Tag Archives: west bloomfield photographer

Jessi Approached Perfection On Her Session!

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Jessi approached perfection on her session with a lot of elements working in her favor – some planned and some not!  The continuing storyline of that week was about dodging raindrops, shifting schedules and hair and makeup appointments, monitoring forecasts, and Jessi’s session almost didn’t happen that day.  Yet at the end of the day the clouds disappeared, the sun came out and the perfect light was in the perfect spot at the perfect location and it was almost like it was meant to be that way all along….

Jessi approached perfection

What a beauty, and what a cool girl – just outgoing and fun to be around.  Her mom came along on the session and we had a great time together.  This particular pathway where both the above photo and the next one took place is perfect for this time of day at this time of year when the sun is strong and low.  And if you hit it just right, you can get some really beautiful backlight, which is perfect for Jessi’s awesome long curls.  Take a look at this!

Jessi approached perfection

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the location part of the session – even the vine is extra special with the beams of sunlight around Jessi:

But we were hardly done once we were finished outside.  There was plenty of magic to be made back at the studio!  We love the way Jessi’s photos turned out on the “black and blowy” setup that we love to do.

Jessi approached perfection

Lastly the couch against the brown also worked well – her hair color, her clothes – it all works with this setup.

Jessi approached perfection

You can see what we mean with this session!  We haven’t had a session yet this year that wasn’t great, but sometimes things just break in your favor and everything you try just works.  Jessi certainly had a lot to do with that, and the results speak for themselves!  We hope you enjoyed these photos as much as we did making them!

 

Jackie’s Senior Session Was A Jewel!

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Jackie’s senior session was a jewel, and yet it almost didn’t happen.  At least not on this day… The weather forecasts were getting worse by the day that week and when we woke up that morning it looked pretty bleak – a 3:00 start with a 3:00 storm coming according to the hourly forecast.  Well by 10 the forecast changed and the storm moved out to later in the day so we scrambled a little, moved everything up to beat the rain and we even ended up with enough time to start in the studio before we went outside.  And so there we were on location with great conditions and our stunning senior!  But first let’s start with the studio photos.

We focused largely on our black background and Ally captured a dramatic image of Jackie in this full length photo.

session was a jewel

Jackie made this a really fun session with a couple of her poses.  We love this next one and the tutu (which you’ll see in a sec) but they aren’t necessarily in every portfolio we create.  Jackie knows what she likes when she sees it and we show the photos of tutus along with this pose lying down in many of our consultations but not everyone runs with them.  This photo really shows off Jackie’s pretty eyes…

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Stunning right?  This would also be a good time to give a shout out to Gloria at The Beauty Lounge down the hall for the great job on Jackie’s makeup.  Next it was time to head out on location with our updated forecast.  We had a 5 minute drizzle at one point and that was it as our lucky streak for the week continued!  We love Jackie in this next photo in the tutu, and how great are the shoes with this outfit?  When we first got these tutus we thought they would be great for little girls – and they are, but every year a couple seniors wear them and they are so fun!

session was a jewel

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the session:

Okay one more of Jackie in her cute little pineapple dress!

session was a jewel

So there it is – definitely a jewel of a session with Jackie.  We hope you enjoyed these as much as we enjoyed our time with her!

 

The Third Time Was Truly The Charm For Gillian!

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The third time was truly the charm for Gillian!  In our last post we mentioned how the next several senior blog posts will all be from a week where the forecast had called for 7 straight days of thunderstorms.  I have to tell you that as stressed as we were going into that week that we could be rescheduling a handful of seniors, it was Gillian who was the poster child for that potential disaster.  You see Gillian had already been rained out twice this summer!  Gillian is one of our spokesmodels and she is very special to us so this was a troubling development indeed…

Well as the title suggests, the third scheduled date turned out to be the charm as we lucked out with the weather for Gillian – her session was scheduled for the morning and the storms were to come in the afternoon.  So as you’re about to see, FABULOUS things can come to those who wait!

third time

Ahhh – so happy to be able to post these.  We can promise she is as sweet as she is gorgeous too.  When we went on location for her spokesmodel session it was in the Spring and those photos were great too, but now we have nice plush green backgrounds to complement those.

third time

She’s just so adorable isn’t she?  Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of her session:

We also want to give props to Gloria at The Beauty Lounge down the hall from our studio for the awesome job on Gillian’s makeup!  Okay here’s one more outside…

third time

We then came back to the studio for some indoor photos and we’ll share one of those here on our white background:

third time

And so there you have it!  Gillian’s session which was absolutely worth the wait!  🙂

Excited To Be With Emily On Her Senior Session!

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We were excited to be with Emily on her senior session for a few reasons.  For starters she kicked off a jam packed week of seniors which is very exciting for us.  We love our seniors!  The latter half of August is a blast, and this next series of sessions coming up on the blog might not have happened if the extended forecast going into the week had played out the way it was predicted.  They were calling for potential thunderstorms every single day – 7 straight days.  That will be a theme in the story of these next several sessions as we dodged raindrops.

Each night looking at the next day’s forecast we were nervous about whether we would be able to shoot.  With Emily we were able to start earlier than planned (shout out here to Gloria at The Beauty Lounge for her flexibility and for doing an awesome job on Emily’s makeup) and the weather held off long enough for us to complete her session.  This good fortune lasted all week and Emily certainly kicked it off in style!  What a great session!

Excited To Be With Emily

Usually with an afternoon session we start in the studio first, but with potential storms coming we started on location.  When we consult with our seniors we usually explain how we try to avoid location shooting in the middle of the day so we don’t have the sun directly overhead.  But as in Emily’s case if we have enough cloud cover then we’re fine, and as you can see above our conditions were perfect – we even got some nice backlight on her hair!  Next we went for an urban look – Emily has that versatility to pull off the pretty and the gritty (which is still plenty pretty)!  🙂

Excited To Be With Emily

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of her session:

With the outdoor shots safely completed we headed back to the studio to finish up with some indoor work.

Excited To Be With EmilyWe think the red background is just such a nice rich look and it’s perfect for Emily’s skin tone.  She looks beautiful and we love how this pose frames her face.  Let’s close it out with the black background for a close up:

Excited To Be With Emily

Those eyes!

So we were excited to be with Emily and our excitement was certainly justified!  Sure enough the skies opened up after we were done, and that was just fine with us!  We hope you enjoyed these photos from Emily’s session!

Kristen And Katherine – Double The Senior Fun!

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Once in a while we have the pleasure of photographing twin seniors together and this was only the second time we have ever photographed twin girls.  Kristen and Katherine were a delight!  As twins they are alike in some ways but at the same time in many ways they are completely different.  One thing is for sure though and that is they are equally fun!  We spent an entire afternoon with them and we had a fantastic time.  Their mom is wonderful and even little sister got into a photo or two but those are for another time – this day the focus was on our senior twins and their own unique individual personalities!

Katherine

Let’s start with Katherine.  With both girls we started out in the studio and while we shared some backgrounds and some locations we also kept a lot of it separate so each of the girls could have their own session.  Here is Katherine with our damask background:

Kristen and Katherine

Now let’s turn our attention to Katherine’s location photos which are quite awesome I must say!  Beautiful backlight and the slightest breeze on her hair give this one a great effect.Kristen and Katherine

Here is Katherine’s fun behind the scenes vine of her photos:

Next a gorgeous close up…

Kristen and Katherine

…and one more full length!

Kristen and Katherine

Just love them!  Now let’s move on to our other twin of the day, Kristen!

Kristen

Kristen is as stunning as her sister and just as fun to be around!  We’ll start with a studio photo with her against the black background:

Kristen and Katherine

Now for Kristen’s location shots – spectacular!  She really is a natural – both girls were really easy to work with.

Kristen and Katherine

Here is Kristen’s fun behind the scenes vine of her photos:

Here is another photo where the breeze hits just right and gives Kristen’s hair that little lift that just enhances an already beautiful model!

Kristen and Katherine

And one more before we’re done with pretty backlight on Kristen’s hair…

Kristen and Katherine

So as you can see this was one doubly special day…

Okay – I guess we can’t be done yet right?  Gotta have one of them together!  I even grabbed a “bonus twin vine” haha!

And here is the “twice as nice” result!

Kristen and KatherineOkay now we can be done…now that we’re smiling ear to ear that is!  We hope you enjoyed these as much as we enjoyed being with these girls!

Loving Lindsey’s Senior Session!

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We are loving Lindsey’s senior session for sure!  We had a fantastic morning with her and it was really cool for us to have her back as a senior because we photographed her a couple times for her dance photos years ago.  So now photographing her all grown up makes for one of those slightly surreal sessions that we get to do from time to time.  When Lindsey came in for the first time when she was probably 12 or 13 Ally said “I hope we get to take her senior pictures someday because she is such a pretty girl!”  So now here we are – and she is such a beauty!

Loving Lindsey

We had great weather for her session which makes it easy as well.  Lindsey has beautiful hair and the backlight in the photo above really accentuates it.

Loving Lindsey

We love the close crop photos right in on a face as well – they can be so immediate and so engaging like the one above!  You might even say Lindsey has a Frameable Face!  Ha!

As we usually do, we now give you our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning!

We’ll leave you with this last shot from the location before we head back to the studio for one more indoors as you saw in the vine.  This photo of Lindsey in nice casual jeans and the boots gives her a simple and relaxed look.

Loving Lindsey

We went with the black background back at the studio which came out really nice.  It is the same pose you see Lindsey doing in the vine above:

Loving Lindsey

So yes, we were loving Lindsey’s senior session and now you know why!  We hope you enjoyed these as much as we enjoyed having her back in our studio!

Melanie’s Gorgeous Golden Afternoon!

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Melanie’s gorgeous golden afternoon was a memorable one to be sure.  Gorgeous because of the weather, the locations, and, well…. Melanie of course!  Golden as in the standard, going for the best, and medals – lots of them!

Golden Afternoon

Now that’s a lot of gold!  Melanie is clearly an accomplished gymnast with all of that hardware and it’s fun to have seniors show off their achievements!  We started out the session in the studio and we were able to get some great photos in addition to the medal shot.  Then it was time to take it outside where we had some fantastic light and the locations were awesome!

First we went to one of our favorite meadows where plenty of flowering is going on these days.  This is a beautiful time of year and you’ll see us posting plenty of photos of this style as we go along.  As for Melanie, she looks right at home and comfortable in this natural and pretty setting!  The backlight on her hair is just beautiful!

Golden Afternoon

We would also like to give a little shout out to Shifra Raskin for Melanie’s makeup down the hall from our studio at Style The Salon!  Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the afternoon including the never-before done “double dock shot”!  Haha!

Next we went to her home where we used some pretty landscaping.  Just a really nice lush green environment which makes the peach colored dress really pop…  Golden Afternoon

Lastly, we captured what is turning out to be one of our favorite water shots of all time!  What a trooper to be in the water that deep in the dress, and Melanie makes it look effortless.  What a great photo to finish up the session with!

Golden AfternoonWe are totally in love with that one.  This session was worthy of gold indeed – we had a great time with Melanie and we hope you enjoyed the highlights from her session!

Patience and Prettiness With Katie!

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Patience and prettiness are both virtues right?  Katie has both and they are both reasons she will always have a special place in our hearts.  Let me explain…

Each year we put a lot of fun (it doesn’t feel like work) into preparing for our new class of seniors.  We come up with themes and new approaches, we up our game on our instagrams or vines and prepare prepare prepare.  We photograph some spokesmodels over the winter and put it all out there in anticipation of a whole new round of new seniors and new friends.  And then the calls start coming – and Katie’s mom made the first official call of the class of 2015 looking to book a session for senior pictures!  That first call is always one we will remember.  And then her date came… and so did the rain!  So we had to reschedule her for after camp, but as you’ll see here – it was worth the wait!

Patience and Prettiness

People ask about photographing at Cranbrook but there are restrictions.  One of the exceptions involves being a student there which Katie is and we were able to take advantage of the wonderful settings on campus there.  Our lighting and conditions were perfect, and Katie looked beautiful!

Patience and Prettiness

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine with a couple of highlights from the afternoon:

Next is a photo from the pretty little red bridge you see in the vine – love it!

Patience and Prettiness

Lastly we’ll leave you with this unique close up – the effect of the colorful garden in the background framing Katie’s face is so cool!  Prettiness for sure!

Patience and Prettiness

So you can see that patience paid off and prettiness was the result!  We enjoyed our time with Katie and we hope you enjoyed these sneak peek photos from her session!

 

Simply Sierra On A Perfect Sunny Morning!

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We photographed Sierra on a perfect sunny morning for her senior session!  Sierra has been representing our studio as a spokesmodel this year and for her spokesmodel session we were completely in the studio.  We used basketballs, fire, huge fluffy hearts and tutus and it was fantastic.  After doing all that during the winter we were excited to get outdoors to get, well…. photos of simply Sierra!  After some potentially shaky looking forecasts we ended up with a gem of a morning…

Simply Sierra

Love the flower in her hair!  Sierra nominated both Ally and me for the ALS ice bucket challenge (which we did) a few days before her session so we let her think we were going to get her back somehow on the day of her session (but of course we wouldn’t do that).  Sierra has a great personality – very outgoing and she’s funny, and as the baby in a family of athletes she and I personally have a lot in common!

The lighting on this next shot is great – it was hitting this pathway just right and Reflecto helped out too…

Simply Sierra

When we met for our consultation Sierra had a few specific spots that she liked at several different places, and since we were spending our entire time on location our strategy was to stay on this side of town where we could drive and cherry pick spots from multiple locales and it worked out well!

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine from the morning:

Even the breeze cooperated to give her hair a nice little blowy effect!

Simply Sierra

Beautiful right?  Just relaxing in the grass, hanging out on pathways, and then there’s this which you saw in the vine:Simply Sierra

Love. It.  Just classic beauty all the way around!  It has been a pleasure having Sierra represent our studio this year and we hope you enjoyed these highlights from her senior session!

Just Jared, His Jersey, His Jacket, and some FIRE!

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Just Jared, his jersey, his (letter) jacket and some fire was all we needed for this awesome session with our nephew!  Yes – our nephew!  Talk about surreal – we can remember when he was born like it was yesterday and he’s the oldest of the next generation in my family.  Of course this means our own kids won’t be that far behind.  Wow.  But we still have time to ponder that – in the meantime let’s get to Jared’s session which was photographed exclusively in the studio and it rocked.

Just Jared

That’s a good looking kid right?  Yeah – and so what if we’re biased?  #sorrynotsorry hehe….  Ally had fun messing with him and getting him to laugh and we all had a good time.  We played around with a few different backgrounds and we really like the way this next photo looks in black and white on the white background.

Just Jared

There is a strong sports tradition in my family and Jared is one of a couple of the next generation specifically carrying on the football part of that tradition, so next it was time to break out the jerseys and letter jacket and as we often like to do – FIRE!

Here is a fun behind the scenes vine of the action – no fake or photoshopped fire in this studio – no sir.  Only the real deal at Frameable Faces.

Here is the fiery result:

Just Jared

The official colors of the Walled Lake Northern Knights are maroon, silver, and black so using the black background for the jersey was perfect and we liked the idea of the letter jacket against the grey background which matches the silver pretty well.  Take a look:

Just Jared

That’s a nice one to end on.  All we needed was just Jared, his jersey, his jacket, and some FIRE and the results were perfect.  We had a great time with our nephew and we hope you enjoyed these photos!