Tag Archives: Orchard Mall

Just A Great Hangout With Jeremy!

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Just a great hangout with Jeremy is what his senior session felt like!  Sometimes those are the best sessions.  Sure we are taking pictures and the senior is posing and changing clothes a few times, but when you’re just having a good time hanging out talking about life, and in this case a lot of American history which Jeremy and I have a common interest in, then it just feels like hanging out with a buddy.  Meanwhile Jeremy’s older brother Devin was here last year with his mom for a memorable senior session as well, so we were excited to have them back!

We had a lot of laughs and we’ll get to that a little later, but for now let’s just start with some great location shots…

Great Hangout

The colors are changing on a daily basis at this point which is obviously a photographer’s dream.  We love the reds, oranges, browns and yellows we get in the trees here in Michigan, and we had a great morning to be outside on this day!  This has been a good spot for us with the water in the background and Jeremy just looks relaxed and at ease don’t you think?

Next we hit some trails and captured this photo with this little triple tree…

Great Hangout

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine and here is where we get to a few of those laughs I mentioned.  Jeremy’s brother had a fun silly photo that came out of his session so we stopped at the store for a little Hubba Bubba to try to top it.  Haha!

Next we changed locations to go to one of our meadows…

Great Hangout

And then we changed locations yet again to go to one of our favorite bridges and this time we’re presenting it in black and white – just a cool classic and dramatic shot of our guy here…

Great Hangout

So there it is!  Simple – a great hangout with a great guy with a great mom and, of course, great results!!!  Hope you enjoyed these photos of Jeremy!

How Do We Spell Style? J-O-R-D-A-N Of Course!

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Photographing a guy who can rock a session like Jordan is a treat.  What a great kid.  And apparently the rest of the world shares our opinion because Jordan seems to know everyone around here and everyone knows him!  We knew this was going to be a good photo shoot and his mom came along to hang with us for the afternoon.  We had a blast.  The guy knows fashion, knows how to pose and has a great look so the session really came together nicely.  This is not totally by accident either since Jordan is considering a career in fashion.  So when asked how we spell style around here we’ll just answer J-O-R-D-A-N from now on!

First we started in the studio for one of several GQ looks that we love with the suit and tie this time on the black background…

We Spell Style

Then after some additional studio work we headed outside for what turned out to be a perfect fall day.  We went mostly for the natural look and we started out with this pathway through one of the meadows that we love:

We Spell Style

Here is our fun behind the scenes three part vine from the day!

Next we headed over to one of our favorite bridges for this one…

We Spell Style

Catalogue material right?  The boy knows how to dress and how to pose.  This last photo is a unique one with the hoodie and Jordan standing in the road – we love this.

We Spell Style

So how do we spell style again?  Oh yeah – J-O-R-D-A-N!  And now you know why.  We hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks from his outstanding senior session!  We certainly enjoyed our afternoon with Jordan!

 

A Melodic Senior Session With Matt!

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Our 2015 seniors continue with a melodic senior session with Matt!  What a great guy – his mom joined us on the session and their interaction was really cute – just cool and enjoyable and they have a great relationship.  Matt is a mature and laid back gentleman!

Meanwhile they took us to a new spot we never knew existed right under our noses not far from where we live!  I mentioned in the blog post for our last senior that lately some of our explorations have been more rewarding than usual and this was one of those.  A long raised pathway through the woods that ends as a dock on a small lake.  Such an awesome location and we were shocked!  We’ll get to that later.  In the meantime let’s start with a photo in the studio on the black background which was how we started our afternoon…

melodic senior session

Next it was time to head outside and explore a little.  Interestingly enough we made a stop at the same spot we hit with our last session but there are several different options at that location that we didn’t highlight in the last post, starting with this one looking out of the tunnel and down the pathway.  It makes for a really cool lighting effect!

melodic senior session

Then we used the adjacent stairs for this close crop – now that’s a good looking kid right?

melodic senior session

Now here is the melodic part – it’s our fun behind the scenes vine of the session including a little musical interlude by Matt at the end of our newfound dock!

And the resulting photo…

melodic senior session

So there it is!  New spots, guitars, great guy to photograph – that’s a pretty good day in our book.  We hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks from Matt’s session!

 

Bringing A Cool Spot Back With Becca!

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We are always on the lookout for cool new locations for senior sessions and it seems lately some of our explorations have been more rewarding than usual.  New meadows, pathways and bridges get us excited!  But once in a while during a consultation a senior sees something on our iPad that we hadn’t thought about in a while and leads us back to a spot that we get to see in a whole new way!  Becca did that for us when she chose this very cool tunnel that we hadn’t been to in years.  So yes – we are bringing a cool spot back with Becca!

We’ve also mastered a few new lighting tricks since the last time we were here, and we love the way this one came out:

Bringing A Cool Spot Back

So cool – and Becca looks great!  There is also a cool outdoor staircase right by the tunnel which we took advantage of.  Any location that has a couple of different looks in close proximity is a bonus.

Bringing A Cool Spot Back

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine that we made from this location before we headed back to the studio…

Next it was time to head back and get some studio shots.  Becca liked the purple which is fun – it looks great but we don’t use it a ton.  We love Becca on this color!

Bringing A Cool Spot Back

We finished up on the white background and this is one of those shots that just begs to be made into a black and white.  It just looks cool – Becca looks totally in control here – love the pose and love the attitude!

Bringing A Cool Spot Back

And that’ll do it for now – another fantastic senior and fantastic senior session!  We hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks!

Sharing A Few Photos From A Special Day – Our Son’s Bar Mitzvah!

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Many of you asked to see the pictures from our son’s Bar Mitzvah when they are available, so we are sharing a few photos from our special day!  When photographers need pictures the question inevitably comes up “So who is photographing YOUR event?  You aren’t doing it right?”  Haha – that would be interesting – setting up each shot and then….setting the timer and getting back in the picture right?  Of course not.

Well as you may know for some time we were not really in the event photography business.  It’s not Ally’s specialty personally and we couldn’t work on weekend nights or we would never see our kids.  Enter our wonderful event photographer Angela.  She has done a fantastic job for Frameable Faces on events and at this point we couldn’t think of anyone better to trust with the task of photographing Tony’s Bar Mitzvah.  She did an amazing job as we knew she would.  We are so proud to showcase not only our son and our happiness on the occasion of his Bar Mitzvah, but also Angela’s work as we have watched her grow over the years since the very first day she simply walked into our studio, still a student, and asked if we might be looking for another photographer.

First we started at Adat Shalom Synagogue during the week for pictures of the service on the day of our rehearsal:

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

“Tailgating With Tony”

Our party was at Oakland Yard Athletics in Waterford which is an amazing place to have a party and we also want to give shout outs in particular to Just Baked for their amazing cupcakes, Nick at Pine Lake Market for the amazing job catering, Co. 512 for the Adidas wear, Top That Table for the awesome decorations, and Josh and Cassie from Tronix Entertainment for getting the party started and keeping it going!  Meanwhile back to the pictures and the awesome job Angela did capturing the scene and the mood!  She was everywhere…

Our Son's Bar MitzvahThat mechanical bulldog is hilarious…  Tony and his friends were able to play various sports throughout pretty much the whole party.

Our Son's Bar MitzvahNext it was time for Tony to make his official entrance for the montage and candle lighting.

Our Son's Bar MitzvahOur Son's Bar MitzvahOur Son's Bar MitzvahOur Son's Bar MitzvahTime To Hora!

The hora is a traditional dance at Jewish occasions and it’s always a blast!  Angela captured a bunch of great photos of the hora!

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

We love this view of the entire party where you can see a full dance floor doing the “wobble” while others were hitting golf balls, playing other sports, or just hanging out.

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Lastly we love this photo of our happy family – especially the kids dancing together (and not fighting)!

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

So there you have it!  Highlights from one of the best nights of our lives.  We are happy to share them with you and we hope you enjoyed them!

Doug’s Rant – Happy Birthday Instagram!

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It’s been a while since I “ranted”.  We have had a very busy summer photographing seniors and planning and celebrating our son’s bar mitzvah so all I have been really able to think about for blogging is keeping up with sharing our wonderful seniors of the class of 2015.  There are plenty of seniors to come as we are just getting started with a whole new round of “fall color” seniors, and we will also be sharing some bar mitzvah photos too.  However I saw yesterday that it was Instagram’s 4th birthday and decided I need to comment (maybe not rant) on it and say Happy Birthday Instagram!

Happy Birthday Instagram

Yes – that was our very first Instagram 119 weeks ago of our exterior sign!  While many of our early Instagrams were not so stellar as we were trying to figure out where it fit for us, I actually still think that was not bad for the first one.

The Frameable Faces Instagram “philosophy”

We have become big fans of Instagram and we use it in a number of ways.  As for the content we typically share, we post pretty much whatever strikes us as fun and valuable to our followers, and we have stayed away from posting videos – we use Vine for short videos.  It’s also important to know the etiquette, such as being careful not to over post.  As for the types of Instagrams we post, the behind-the-scenes collages of photo shoots for example are our favorites.  It allows us to share a snapshot of our time spent with our peeps very quickly.

Happy Birthday Instagram

We started focusing on those because we weren’t sure that Instagram was the best platform to showcase our final images since people mostly look at them on such a small screen.  Our work is best displayed as a 24×30 print or canvas on a wall…right?  Well it turns out that our images look pretty darn good as wall portraits AND as Instagrams…

But here’s the thing.  When we reveal the first sneak peeks here on the blog for a senior session for example, we pick the four we want to showcase and that’s fine – it’s our blog.  But most of our seniors aren’t bloggers – they are Tweeters and Instagrammers.  So for seniors we prefer to make these images available to them first here on the blog with a sampling, and then later in digital watermarked proofs so they can be the ones to share and show off their Frameable Faces pics – it gives them some control and ownership of it, and then we can join in the fun with comments.

Happy Birthday Instagram

Occasionally we’ll post our real work on Throwback Thursday of a senior alum, but we still refrain from posting current final images… at least for now.

Here is how we break down by the numbers:

119 – Weeks on Instagram

2.34 – Average number of Instagrams per week

278 – Total posts

120 – Behind the scenes Instagrams of senior sessions

24 – Selfies

12 – Pics of our peeps on random visits

4 – Instagrams of Reflecto

14 – Instagrams about our home the Orchard Mall

44 – Behind the scenes of family (and a few commercial) sessions

10 – Throwback Thursday seniors

50 – Various other stuff

So there it is!  Happy Birthday to you Instagram!  We hope you enjoyed your day as much as we enjoy you!

Happy Birthday Instagram

Samantha Is The Last And Far From The Least!

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Samantha is the last senior and far from the least senior……not from the class of 2015, but from the class of 2014!!!  When she called and said she was interested in senior photos but she knew she was a little late I said “oh you’re still okay – we still have plenty of time” thinking she was a current senior.  The fact is she graduated in June so yes she was late indeed!  Haha!  But no worries we told her – better late than never, and there is no doubt in our minds that for the class of 2014 we got one of the very best for last!  What a sweetheart!

We spent most of our time together on location which is what we will focus on here, although we did come back to the studio for a traditional cap and gown photo too.

There is much to work with that we are still discovering in Heritage Park and that’s where we spent our morning with Samantha.

Samantha is the last

We love the boulders in the above photo as a backdrop – such great texture for a background.  And how great and sparkly is this girl’s smile?  She’s awesome.  Next we moved over to some pathways and bridges and our conditions were perfect – we couldn’t have ordered a better morning.  We love this next bridge and we had some nice colors all around here too.

Samantha is the last

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning!

Next we grabbed a big rock that Ally remembered was on one of the trails with the sun behind it for this next shot… great backlight on Samantha’s hair!

Samantha is the last

Lastly we’ll share this next half length photo on another bridge – just a stunning photo of Samantha here – so beautiful!

Samantha is the last

So as I said – better late than never and while we think Samantha was the last of the class of 2014 she was certainly far from the least!!!

Happiness Is Photographing Hanna!

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Happiness is photographing Hanna for sure – we first met Hanna and photographed her with her little brother about three years ago on location on a cold winter day, and we fell in love with all of them back then – what a great family!  So when they came back around to the studio to talk about Hanna’s senior pictures we were thrilled!  We planned a great day and we had nice weather too so everything was lined up just right, and Hanna looked beautiful!

We started off in the studio with our black background and the fan for our black and blowy look – we are big fans (no pun intended) of this pose where Hanna’s arms frame her face but her hair is still flowing outward…

Photographing Hanna

Love it.

Meanwhile we introduced a new edition to the studio in this next photo…  one of our new chairs!  Hanna led the way with the first photos on this exquisite piece so it will be known as “Hanna’s chair” going forward – if you follow this blog you know that’s how we roll.

Photographing Hanna

Meanwhile here is our fun behind the scenes vine which leads us into the location part of the session!

Hanna’s session had a little of everything since we did some studio work, some photos in a natural setting in a park and some urban shots as well.  Let’s start with the pretty before we finish with the gritty.  Black-eyed Susans have been everywhere this year and we used a pretty patch of them here – Hanna’s flowery dress is totes appropes don’tcha think?

Photographing Hanna

Lastly we moved into the city where the new color of the wall-formerly-known-as-the-white-wall was great for Hanna – love her confidence here:

Photographing Hanna

And there you have it – nothing but pure happiness on this day with this girl!  We loved it – time flashed by since the last session when Hanna was but a freshman in high school and she is just as sweet now as she was then!

Striking Gold With Leah – Again!

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Having Leah represent Frameable Faces this year has felt like striking gold.  Okay brown and gold to be exact since she’s a North Farmington Raider like both of us, but we are feeling lucky to have her because she’s just so much fun to photograph.  She just has that it – she looks great, she knows how to pose, she’s sweet and we love her mom too which doesn’t hurt since she came along for the session!  Leah had an amazing spokesmodel session earlier this year so we knew it could be tough to match, but match it she did!

We are going to feature the location shots here and we captured some really nice natural photos along with plenty of fabulous city photos, so here we go…!!!

Let’s start with the natural with this close up of Leah’s smile surrounded by some pretty purple flowers.

striking gold

Beautiful right?  Let’s give a little shout out while we’re at it to Gloria Haio from The Beauty Lounge down the hall from our studio for the fantastic job on Leah’s makeup.  Next Leah changed outfits and we moved to a different spot to get a little texture with some water in the background.  Love this one….

striking goldHere is our fun behind the scenes vine of the afternoon:

Next we moved into downtown Birmingham to get some city shots…  oh – and remember the comment about striking gold?  Leah was rocking some gold and looking great for this next shot!

striking gold

Lastly we used the fountain for a backdrop for this total stunner of a photo – a great one to end on!

striking gold

So there it is – striking gold with Leah – again!  We hope you enjoyed these – we certainly felt lucky to be able to spend a few more hours photographing this girl!

Kriti Is Pretty In A Meadow Or The City!

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We couldn’t resist.  When your name rhymes with “pretty” the title just writes itself!  The thing is that it’s completely true – Kriti IS pretty in a meadow or the city, and she is really a sweetheart inside and out.  Her mom came along for the session and her dad met us on location and hung out for a while as well – what delightful people!  We chuckled a little about how she’s heard it plenty over the years – “pretty Kriti” – but it helps when you can live up to it the way she does.

We spent all of our time outdoors on location for this session and we were thrilled at the consultation when they told us they wanted Kriti in traditional dress for a few photos.  So colorful and beautiful!!!  This shot is really a winner in the meadow:

Kriti is Pretty

Next we headed to Quarton Lake in Birmingham where we photograph quite a bit since there are some really nice settings there especially with the water, and that is where we got this next photo:

Kriti is Pretty

Kriti just has a very pleasant demeanor and an easy smile – a pleasure to photograph.

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the day with the scene from the meadow and then our venture into Birmingham to get some city shots.

Changing pace from natural and pretty to urban and gritty is always fun since it gives a completely different aesthetic and switches up the vibe.
Kriti is Pretty

Either way Kriti is at ease as you can plainly see…

Kriti is Pretty

Love the lighting on that last photo in particular!  So there you have it, and now you can see why we say that Kriti is pretty in a meadow or the city!