Tag Archives: Online Marketing

Snow Or No, Doesn’t Matter – Nadia Is A Natural!

Nadia is a natural – a beautiful photogenic, athletic, softspoken and all around nice girl.  We had a lot of fun with her and her mom Thyawana over a long period of time which is kind of nice.  Not a typical session because we broke this one up into multiple seasons, but it’s nice to put together a session that is out of the box once in a while especially when snow is involved!!!  Every year a few seniors want the snow and we’ve had some amazing snowy sessions – this was one of them.

Nadia’s fall photos….

But before we get to our winter wonderland we got together on a cloudy day last fall for a few photos over at Nadia’s high school Birmingham Groves for some really nice shots on the field and in front of the school – they had this all planned out for what they wanted and the results are awesome.  Here’s a representative photo from that day of Nadia in her letter jacket on the school sign that we think is so much fun!

NadiaNow before we switch seasons, let’s take a look at some of our fun behind the scenes action from the session(s)!  Let’s start with our six second vine for your looping pleasure:

Next we have the replay of the live Periscope broadcasts from both of those days – the first broadcast has comments and the second does not but they’re still both fun!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you NEED to – you can do so and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link.

To The Snow…

We reconvened on the West Bloomfield Trail in a snowstorm for these amazing photos.  Huge fluffy flakes that at one point were so thick they actually posed a challenge for Ally to find Nadia through the flakes!  Here is a prime example:

Nadia

Incredible!  Nadia is just stunning too…

This is one of our favorite snow photos which several of our seniors have rocked over the years:

Nadia

Let’s leave you with one more with this fabulous full length photo of Nadia….

Nadia

So there you go!  Nadia was definitely a natural and the different seasons made our time with her quite memorable!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights!

Real Awesomeness With Rachel On Her Senior Session!

Real awesomeness was what we experienced, really from the moment Rachel and her mom Wendy walked in the door for the first time!  We instantly fell in love with these two – the consultation went way longer than usual and we were laughing and having a blast.  We knew this session would rock!  Rachel is a cool girl – beautiful, really funny and she’s a North Farmington Raider like us!  We planned a great day with some studio work, some city stuff in Birmingham, and some pretty stuff too including a few shot with their golden lab Dude!

Real Awesomeness…

So let’s start with one shot from the studio before we head out.  This is one on the black background that I suggested to Ally might look great in a portrait crop instead of landscape – see what ya think…

Real AwesomenessLove it – especially the black clothing on the black background – people expect that you can’t really do that but if you light it properly it’s fantastic.

Before we head outside with the location photos let’s take a look at some of the behind the scenes action from the day.  First we have our 6 second looping Vine AND I’m also including our fun snapchat story while we’re at it.

Next we have our epic replays from our live Periscope broadcasts… these particular replays do not have the synced comments but they’re still fun especially when Wendy takes over to guest host a bit!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you can do so and follow us at @frameablefaces here.

To Birmingham…

At this point it’s time to check out the amazing awesomeness of the location photos.  First we have a couple in the city.  Here we go…

Real AwesomenessRight?  Wow.

And then there’s this…

Real Awesomeness

Nothing like perfect backlight and a perfectly timed breeze…  Rachel was really rockin’ it at this point…

Next we headed to a secluded spot along a stream that we love for this one we’ll leave you with!

Real Awesomeness

Yes this was real awesomeness alright…  We loved our day with Rachel!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of her session!

Havin’ Fun With Haven On Her Spokesmodel Session!

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!

A Breathtaking Example Of Maternity And Serendipity

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

Serendipity

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

Me: Frameable Faces this is Doug!

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

Me: Wait – is she in labor?????

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

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

Serendipity…

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

Serendipity

How cute are they?

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

Serendipity

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

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

Here is the link to the broadcast.

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

Serendipity

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

Serendipity

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

 

Maya Mia! Maya Is A Fabulous Spokesmodel!

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!

Our Very Own Spokesmodel – Lacey Lights It Up!

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

Our Very Own Spokesmodel

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

Lacey Lights

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

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

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

Lacey Lights

Pretty cool huh?

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

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

First at the Russel Industrial Center:

Next at Belle Isle:

And lastly at the Dequindre Cut:

Lacey Lights It Up!

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

Lacey Lights

Oh hello Lacey!  Hehe…

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

Lacey Lights

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

Lily Leads The Way For Our Class of 2017 Spokesmodels!

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

Lily Leads…

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

Lily Leads

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

Lily Leads

We’ve always been a fan of that look!

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

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

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

And here is the broadcast from on location:

Lily Leads us to Heritage Park

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

Lily Leads

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

Lily Leads

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

Nine MORE Types of Periscope Chatters! Survival Tips For Scopers!

For those of you who saw our previous Periscope “survival guide” blog posts and corresponding broadcasts, if you have been on Periscope since you probably know that there are way more than 13 or 14 types of chatters and scopers…

Nine More Types

We here in the Frameable Faces research department have identified NINE more types of chatters and we broadcasted our findings live to a bloodthirsty (and nervous) Periscope audience.  We now bring you the YouTube replay of that broadcast along with a list of the chatters we covered.  Here is the replay…

Nine More Types Of Chatters…

  1. The Hijacker – the hijacker will try to take the controls of your broadcast and steer it to a destination of their own choosing.  Often shouting in ALL CAPS they will try to promote their website / blog / dog – whatever.  Very spammy and potentially blockworthy if they refuse to back off…  In a promote-your-scope type of broadcast it’s okay but that’s the only place where it’s appropriate.  Side chatters can sometimes combine to unknowingly tread into this dangerous territory.
  2. The Brown Noser – somewhat self explanatory…  the scoper who the brown noser is brown nosing is a GENIUS and every point they make is revelatory…… to the brown noser.  Yes it’s okay to be a fan and thank your favorite scopers for their insights, but sheesh – sometimes it’s like Beatles fans on the Ed Sullivan show…
  3. The Security Guard – the security guard is there to keep potential trolls in line in your scope.  They will put smackdowns on inappropriate comments and alert you to whom you should block if you missed it.  The security guard can actually be a welcome chatter in your room as long as they aren’t too aggressive and start scaring the other chatters.
  4. The Aggressive Gamer – often the aggressive gamer is secretly using an external keyboard for faster typing giving them a huge advantage in Periscope games where the first correct answer is the winner.  Often these chatters will just start throwing random answers up on the screen as soon as a category is announced before the question is even asked.  Thankfully most Perigame show hosts are on to this and won’t award a win until they at least ask the question…
  5. The Cryptic Chatter – the cryptic chatter can cause chaos on a broadcast by confusing the heck out of the scoper with comments that usually relate to something said at least 30 seconds before and they put zero context in their comment like “Oh yeah sometimes for sure” or “Exactly – I HATE that”.  You must call out the cryptic chatter with a passive aggressive remark to let them know not-so-subtly that you have no idea what the heck they are talking about.  The problem as a scoper is the extra second you take to decipher the cryptic comment keeps you a half step behind the next comment that actually contributes to the conversation.
  6. The Brand Newbie – we hug the brand newbie, we embrace the brand newbie.  The Periscope community is a welcoming community of early adopters and when you see a brand newbie who tentatively enters a room with an egghead profile you should be nice to them.
  7. The Eggspert – no one likes an eggspert.  The problem with the eggspert is they have no credibility – they show up in a room and start commenting in an authoritative way like they have a ton of knowledge, and yet they can’t figure out one of the first rules and that is to get a profile avatar – a photo, a logo – something other than an egg.  It is perfectly okay for all chatters in the room to shame the eggspert.  NOTE:  Credit goes to Periscope star @MalinMOcean who coined the term “eggspert” in our broadcast when we referred to this chatter as the “no-credibility chatter”.
  8. The Spillover Commenter – this chatter breaks their comments up into multiple comment bubbles, often because they can’t boil it down to the three lines allowed in the app.  This is usually a problem because the second part of the comment comes too long after the first part which can confuse the scoper and make the second part of the comment look like the work of a cryptic chatter.
  9. The Fat Finger – autocorrect is the bane of the fat finger’s existence.  Whether due to carelessness, hurried commenting, or actual fat fingers, the fat finger chatter is often put into embarrassing situations by comments gone horribly wrong…  we’ve ALL been there.

So there you go – nine more types of chatters for you to be aware of!  Here are the links to the previous posts, and there is at least one more to come!

13 Types Of Periscope Chatters – A Survival Guide For Scopers!

13 Types Of Periscope Scopers – A Survival Guide For Chatters!

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Frameable Faces Photography
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Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
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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!

The 13 Types Of Periscope Scopers – A Survival Guide For Chatters!

You may have read our post about the 13 types of Periscope chatters and you may have seen the ensuing broadcast about it on Periscope which was an epic laughfest for all involved.  For that one I wrote the article first and then we did the broadcast.

Periscope Scopers

Ally and Doug probably being one of the 13…

Well the reception to that broadcast was so fantastic it inevitably required a sequel, and this time we did it in reverse.  I made a few notes, put together a slide show and we did another broadcast once again with Ally providing the demonstrations.  So now here is the companion blog post.  Now that we exposed all the different types of chatters we encounter on Periscope, let’s turn the tables on the scopers!  Here’s the actual broadcast and the breakdown of the 13 below.

The 13 Types Of Periscope Scopers…

  1. The Too Close For Comfort Scoper – this scoper isn’t going to be satisfied until you have become completely acquainted with their nose hair, teeth and eyebrows – or as some chatters pointed out in the broadcast, the pores in their skin.
  2. The Distracted By Comments Scoper – this scoper will literally try to start the same sentence 23 straight times and won’t be able to do it because they just can’t stop answering all the comments.  Always a challenge since you want to be social and talk to your viewers, but sheesh – get on with it man!!!  This scoper may also graduate to being a juggler – more on that later.
  3. The Multitasker – in the scope I referred to this one as the “JUST Missed Your Comment Scoper” but I realized this scoper isn’t paying attention to the screen because they are multitasking.  They often will ask a question and then get distracted by something else going on and then come back to the screen to catch your 3 line typed out question just as it’s fading into extinction and they’ll only get the first line before it’s gone…
  4. The Bad Lighter – this scoper is scoping in the dark while asking you your opinion on something that’s impossible to see because, well, they’re scoping IN THE DARK.
  5. The Earthquake – tons of turbulence here…  in the broadcast you’ll see that everyone was getting dizzy and nauseous because the scoper is unaware of how important it is to try to steady their smartphone.  Watch, I’ll end up feeling bad about this one if someone is scoping during an actual earthquake.
  6. The Shy Scoper – curious that someone would download this app and start scoping if they don’t want to be seen, but some scopers are nervous and they scope the floor or the wall while talking to you…  Or maybe they haven’t figured out how to double tap their screen yet.
  7. The Thankful Scoper – these people are SO happy that people have showed up to their scope!  They will gush and jump for joy when people show up, and sometimes a certain special scoper will pop in that will make them lose their mind completely.
  8. The Beggar – a potentially annoying scoper to be sure, the beggar will campaign for hearts, shares, follows, tweets, and invites.  They will find any number of creative ways to get you to tap your screen – they are completely addicted.
  9. The Overscoper – as you can see a couple people got nervous when this slide popped up in the broadcast.  Periscope can be addictive in nature, and overscoping can be dangerous to building a following especially  for those chatters who haven’t changed their notification settings and have their iPhone doing that “hello” whistle at them courtesy of the overscoper 10-20 times per day…
  10. The Unable To Gauge What’s Actually Exciting Scoper – as a side note I’m pretty disgusted with myself for misspelling “gauge” in the slide deck for the broadcast on this one…  In any event, this scoper sees a squirrel in a park and thinks it’s going to be ratings gold.  Most people have encountered squirrels.  Seeing someone else encounter one by watching it happen on your iPhone isn’t quite that exciting.  You don’t need to scope the squirrel.
  11. The Off-Topic Scoper – pretty self explanatory.  This scoper will entitle their scope “5 Things To Do In Detroit” and end up scoping about, well, a squirrel, or maybe Game Of Thrones.  Sometimes this is partly the fault of the Off-Topic chatter who throws the scoper off-topic.
  12. The Juggler – the juggler sometimes starts out as a “distracted by comments scoper”.  The juggler tries to keep three or more separate conversations with three different chatters going at the same time.  It never goes well and this inevitably can lead to injury.
  13. The Long Goodbye Scoper – this scoper says they HAVE to go.  They are signing off, but wait – they can’t leave while hearts are still flowing, comments are still going, and chatters are still showing.  These people are often closet beggars.  These goodbyes seem to go on forever and sometimes something is said that restarts and extends the scope which proves that the scoper really had nothing else to do in the first place.
  14. The Unprepared Scoper – note the title indicates that there are 13 scopers for this post, but in order to demonstrate the importance of scope preparedness we snuck in this 14th scoper which proves the point.  Prepare for your scope so you aren’t scrambling in the middle of a scope to find something else you meant to cover and can’t find.  This can be uncomfortable for all involved.

So there you have it!  The 13 Types of Periscope Scopers!  There are plenty more where they came from and I’m sure this will be good for at least a couple more scopes of categories of chatters and scopers, so stay tuned….

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

 

 

Doug’s Rant – Image Quality ISN’T Everything On Instagram (and more)

Yes it’s that time again… time to RANT.  I have 4 basic topics to cover so let’s get to it.

Rosh Sillars tweeted the link to an article about Instagram this morning written by Andrew Hutchinson for Social Media Today which I thought was good.  You should read it.  Now while I do NOT disagree completely with the idea that image quality is everything for certain strategies on Instagram, I do disagree with this as an overall statement.  So those of you who know me will know that I feel the need to respectfully present the counterpoint in the spirit of healthy debate.

Three reasons image quality isn’t required on instagram:

  1. Think about the name of the app – INSTAgram.  The “Insta” in Instagram implies an instant and spontaneous sharing of photos made right from your iPhone.  Granted you can post images that aren’t taken with your iPhone but the app is clearly designed with that in mind with the basic camera and editing interface in the app.  Many brands post professionally crafted and edited images on Instagram with a ton of attention to detail to the author’s point and it works for them.  But sometimes when you capture something fun and immediate you might not have it set up for perfection, and that’s actually what can make an Instagram perfect.  I would take it a step further and say that even as a photography studio our strategy on Instagram is typically not to show off our finished work here but to rather bring people behind the scenes and have fun, which leads me to number two…

    Image quality

    NOT a professional photo!

  2. Instagram is social.  Perfect art might not always be.  A collage or a funny incident can tell a story or start a conversation – an interesting one.  A perfect photo can too I suppose, but when you go to an exhibition or art museum they don’t hang a white board with a marker under the display for people to engage and leave comments.  Tell a story and have fun with your followers and don’t always worry about the quality of the photo.  To borrow something that Mark Shaw (one of my favorite Periscopers) might say, it’s not Autogram – don’t just broadcast perfection at people to show top quality.  Now don’t post total garbage either, but keep the focus on being fun and social.
  3. There is a ceiling on how awesome your images can be for your following because of the platform.  Many people are looking at these images on an iPhone.  Is that really the best way to see a professional photo?  It’s not a bad way per se, it’s just not the best way.  An EZ Bake oven isn’t the best way to bake a top notch cake, but it could be the most fun cake of your life if you do it with a child.  Our clients come to our studio to get images to hang as their centerpiece on a wall – not just to look at on their iPhone.  So once again – don’t always worry about the quality.  You typically can’t show off the very best of a quality photo on an iPhone.

Okay moving on…

Why I Don’t Like Email Lists

This is another one I go against the grain on.  I do not like email lists.  I’ve never sent out regular email newsletters or tried to build an email list of clients.  I’m not saying they don’t work, I’m just not interested in sending emails to clients.  Email has been around since well before social media existed, but it’s done on a computer or some other electronic device so it’s not as old school as say, junk mail, so let’s call it “post-old school”.  I suspect it works largely as a numbers game – not because getting another email is sooooo awesome.

Will YouTube come back for brands?

I’ve been posting more video to YouTube since I started Periscoping.  I like to repurpose some of my scopes and upload some of my tips to our YouTube channel.  It has led me to hang out on YouTube with a renewed sense of purpose as a brand, and I’ve connected with people on Periscope who are doing the same.  When I went back to the channels and brands I had subscribed to before I saw that many of them hadn’t posted anything in months, but I think this could change…  Just my guess – this is one where I’m just wondering aloud.  This is a whole other topic in itself on ways to effectively build your brand on YouTube which I’m exploring in new ways now.  I’ll keep you posted.  What are your thoughts on this?  Do you subscribe to channels and organize your YouTube channel with playlists?  As an individual?  As a brand?  Are you social there?  Subscribe to our channel and let’s connect!

Image Quality

Yes I’m slightly addicted to Periscope

Of course it comes back to the game-changing monster that is Periscope.  I wrote a post for MCP Actions about 5 very specific ways you can use Periscope for your photography studio… and I also wrote a post here about what you need to know about Periscope (so far) back in April.  At this point I’m totally hooked – I’ve built some great relationships in ways I never did before on any other platform.  I notice however that many people still don’t know what it is yet and haven’t given it a try, so I think I’ll be writing another post soon about what you can accomplish with Periscope.  The people who aren’t early adopters might want to know what the “why” is…  While I’m at it I may write one about who you should follow there.

That’s it for now – I’d love to hear your comments on this whether you agree or not.  Thanks for reading and join me on Periscope where we can discuss these further!