Tag Archives: Online Marketing

MacKenzie Brings Mad Magnificence To Her Senior Photos!

by
No Comments

We’ve known MacKenzie for quite a while now, and I’ve known MacKenzie’s dad for about 40 years… Crazy!  So having MacKenzie here was a little surreal and a lot awesome.  She has amazing red hair as you’ll see in a minute and she definitely brought mad magnificence to her session!  🙂

Family Affair

Now the whole family didn’t come but both parents Glenn and Jennifer did and we had a blast.  It’s rare that both parents are available to make it to the session and we had great weather as well so everything was working out in our favor – the conditions were right and MacKenzie brought the magnificence – let’s take a look starting with one in the studio from one of our new backdrops this year from Peek A Bootique:

Mad Magnificence

What a beauty!

At this point we’ll head outside for some location shots but before we do let’s take a look at some of our behind the scenes fun from the day!  First with our little 6 second Vine for your looping pleasure:

Next we have the newly-embeddable (for you tech geeks) replays of our Periscope broadcasts directly from Twitter!  If you haven’t followed us there yet you can do so either on the Periscope app at @frameablefaces where you can join in with comments in the app, or you can watch right on Twitter!  First with the broadcast from the studio:

And then the location broadcast!

Now let’s get back to the photos!  We covered a lot of ground on this day!

Mad Magnificence

First we spent some time at Heritage Park where we grabbed this photo on one of our favorite little foot bridges there:

Mad Magnificence

Love the lighting on her hair in that one…

Next we headed up to Quarton Lake in Birmingham to finish it out where we captured these two winners with our heroine…   🙂

Mad Magnificence

And this last one….

Mad Magnificence

And there you have it!  Mad magnificence from MacKenzie indeed!!!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day with her!

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

Ryan Leads The Way For The Guys For The Class Of 2017!

by
No Comments

Ryan’s session is the first official senior guy session for the class of 2017 and he definitely led the way in style!  We have known Ryan for a long time but not well – one of those things where we’ve known his family and more specifically his mom Jodie going back to high school days.  We photographed him before when we did family photos for them, but this was the first time we really hung out with Ryan for an extended time and we really had a lot of fun with him!

Focused dude…

One of the things that impressed us about Ryan (and you’ll see this if you watch the Periscope replay) is when asked by a couple of viewers of our live broadcast what subject he likes the most and what he wants to study he didn’t hesitate – just matter of factly answered “Econ” and “Business”.  I didn’t really have a clue at that age, so kudos to Ryan!  As for the session, he came solo and had two different dress shirts for the formal shots to go with the casual stuff.  Totally prepared – clean cut and ready to rock (not just with the photos but the kid likes classic rock too – which instantly makes him cool).  So let’s get ready to rock here, starting with our studio photos…

We started with the formal look with the grey fabric backdrop – this is a combo we like a lot!

Ryan Leads

GQ!  What a stud.

Next we moved to a little bit more of a casual look with a sweater for this one…

Ryan Leads

Looking good with the black background!

Before we head to the location photos let’s look at the behind the scenes action shall we?  First with our fun 6 second looping Vine where Ally is having a little fun with Ryan – haha!

Even his Snapchat story was pretty epic which you can check out on Slinger at this link!

Next we have the replay of our live Periscope broadcasts from our YouTube channel for your extended viewing pleasure!  Download Periscope and follow us at @FrameableFaces and/or watch the broadcasts on Twitter!

Ryan Leads Us…To The Location!

Heritage Park is a great location for outdoor sessions and we got some great stuff with Ryan.  This was a later session where we planned to get some off camera flash going and the results are fantastic…

First we have a nice close up with the barn in the background…

Ryan Leads

And lastly an off camera flash photo…

Ryan Leads

Cool!

And there you have it – Ryan leads the way for the guys and we are really off and running with this senior class!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our time with Ryan!

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

by
2 Comments

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 Rant: Twitter Stickers, Photos on Social, Apps Chase Apps

by
No Comments

Yes it’s been a while since I’ve posted a rant!  Let’s do this….

Twitter Stickers

Twitter Stickers

You may have seen Twitter’s recent announcement about the new “stickers” feature which allows you to add emojis and other things to your photos.  Fortune points out the obvious play on Twitter’s part to keep up with Snapchat with a headline that gives the new feature a positive spin.  Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal is completely and inexplicably oblivious to the chasing of snapchat with a slightly-less-than-flattering headline about Twitter….  Note in particular the second paragraph in the WSJ article about the other “communication” apps with stickers.  C’mon….  Really?  ZERO mention of Snapchat there?  That’s amazing.  I’m not totally sure how I feel about stickers yet since I haven’t used them but I have plenty of thoughts and you can look at this from a few different perspectives which we’ll get to.

A Couple Thoughts On Social Photography…

Meanwhile as photographers the ongoing debate of whether iPhone pics and the ease of entry is “ruining” the industry is an interesting one to us.  This article on Popular Photography while not overtly addressing the big picture in that regard seems to come from that mindset, claiming that using Twitter stickers is a way to “completely ruin your photos”.  I always find these types of opinions a little troubling.  We’ve always embraced the idea that the more people appreciate everyday photography the more they will appreciate professional photography.  We’ve always looked at Snapchat and Instagram as opportunities to have fun just like everyone else and we actually use them to highlight aspects of what we do at Frameable Faces.  To call attention to stickers being a way to ruin pictures is silly to me.  If you take a picture you don’t want to ruin with a sticker, then DON’T ADD A STICKER…… duh.  Right?  Maybe the fun you can have with stickers can help you build community to draw people in to see the stuff that is meant to stand on its own without the stickers.  We actually covered this topic today on our photography show “The Photo Shop” on @ParachuteTV1 on Periscope if you’re interested in taking a look.

Social Media Apps chasing Other Social Media Apps…

So while the photography studio owner in me doesn’t have a problem with stickers, the social media guy in me might.  Here’s what bugs me a little about them – keep in mind that I have not used them yet.  This is an overall statement about social media platforms that I think applies here, even though I may be admitting soon that stickers are the greatest thing to happen to twitter (although I doubt it).  I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong…

Here’s my issue.  Each time a unique social media platform adds a feature to chase and become like another platform, it blurs the lines between platforms that make them cool.  I like the different uses for each platform.  I like the different etiquette and the different cultures of the different apps.  Here are three other examples I thought were somewhere between silly and annoying when they rolled out and still do:

  • Facebook hashtags  Good try Facebook but you are NOT twitter.  Hashtags totally flopped on Facebook – they just really don’t belong there in my opinion.
  • Instagram video  I believe Instagram did this as a reaction to Vine at the time.  I can’t stand videos on Instagram.  There was nothing “insta” about pausing while scrolling though the pics in the feed to watch a 15 second video and now the videos can be up to 60 seconds – good grief.   I know not everyone agrees with me on this but it is my rant…
  • Periscope sketch  Rolling out the ability to sketch on the screen while you’re broadcasting was, well…sketchy.  I can only conclude that this was a way to chase Snapchat (?) even though the two are completely apples and oranges.  Sonia Figueroa is the only scoper I’ve seen who consistently makes me smile when she draws hearts on the screen to “give them back” to her viewers (she’s one of my faves), but at a time when everyone was waiting for other more practical features this was a bit of an annoyance.

So there it is…  had to do it.  Thoughts?  Are you using Twitter stickers?  Can you think of other app fails from apps chasing apps?  Please comment, share your thoughts, and share this post!

 

 

The Doug and Ally Morning Show on Periscope!

by
4 Comments

Hey Now!

That’s usually how we start our morning show with those Larry Sanders Show / Howard Stern inspired words, and off we go….

The Doug and Ally Morning Show!

We have been broadcasting live on Periscope since April 2015 and somewhere along the way the “Doug&Ally Morning Show” became a thing.  It wasn’t planned.  It was early on an October morning, we weren’t doing much here at the studio and we thought it would be interesting to jump on Periscope and see who was up!  We don’t officially open until 10:00 AM anyway.  Turns out a lot of people were happy to see us on and someone made the comment that it’s like a morning show…  We thought that sounded fun so we kept doing it and here we are 8 months later going strong with the morning show “officially” Tuesday through Fridays from sometime around 8:45 or 9ish until 10 or 10:30ish.  It starts when it starts and it ends when it ends….

A Life Of Its Own…

Meanwhile many things have happened along the way that have become regular occurrences / features on the show…  One of the most well known guests is an amazing caricaturist from the UK named Rich Nairn (@RichNairn on twitter and Periscope) who has been known to join the show and tweet doodles based on what’s happening.  He sketches them in black and white but he made a color one which has become the official artwork for the show and will be available on T-Shirts (and maybe coffee mugs) very soon!

Morning ShowThe phrase “You shut up, you shut up, and you shut up” has been an inside joke in Ally’s family which originated with her dad and it has become a common phrase on the show…  haha!  Notice the Periscope hearts going up the side to the right!  Here are a couple more of his from the show….

One morning we were discussing some pretty chaotic events at home in the hours before we came to work.  Ally woke up in the middle of the night with a spider crawling on her face, and I stepped in cat poop that one of the cats brought up from the basement litter box as a “trailer”….  Next thing we know Rich is commenting “tweet tweet” which usually means he’s posted a doodle and……

Morning show

Here’s one more that we’ve featured before on the blog but it’s worth repeating.  We had a photo session with a newborn baby and at one point during the session we wanted to get some naked baby photos which are precious…..when the following happened – watch the following vine:

So we were talking about this session and then Rich tweeted….

Morning show

He really is amazing – he cranks these out in minutes….  Check out his fantastic work at his website The Artful Doodler!

Fun With The Feed!

I noticed that the thumbnails that show up in the Periscope news feed are sometimes amusing because they capture candid expressions of the person broadcasting and they refresh every few seconds, and so “Fun With The Feed” was born – with it’s own logo, jingle and everything!  No one knows when one of these might happen (nor do they know if they’ll be the next victim…).

Morning Show

Here are a couple of our favorites…

Morning Show

@Amrit Singh has an awesome beard so we thought we’d help him show off all angles of it.  Meanwhile the guy is awesome and has been doing some amazing humanitarian work in the UK helping with the refugee crisis.  We met him in San Francisco in January at the Periscope Community Summit (now called Summit Live).

We also got our friend @Jaxsology with some awesome expressions – she is a really talented singer and a total comedian – one of our favorite scopers to be sure…

Morning show

Ally and I do our cheesy intro ONCE per show followed by a tour of the studio where we talk about what we do and one of our Peri-friends Nelma – @BeachBabyC actually called in and narrated the tour on speaker phone one morning!  Nelma has dubbed our living room “The Parlor” which is a great name for our little meeting area with our clients!  We have call-ins to the show every now and then including a certain ridiculous telemarketing company who calls ALL THE TIME to try to give us great insurance rates on our 2013 Acura…   Um, we’ve never had an Acura. After asking them a dozen times to be placed on their do not call list we decided to turn the tables…  Take a look:

Many of our friends have their own special entrance when they show up on the show including Erick “@making_money23” Gary – all hell breaks loose when he shows up.  There is no real rhyme or reason to who gets an intro or why – they just kinda happen…

So join us!  There are plenty of features like “the coffee test” and spontaneous shenanigans that happen on the show and you can be a part of it just by tuning in and commenting!  We have a ton of fun and we love our international community who joins us literally from all corners of the world (Russia, Malaysia, Israel, UAE, Brazil, Serbia, Japan, Australia, UK, Spain, France, Morocco, Venezuela, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, Germany, The Netherlands, Nigeria, just to name some) every Tuesday through Friday morning (and sometimes Saturday) for the Doug&Ally Morning Show!!!

**********************************************

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!

A Brand New Life Only 5 Days Old – Meet Alan!

by
No Comments

We are excited for you to meet Alan!  We were certainly excited to meet him once we got the call that he would be “bringing” his family with him to the studio 5 days after he entered the world!  We had a session scheduled for that Saturday afternoon but nothing in the morning so it worked out nicely.  With newborn babies you have a short window where they are still newborn and the earlier they can come to the studio the better…

Alan came to the studio with his delightful parents Mallory and David and his older brother Eli who isn’t even 2 yet, but Eli was totally up for this.  He was loving on his little brother and he looks like he’ll be a great older bro as you’ll see!

Meet Alan!

So let’s take a look at some photos!  As usual we had the lights down low, the heat up high and the classical music playing to create a nice warm soothing environment, and Alan was a breeze to work with.  Here he is!

Meet Alan

So precious!

Before we look at a few more photos let’s look at our fun behind the scenes action from the morning!  First with our 6 second looping Vine:

Next we have the extended replay of the live Periscope broadcast from the session where you can get a feel for what the newborn sessions are like here.  If you still haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you can do so and follow us at @FrameableFaces at this link.

Now let’s get back to a few photos including this one with some awesome brotherly love in black and white!

Meet Alan

Next we have two more sweet photos of Alan – he was sleeping in both of them!

Meet Alan

Love it with the baby blue hat.

Meet Alan

So great.  And that will do it for now!  We hope you enjoyed meeting Alan – we certainly were honored to hang with him this early in his life!

Nick And Jen Return – This Time With Jeralyn For Her Debut!

by
No Comments

Jeralyn made her highly anticipated debut at the studio with her parents Nick and Jen, who you might remember from this one of a kind story we told you about recently…  And what an eventful and amazing photo session this was!  We are so excited to present these to you!  Our story with these guys has been truly special since that first phone call.

Jeralyn Makes Her Debut…

Jeralyn

Is there anything more amazing and perfect than a newborn baby?  She’s so beautiful!  It’s so nice when you can get your model to sleep for a bit, so we turn the lights low, the heat up and we put on a little classical music to help create a nice comforting mood.

We had a few backdrops and setups planned for this session, and next we moved to some pink fluffy awesomeness so Jeralyn could open her eyes and stretch out a little, floating on her pink cloud.

Jeralyn

Before we move to our next couple shots let’s look at a little of our fun behind the scenes action and a bonus poop heard round the world – LITERALLY…

I was documenting some of the session for snapchat – that day we were featured doing a snap swap takeover of the Summit Live snapchat account.  Both our profile and the Summit profile has worldwide followings.  I hit the record button and I swear it was like it was a poop remote control because Nick and Jen were holding a naked Jeralyn when she let loose!  So hilarious…  You can see it in this 6 second looping Vine…

Wait, we’re not done.  The next morning we were laughing about this on “The Doug & Ally Morning Show” we do on Periscope Tuesday through Friday mornings and Rich Nairn who has done the artwork for the soon-to-be-ready morning show t-shirts was in the broadcast.  You have to visit Rich’s website – he’s a genius!  When he saw the footage he was inspired to do a “doodle” which he does frequently…  Here we see Jeralyn propelling herself through the air!!!  HAHA!

Jeralyn

How funny is that?

Next we have the replay of our live Periscope broadcast from the session for your extended viewing pleasure.  Needless to say our female viewers were gushing over Jeralyn!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you can get it and follow us at @FrameableFaces at this link:

Now let’s get back to a couple more amazing photos of Jeralyn:

Jeralyn

Love the black and white with her eyes open!

And one more with a beautiful sari for this photo which is actually a composite (which is the safe way to execute this pose).  What a great photo!

Jeralyn

And there you have it – our wonderful continuing story of Nick, Jen and now Jeralyn!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from her debut!

Nick Closes Out Our Class of 2017 Spokesmodels In Style!

by
No Comments

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!

by
No Comments

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!

by
No Comments

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!