Tag Archives: Class of 2017

Senior In The City – Taking On Chicago With Taria!

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Where do we begin with Taria and her EPIC senior session in the city – the city of Chicago that is!!!  Okay let’s start with Periscope – impossible not to start there…

We met Taria’s mom LaTannya on Periscope about a year ago and loved her right away.  She’s hilarious and we started hanging out in each other’s broadcasts which led to a visit to our studio when she was in Detroit with her sweetheart of a daughter Taria!  That night a random person in the mall popped into the studio with a British accent which is a whole other backstory in itself (which some of our Periscope peeps will be familiar with) and without going into too much detail let’s just say all heck broke loose!  Here’s a snippet from Vine…

You can see Ally, LaTannya and Taria all dancing with the friend we made that night!

Flash forward to this year and LaTannya had been saying that she wanted us to take Taria’s senior pictures which we were so excited for!  The original plan was for them to come to Detroit, but we received an invitation to speak at Podcast Movement 2016 about Live Video in Chicago so we thought how cool would it be to do the location part in Chicago while we’re there?  The invitation to speak at PM16 didn’t come with a ton of advance notice so we got on a Skype together to plan the whole thing out, and we made it happen!

A Taste of Traffic, Weather, & General Madness…

This was a session that had a little of everything in the way of obstacles and challenges – a ton of traffic for LaTannya and Taria coming downtown, A Taste Of Chicago going on in the area we were shooting, storms hovering in and around Chicago, protests, blistering heat, and a couple of creepy dudes.  And yet, teamwork prevailed and we kicked some butt, Taria was a superstar and the session turned out amazingly!  And we made another friend which we’ll get to later, but in the meantime let’s get into the photos!

We started at Grant Park and this was the part of the session we broadcasted live on Periscope.  That alone was a surreal experience since we met on Periscope and it wasn’t lost on us that an app brought us together in such a wonderful way!  We’ll start with this smiling close up of Taria:

Taria

What a beauty!

At this point the rain started to come down and we took shelter for the delay…  Before we get back to the rest of the photos let’s take a look at the behind the scenes action from the day – first with our fun Vine for your 6 second looping pleasure:

Next we have the replays of the live Periscope broadcasts from the day from our YouTube channel.  The second part includes the hilarious Uber ride to the Adler Planetarium for our night time skyline shots.  Denise the Uber driver was amazing and once again it turns out that making friends seems to be a theme when we get together….lol.

Once the rain let up we headed into the Taste Of Chicago for an idea we had for Taria posing with a bunch of people around in the background.  We got a few great photos but it was amusing to see people walking in front of Ally oblivious to the fact that a photo shoot was going on – not that it was their fault at all – we were the ones who picked a crowded event to just plop down and start taking photos.  Meanwhile we got some great results including this one:

Taria

We did have a chuckle at one point when LaTannya took matters into her own hands and decided to “direct” traffic a little…. here’s a shot of that scene that didn’t quite make it into the proofs…  Haha!!!

Taria

…and that’s why we LOVE LaTannya.

At this point we headed back over to Michigan Avenue where there are some great old buildings with some great textures for another series of photos in another outfit.  Here’s one of those:

Taria

Love it.  Taria was really feeling it at this point – such confidence!

Taria In The City…

And here is the coup de grace…  After a break for dinner and some deep dish Chicago pizza we had our awesome Uber driver Denise take us out to the Adler Planetarium as you saw in the video for the best night time vantage point of the skyline for some off-camera flash photos.  Denise waited for us while we hopped out to set up the shot, and this was no easy task.  This is where I personally marvel at Ally’s ability under pressure to change camera settings, position off camera lighting, bump the flash power up or down and even position LaTannya with the hand held Ice Light to get the proper lighting and focus.  Here is one of the results….

Taria

 

And there you have it!  This may actually be “part 1” here on the blog, because there may still be some follow up studio photos here at Frameable Faces with Taria in the near future.  Until then…. we hope you enjoyed the highlights of Taria’s session!

Mikaela Leads The Way For The Class of ’17 In More Ways Than One!

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There is always something special about our first official senior photo session of a new class – we love photographing seniors and the first session signals so many things for us – new friendships, a new summer, and tons of fun!  Mikaela was no exception on all three fronts – great girl (and great mom Jill), great summer day, and lots of fun!

A Session of Firsts…

Not only was the session fun but it represented some true firsts for us.  Not only the first senior of the season, but our first session on the ice, and our first time photographing in Royal Oak!  But before we get to the ice and the outdoor fun let’s start in the studio briefly where we began the session:

Mikaela

Stunningly beautiful on the black background!

Mikaela Leads The Way…

Before we head out to the location sneak peeks let’s take a look at some of our fun behind the scenes action!  First our 6 second vine for your looping pleasure!

Next we have the three part replay from our live Periscope broadcasts from the day.  Mild disclaimer here – the second snippet when we are on the ice starts with me shaking my head… I didn’t start the broadcast that way but for some reason a piece of it was missing on the replay…  Haha – ahhh technology!  If you haven’t followed us yet on Periscope you can download the app and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link.  Enjoy!

For now you can watch the replay on the YouTube channel HERE.

Okay now back to more awesome photos…

First we have a close up against a natural backdrop – like I said we had a perfect day!

Mikaela

….and a perfect model.

Next we have a photo from the ice.  This was a fun challenge – ice is actually kinda slippery you know….  It was a little treacherous – I was out there with the off camera flash and Ally – well let’s say she’s been known to wipe out once or twice in her day…  Okay so have I….  But we pulled it off and got some great results including this one:

Mikaela

Last but not least we have one more photo up close and personal with our wonderful first senior with a little city texture:

Mikaela

Those eyes!!!  And there it is – we hope you enjoyed the highlights of our epic day with Mikaela – a fantastic way to kick off the new class!

Doug’s Amateur 2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas!

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I am NOT a professional photographer.  Let’s get that straight – and I will not be any time soon.  I have always loved photography, always had a camera and have always had a nice amateur eye.  So being in the photography business with my amazing professional photographer wife Ally has given me a chance to be involved in it, and to play around with the behind the scenes photos when I’m creating content to promote what we do.

iPhoneography…

Meanwhile the cameras on iPhones and smartphones in general have become better and better – the quality is quite amazing for everyday amateur use and the tools and filters let you have a lot of fun.  We’ve always said that the more people appreciate everyday photography the more they will appreciate professional photography, and we embrace the technology and use it to highlight the photos we take for our clients.

To that end I’ve become fond of the Panorama option on the iPhone, and I made sure to grab a pano of each spokesmodel session for the class of 2017.  I thought maybe these could make a fun blog post and so here we go…..!  These are unfiltered by the way with the exception of Ally brightening one or two of them.

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas!

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Lily

With Lily we went to Heritage Park in Farmington Hills and I got Ally here in action with Lily under this pretty trellis.

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Haven

Haven rocked it in the studio on this purple background with the light wood floor – I got up high for this angle…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Nick

Bending an alleyway in Birmingham as Nick mimics Ally’s pose…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Lacey

Our Lacey at Belle Isle where if you look really closely you can see the Detroit skyline in the distance to the right …

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Ilyssa

Ilyssa with the blue on the blue door in Pontiac on a cold and overcast day…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Marie

Marie lounges on the “throne” in the studio on the red background and the dark wood floor…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Ben

Ben chilling on a footbridge – another bend in reality…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Aria and Maya

Aria and Maya go back to back in downtown Detroit with the awesome murals of “The Belt“.

Kinda neat huh?  We hope you enjoyed these class of 2017 spokesmodel panoramas!  Let us know what you think!

Nick Closes Out Our Class of 2017 Spokesmodels In Style!

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Nick is next up in our Class of 2017 blog posts, and yes he’s the subject of the last of these, but he’s far from the least!  This guy is great – bursting with personality and we liked him the minute we met him.  Funny enough we ended up sealing the deal with him representing our studio as a spokesmodel when Ally and I went out to eat at Social Kitchen and Bar in Birmingham – Nick was the host that night and we didn’t even know it!  He was the first person to greet us when we walked in (we had already met with him and his mom Sally)!  Everything about that night was pretty cool as a side note – the restaurant has owners who are parents of one of our seniors, three of our former seniors work there, and now we’ve got Nick!  You should eat there – it’s awesome.

Nick Is Next…

But back to Nick.  This guy showed up with what seemed like a whole closet of clothes (according to him only a third of his wardrobe) and let’s just say the kid has style!  We joked that day and since that ya gotta have options!  Lol…  Let’s start with a formal shot on the black background:

Nick

What a stud.

At this point we headed outside because we wanted to get some variety in Birmingham, but before we look at those let’s see some behind the scenes action – first with our 6 second Vine for your looping pleasure…

Now for your extended viewing if you like here are the replays of our live Periscope broadcasts from our day.  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you can do so and follow us at @FrameableFaces at this link.

Okay now for the location photos…  Shades, sun, flowers, steps, casual pose – cool!

Nick

And more steps….but a totally different aesthetic….

Nick

And we’ll leave you with this one – we like cityscapes with brick, alleys and the like!

Nick

Another awesome spokesmodel and another awesome session!  We may still have some fun recaps coming about our Class of 2017 team, but even more exciting we’ll have new seniors to present soon – including a new round of posts featuring this awesome crew of 9 as they return for their own senior pictures!

Ben Leads The Way for the Class of 2017 Spokesmodel Boys!

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Ben leads the way for the two guys we have in our class of 2017 spokesmodel crew!  Ben is another one of our daughter Lacey’s friends and Ben’s parents are friends of ours too.  Ben is sharp guy – smart and driven and we like him a lot!  He did a great job on this session which is cool because not all the boys dream of posing for pictures for a couple hours.  I think Ben had more fun than he expected which is usually how it goes!

Ben Leads…

After a string of 7 straight girls Ben is our first guy spokesmodel for this class and we started off with the GQ formal look here in the studio on the grey background…Ben LeadsDapper dude…

One more in the studio with a more casual look…

Ben LeadsAt this point before we head on location we’ll take a look at the fun behind the scenes footage from the day!  First we have our 6 second vine for your looping pleasure:

Next we have the replays of our live Periscope broadcasts from our YouTube channel.  You can subscribe to the channel and you can also download the Periscope app and follow us at @frameablefaces there at this link.  It’s fun!  Ben’s awesome mom Gina makes an appearance and so does Lacey as a guest host for a couple minutes!

Okay now let’s take a look at the location photos from the trails behind the West Bloomfield Library – it’s really nice back there…

Ben Leads

Definitely one of our favorite shots of the day!  Blue shirts bring out blue eyes nicely…

We’ll leave you with this last one by the city hall…

Ben Leads

Good stuff!  We had a great day with Ben and we’re happy for him to lead the way for the class of 2017!  Stay tuned – Nick is up next on the blog!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights of Ben!

 

A Little Bit Of Ilyssa & Lots Of Fab On Her Spokesmodel Session!

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Ilyssa has never been afraid to go after what she wants.  When she was three she decided that our Lacey should be her friend and she made it happen.  She brought our families together in doing so and we’ve been friends ever since – going on 14 years!  So this was another of those surreal sessions that we have with family or long time friends and it was quite fab indeed.  “Lissy’s” older sister Rachel was also a spokesmodel for us a few years ago so this is the second time around with these guys… but as a crew they’ve been in here every holiday season for their holiday cards so this was a familiar scene!

Ilyssa & Lots of Fab…

We started out in the studio on a day we weren’t so sure about – unseasonably cold and potential rain…  We broke out the damask pattern for the first shot and we love the hat – hats are way underrated for girls – they almost never fail!

Ilyssa

She looks amazing!

At this point we noticed that there was much more light coming in through the center court skylights than we thought – so we made the snap decision to go on location to Pontiac right then and there.  It was really cold but the lighting was pretty good and it was dry so we went with it…

Ilyssa

We spotted this doorway and combined with Lissy’s dress it was a total winner!  Love the blue on blue!!!

Before we show our last two sneak peeks let’s see our fun behind the scenes footage from our day!  First with our fun 6 second looping vine:

Next we have the replays of our Periscope broadcasts which are always fun from our YouTube channel.  Subscribe to us there and follow us on Periscope at @frameablefaces!  You can download the app at this link.

Okay let’s get back to a couple more sneak peeks!

Ilyssa had an outfit change on location and we got this cool shot on this staircase…

Ilyssa

Now if you remember we kinda raced out to the location when the weather appeared to break, but we still had some studio work to do, so back to the studio we went to wrap it up on the black background…

Ilyssa

Oh – hey beautiful!  Love the shades.

And that will do it for now!!!  A little bit of Ilyssa and a whole lot of fab!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day!

 

Marveling At Marie And Her Spokesmodel Session!

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Marveling at Marie is something we started doing a couple years ago when she came along with her older twin sisters Kristen and Katherine on their senior session from the class of 2015.  We had our eye on her back then to be a spokesmodel when it was her turn, and now sure enough here she is!  Such beautiful girls and a beautiful mom too!  Marie’s mom Marilyn is one of our faves as well, so we were excited to get them in here and we can’t wait to have them back for Marie’s senior pictures too!  But first things first, let’s take a look at a few different colors and outfits that Marie rocked here in the studio for her spokesmodel session…

Marveling at Marie….

This was a total in-studio session where we could play around with a few different backdrops and for the highlights we’ll start with the grey fabric.  We love this look and haven’t used it a ton yet…

Marveling at Marie

Love the way the peach blends into it and Marie looks amazing!

Meanwhile we gave our Snapchat geofilter another whirl on this day – it was a pretty big day for the studio since we did a “Snapchat swap” with one of our Periscope friends Chris Strub where he took over our account and vice versa.  Here is a clip from our snap story from the day with our logo geofilter at the bottom and Marilyn chillin’ in the background which Marie comically points out…  haha!!!

Next we have a photo from the red background and this is a cool little “room” setup with one of our vintage chairs, the moulding and the floor…

Marveling at Marie

Now let’s take a look at our behind the scenes 6 second looping vine:

…and the first Periscope replay from the live broadcasts we did during the session so you can get a little more of a sense of the fun we have!

…and the second one!

Okay now let’s get back to a couple more photos!

Next we have one from the simple and contemporary look of the white background which is always a winner, and this pose is a winner too…

Marveling at Marie

Lastly we have one of our “signature moves” of the “black and blowy” setup which always delivers… and Marie knew how to deliver here too!

Marveling at Marie

Wow.

And there it is – you can see why we’re marveling at Marie, and why we can’t wait to get her back in here for her senior portraits later in the year!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from her spokesmodel session!

Havin’ Fun With Haven On Her Spokesmodel Session!

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Haven is a gem.  We’ve known this for a while since her older sister Jubilee was a spokesmodel for us for the class of 2015 and Haven has been friendly with our daughter Lacey since they started high school.  Notice a theme here?  Our spokesmodels this year are largely “Lacey approved” since this is her graduating class!  Haha – well that hasn’t actually been our main criteria but we think Lacey has good taste and we had a feeling that Haven would be a great spokesmodel when we met her a couple years ago.  We decided to spend Haven’s whole session in the studio since our weather wasn’t so cooperative and as we’ve always said sometimes it’s nice to just stay in the studio to relax and play with some different combinations, colors, backdrops, furniture, floors etc…  So yes – we were havin’ fun with Haven!

Havin’ Fun With Haven…

So we started out with the tan paper backdrop which was perfect for Haven’s first outfit.  We love the earth tones here along with her skin tone – it all comes together really nicely!

Haven

Oh and it doesn’t hurt that she’s stunningly gorgeous!

We also experimented on this day for the very first time with our new Snapchat on-demand geofilter!  Our Periscope friend Vincenzo Landino wrote this article on these and we jumped on it!  It worked out nicely and we’ll be playing with this more down the road – it’s not permanently available but we’ll announce the days it’s on on twitter.  Here is a snap that Haven herself sent out that day… the little circle in the middle of her forehead is the snapchat timer while I was grabbing the screenshot.

Haven

Check out the snazzy Frameable Faces filter!

Here is the geofence we submitted to snapchat that shows where the filter was available – in and around our studio and down the common hallways of the mall!

Here is the first snapchat video we sent out with our filter – as you can see we had some snapchat fun that day!

Okay let’s get back to a few more photos…!

Let’s move on to the purple background – this purple is really vibrant and we combined it with our light wood floor and a molding to create a “room” look:

Haven

Let’s also check out some more behind the scenes – first with a fun little looping Vine:

…and next we also have a couple replays of our live Periscope broadcasts from our Katch.me page – if you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you need to!  Tune in for Frameable Faces TV at @frameablefaces by downloading the app here!

At this point we moved to the grey backdrop with a chair that we used for the first time a couple years ago with Haven’s sister Jubilee!  We love the way it’s ripped up in the front…

Haven

Now let’s check out our second broadcast from the session during which time we switched to the black backdrop:

And here is one of the results!

Haven

That’s a fantastic note to end this on….  we are thrilled to have this girl representing our studio this year and we look forward to her senior session later in the year!!!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day with her!

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!