same feed.  You can bring other folks into your livestream on camera, and you can put up links, graphics – heck you can do just about anything that you might think would be cool to do on a livestream.  There is an entire producer studio on the desktop version and you can work the controls there while you stream on your mobile device.  It makes Periscope look like Prehistoriscope.

The CEO and other members of the team have been engaging with the community dropping into broadcasts answering questions, taking suggestions and they have been extremely welcoming to this huge influx of Periscope users.  They are working their butts off to add servers, keep up with stability and adding features on the fly.  It’s an exciting time again!  They even “transferred” our Periscope VIP badge to Happs and verified our account.

So we’re all in.  We certainly hope they can sustain their success and we are going to do everything we can to help.  We invite you to join us in this reinvigorated community to have fun, meet people and discover new corners of the world you haven’t seen!  We’ll be on in the mornings T-F sometime around 10ish to 11ish EST for fun and shenanigans and maybe even a little photography hehe… 

So once again, with great enthusiasm we say HELLO HAPPS!!!

Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW
 
 
BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
**********************************************
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
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
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 A-Maize-Ing Day At The 2017 Ann Arbor Street Art Fair!

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This post is just a fun quick one about our day at the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair!  As photographers we appreciate all things visual, as admirers of art we appreciate all things creative whether visual or otherwise sensory in other ways, and as Frameable Faces we celebrate living a life you would want to celebrate – one you would want to remember and capture.  We think strolling through an art fair fits into what we do here in plenty of ways!

Ann Arbor Street Art Fair

The 2017 Ann Arbor Street Art Fair!

Meanwhile I felt a blog post would be a good place to post our snapchat story from the day and include the links to the websites of our favorite artists from the day and have them in one spot.  For starters you should get to the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair one July if you’ve never been – it’s a 4 day event that takes over a good part of the University of Michigan campus and parts of downtown (which is adjacent to campus).  For those of you who may not know, the University of Michigan colors are maize and blue – hence the “a-maize-ing” title!

At this point I think we’ll let the snapchat story do the talking for a couple minutes…

Some cool stuff right?  And how funny was that squirrel?  And we had to throw in the spot where Ally and I bumped into each other once in Ann Arbor during our college years in front of Ulrich’s….

So let’s break it down a little and talk about the artists we focused on in the story above:

First we have the sculptural weaving of Gloria McRoberts from Watertown, TN whose fiber sculptures are hand woven from natural, undyed wool.  We were really drawn to her booth and these awesome pieces.  You can visit her website here.

Next we came across these amazing sketchings on skateboards done by simple pen or pencil by Jeffrey St. Romain who is from New Orleans.  My favorite was the one you see of Jimi Hendrix with the lyrics from Castles Made Of Sand.  Here is his website.

Next you saw a piece from Erika Bushee and her Art Rocks Studio – stunning.  The rocks jut out from the surface and in the case of the one I snapped above, continue right onto the floor.  Really cool.

Last but not least the piece which kept people talking on Snapchat for 24 hours and on into our Periscope community was the amazing guitar tree by Demi Heitzman who is located not far from Toledo.  Here is her website.

We also would like to call attention to an amazing underwater photographer we met (even though I did not get any of his work into the snapchat) named Chris Gug.  Wow.  Just wow.  Check out his website here.

We’re also giving a shout out to our favorite new plant based restaurant in Ann Arbor – The Lunch Room!  OMG – delish right down to the deserts (VEGAN DONUTS!!!).  Check it out – here’s the website.

And there you have it!  A GREAT day at the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights!

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

 

RIP Prince. A Tribute. 1958-2016

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As the horrible news of Prince’s passing starts to sink in I have decided I need to write about it.  This has nothing to do with our business, and yet it absolutely has plenty to do with our business.  It absolutely has plenty to do with everything as people who know me are aware.  Prince was my favorite solo artist of all time from the time I was 11 when my older brother introduced me to such classics as Dirty Mind and Controversy.

Rules be damned, we have had Prince playing in the studio often and loudly, and we have always done it out of love – to evangelize his art, the gift of music he has always given us.  To make it clear to everyone that even though his newer music wasn’t everywhere you went like it was back in the day, that it was still vital and incredible and that everyone should be listening to it.  True song craft with real instruments and virtuoso performances on every album.  Look at this tweet we got today….

Prince

Prince has had a huge impact on our lives.  Music to me is like air – I can’t survive without it, and Prince was some of the purest air you could find.

Some of My Memories of Prince….

Does everybody remember how mind-blowingly amazing the song Controversy was?  I mean we all know it’s a great song, but if you’re old enough to remember when it came out then you remember how it changed the game.  At least that’s how I remember it – there had never really been a song like it before – with that percussive “OOH” on the two of every measure.  A hypnotic jam like I had never heard and I’m not sure there has been one like it since.  “People call me rude, I wish we all were nude…”

Of all the amazing slow jam ballads Prince recorded – and it’s a massive list, the two best are both on the self-titled second album.  It’s Gonna Be Lonely and When We’re Dancing Close And Slow are my jams.  Say what you want about Adore, Do Me Baby, International Lover, The Beautiful Ones etc. etc. etc. – I’m sticking to those two and they can take me right back to my bedroom on Glouster Circle when my bed was in the corner of the room and my record player was right at the head of my bed before I got my newer furniture.  I would lay in bed and listen to those jams thinking about the day I would meet the perfect girl (I did by the way).

I remember when my brother Jeff called me on February 27th, 1983 from Ann Arbor – I was 12 – and asked me if I wanted to go see Prince at Crisler Arena….  He drove home to Farmington Hills to get me and we sat 5TH ROW CENTER on the main floor for the 1999 tour with The Time and Vanity 6 opening.  You’re pretty impressionable when you’re 12, and let’s just say that night was a surreal experience.  I’ll never forget it and I am so lucky to have been there.

Prince

If all we had were Prince’s B-Sides we’d be in pretty good shape by the way…  The man accomplished more with B-Sides than most do with their proper releases.  I mean are you kidding me?  Erotic City, 17 Days, Irresistible Bitch….  That elastic bass line and sunny vibe of 17 Days takes me back to summer vacations in Virginia Beach.  Oh and in addition to the B-Sides by the way “Sinead here’s a #1 song for you, and Bangles here’s a #2 song for you – it would have been a #1 but I took that spot for my own at the time – sorry…”

Ahhh… Purple Rain….. and the “When Doves Cry” video!  What can you say… I had the band photo from When Doves Cry as a poster on the wall of my room.

What about the “extended” concert special footage MTV showed that one time from the Purple Rain tour?  Pretty sure I have that on a VCR tape somewhere.

Even just the mystery and mythology surrounding the man… it rubbed off on anyone associated with him.  Even when Dez Dickerson made his appearance on stage in Purple Rain it was a big deal…  like WHOA – it’s Dez!!!

That Around The World In A Day cover – I remember the day I picked up that album at the Record Outlet on Orchard Lake Rd.

Does anyone not think of Prince when it snows in April?  Just asking…  Parade was released right when I took a trip to visit my brother Dan at law school in D.C. – I can picture driving into D.C. from the airport listening to it.

I remember the first time I heard Sign O’ The Times on the radio, and my buddy Jon and I a few years later singing all the words to “Forever In My Life” at the top of our lungs in college…

Vanoy Hill told me he had a bootleg vinyl copy of The Black Album in high school…. he never produced said copy and I was NOT happy… worst tease ever.  Was anyone on the hunt for that like I was?

As a side note if this is going on too long I’m sorry but it is what it is.  I need to do this.

My best Prince bootleg is a cassette of a live show from the Europe tour of 1989 – the guy at the record store in the strip plaza next to our mall where our studio is now made the copy of it for me.  I can’t for the life of me remember what the name of that store was.  I have it ripped to my iTunes now – it was the Lovesexy tour.  A fantastic recording including a medley he played by himself at the piano of When 2 R In Love > Venus De Milo > Starfish & Coffee > Raspberry Beret > Condition of the Heart > Strange Relationship > When 2 R In Love.  Just gold….

Playing a few tracks from Graffiti Bridge for my Aunt Jeannie (RIP) in my bedroom…

Jamming Diamonds & Pearls around Ann Arbor my senior year when I was delivering burgers and Chinese Food… including the CD single of Gett Off with all the different remixes…  That hologram cover!!!

Living back home in Farmington Hills with my parents after college and driving around town listening to the “Symbol” album…

The album “Come” came out when I lived in Cleveland.  Listening to it while I was falling in love with Ally long distance…

Back home in Michigan with The Gold Experience – for some reason have a memory of listening to P Control in my Isuzu Rodeo driving into Birmingham on Maple Road….

Listening to Emancipation driving out to Ally’s parents boat in the summer and jamming it in Atlanta when I was down there for training for one of my hellish corporate jobs – oh the irony.

The list goes on and on….  this has been therapeutic.

Our son Tony picking up on the groove of “S&M Groove” from the Slaughterhouse album and loving it when he was probably about 6 (oy vey haha).  Jamming Chelsea Rogers from the Planet Earth album every time one of our favorite all time seniors Chelsea Cage comes to the studio…

Here are 25 of my top Prince songs off the cuff:

  1. 17 Days
  2. Dirty Mind
  3. 1999
  4. I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man
  5. Push It Up
  6. Lady Cab Driver
  7. Erotic City
  8. The Beautiful Ones
  9. When Doves Cry
  10. Forever In My Life
  11. The Human Body
  12. Controversy
  13. Sexuality
  14. Sign O The Times
  15. Northside
  16. When We’re Dancing Close And Slow
  17. It’s Gonna Be Lonely
  18. Automatic
  19. Mad Sex
  20. Black Sweat
  21. Adore
  22. Eye Like Funky Music
  23. New World
  24. Hot Thing
  25. Joint 2 Joint

I was not prepared for this.  It didn’t register when I saw it come across my twitter feed.  Way too many artists have been lost in the last year.  They have all hurt but I’m not gonna lie, this one I’m having a much harder time with.  I wish I could have told the guy how much I admired his talent, his passion, his gift – how much he meant to me.  I hope he knows.

Prince – thank you from the bottom of my heart.  You will never be forgotten.  I Wish U Heaven.

Prince

Don’t sleep ’til the sunrise, listen 2 the falling rain
Don’t worry ’bout tomorrow, don’t worry ’bout your pain
Don’t cry unless you’re happy, don’t smile unless you’re blue
Never let that lonely monster take control of U

Be glad that U r free
Free 2 change your mind
Free 2 go most anywhere, anytime
Be glad that U r free
There’s many a man who’s not
Be glad 4 what U had baby, what you’ve got
Be glad 4 what you’ve got

 

 

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

 

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!!!

5 Reasons You Are Not Photogenic

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Photogenic

Photogenic is defined as “suitable for being photographed: likely to photograph well”.  It seems about half of the people who come to Frameable Faces warn us that we are going to have a tough time with their session because they are NOT photogenic.  Usually we just tell them we can’t help because we just don’t want the burden of trying to make such bad looking people look good.  It’s probably hopeless right?  WRONG!!!!!!!

Photogenic

Ally did NOT take this photo. I repeat – Ally did NOT take this photo… haha

Some people will go on and explain to us that “No – I’m serious.  I don’t photograph well at all.  I just don’t”.  If you are one of those people then in all seriousness there are likely some legitimate reasons you feel this way.  Here are 5 reasons you are not photogenic:

5 Reasons You Are Not Photogenic

  1. You are not pleased with the way you currently look.  Maybe you aren’t in the best shape of your life, or for whatever reason you aren’t thrilled with the way you look at the moment.  Hey no one is perfect, but you are the best and most unique version of you!  I wrote about this recently here.  Embrace and love yourself!  It’s okay!  If you indeed have not been taking good care of yourself then make that change and start now!  Meanwhile this is not the only reason you are “not photogenic”.
  2. You aren’t naturally comfortable in front of the camera.  Some people on a moment’s notice can just light up when someone is going to snap a photo.  They take more pictures, they practice more, they are prepared.  You are already convinced that you are not photogenic so you aren’t confident about being in a picture and you are not comfortable.  That does not mean there cannot be an environment created with proper planning where you will be comfortable.  There absolutely can be.
  3. You are being photographed by non-photographers.  This can impact a photo in a number of ways.  The person taking the photo may not have an eye for it and/or you may not connect with them.  Those two factors are really important for making a good photo – it doesn’t matter if it’s a ten thousand dollar camera without those two things.
  4. You typically are not lit (or posed) properly.  This is a continuation of the last point.  There is so much more than just knowing how to work a camera to produce a good photo.  Lighting (and posing for that matter) is a huge factor.  For example when we first opened the studio a photographer friend asked us why we had our main soft box set up on the side of our studio opposite our window.  He said that our main box was competing with the light coming in from the center court of the mall and impacting our lighting set up negatively.  He was right.  It wasn’t a difference I would have noticed but Ally sure noticed it after we made the change.  This is just one example of many factors that contribute to the composition of a photo that all combine to make you look better.  Real pros go to seminars and work with their peers – constantly honing their craft to improve all of their skills all the time.
  5. You typically are not prepared to look your absolute best when a random photo is snapped.  Maybe because of your line of work, your daily schedule or your hectic life in general you don’t have your best clothes on and your hair looking its best at all times.  If you are female your makeup also might not be done when someone says “C’mon!  Let me just get a quick picture!”

In short, not everyone is always at their perfect weight walking around 100% totally ready for their close up at a moment’s notice in perfect lighting with their favorite outfit on and hair perfectly styled to be taken by a random family member or friend with an iPhone who doesn’t know how to use the camera on it.

Here is the shamelessly self-serving part of this article – as you have probably figured out, these 5 reasons you are “not photogenic” can largely be addressed by going to a real professional whom you connect with.  I don’t just say this as an ad for Frameable Faces.  I mean it in general.  It applies to any professional who knows what they are doing.  Just don’t be hard on yourself if you haven’t always been pleased with how you look in photos.  It is not necessarily your fault!

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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!
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Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
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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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Love For Boston and All Of Our Cities

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This post is not about professional photography or social media, or running a small business, but I feel it’s appropriate.  We capture images here – that’s what we do day in and day out, and most of what we do is a celebration of life and relationships.  After the horrific images that came from the Boston Marathon a couple days ago I got to thinking about that city, the resilience it is showing and how important our cities are.  I haven’t been to Boston but I still have some thoughts that I just wanted to put out there – thoughts on our cities in general with Boston as a backdrop.  We are all thinking about Boston now like we all thought about New York, D.C. and flight 93 after 9/11, and like we all thought about New Orleans after Katrina and any of the other tragedies that have touched us all.  As Americans we wrap our arms around a city that has been hurt and we feel for those who were injured and grieve for those who died.

Boston Marathon

Love for Boston

We have never been to Boston as I said so we can’t rave about it first hand, but we are aware of what an awesome city it is.  It is definitely on our list of places to visit someday.  It has been noted and emphasized that many people – first responders and ordinary citizens alike rushed in to help after the bombs went off by the finish line on Monday.  Locals were helping out-of-towners who may have been trying to connect with family members amid the confusion.  Boston, just as other cities have, has given us yet another great example to follow…

Love for other cities

I hope by saying this I’m not minimizing the tragedy since that’s not my intent, but I think we should take this opportunity to remind ourselves that we should love all our cities, and subsequently (as cheesy as it may sound), each other.  We should reinforce the sense of community that our cities give us – a mass of humanity all functioning together in a huge and complex living breathing machine.  A gigantic display of life and relationships.  This might be obvious but when you visit a city take the time to enjoy what is unique about that city – if you go to Philly for example eat a cheesesteak sandwich (even if it’s a veggie version) and check out the history – the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall…  Take photos of the skyline.  Soak it in.  Take the time to strike up conversations with strangers and let them know you are visiting their city and how much you love it.

Love for your own city

Over our Spring Break a couple weeks ago we did not go out of town.  We stayed home and worked that week, but we did take one day to do a Detroit “staycation” day where we ate breakfast at Toast in Ferndale, went to the Detroit Historical Museum, drove around Belle Isle, took in an iMax movie in Dearborn, ate dinner at Slow’s BBQ in Corktown, and finished up with dessert back in Ferndale at Treat Dreams.  A celebration of Detroit food and history.  We love Detroit.

It’s easy to love our snow peaked mountains, our national parks and our beaches with their natural beauty, but in times like these let’s be thankful for our mighty cities too.  Let’s work together to make them great.  Here are a few (amateur) snapshots from some past visits to other cities…

Philadelphia - Independence Hall

Independence Hall in Philadelphia – 1989

Washington D.C.

I always thought this shot I took in 1986 of the Washington Monument was cool…

Doug and Ally at the Chicago "Bean"

Snapping our reflection in Cloud Gate – the Chicago “Bean”

Family snapshot from the Empire State Building

Family snapshot from the top of the Empire State Building – New York City 2010

Boston is wounded, but Boston is tough and Boston will get through this senseless act.  Boston, the rest of the country is sending their thoughts and wishes your way.  I know we certainly are, and we will be adding pictures of your resilient and beautiful city to our collection someday when we come to eat your food, learn your history, and meet your people.