248.790.7317
Here come the guys….! These two young men complete our roster of spokesmodels from the upcoming class of 2014. We are really impressed with both of them and they both happen to be North Farmington Raiders just like us! Pretty soon we will have all 12 spokesmodels together to create our new mural for the window of the studio which is always a lot of fun for us. These two sessions were both fantastic! Enjoy!
Noah
Danny
We are excited to bring you part two of our series of images of our new class of 2014 high school senior spokesmodels! We posted part 1 last month of the first 5 and now here are the next 5. This is shaping up to be a FANTASTIC class!
Emily B
Emily S
Courtney
Danielle
Erin
We have done BFF (“Best Friends Forever” for those who aren’t down with the lingo) sessions before, but we have had a couple of specific requests lately that compelled us to come up with an option for graduating seniors.
The Details:
The shoot takes about 15 minutes, the images can be uploaded, selected, slightly retouched and burned to a disc on the spot. The whole process is completed in an hour. The prints are ordered during this time and take up to two weeks to arrive.
Perfect Graduation Gift
When two best friends leave and go their separate ways to different colleges this can be a great way to make the separation a little easier by having a nice professional photo framed on a dresser in a dorm room and an extra few professional shots on a smartphone, tablet or laptop. It works great for two seniors, or as in the case of our awesome models shown here (they are two of our all time favorite #frameables) one senior who is leaving and a younger BFF who still has some high school to go… We have had seniors do BFF sessions for their senior pictures and we will continue to do that – our regular senior sessions are up to 3 hours so when BFFs do them they both pay for their session and we block off up to 6 hours to do plenty separate and together with locations, outfit changes – the whole experience. This is a simpler option for two friends to do towards the end of their senior year or during the summer before they leave just as a nice memento to take with them. Take a look at a few ideas with our models below!
Let’s start by saying none of the top 5 photos are actually published here in this blog post…. BOOO right? It’s okay, I learned a little about copyright and fair use of movie images while researching this post. We are certainly sensitive to people grabbing copyrighted images and using them illegally so I was curious about whether obvious and iconic images that appear everywhere are considered public domain or not. So long story short…
I went to this link after a Google search, found The Motion Picture and Television Archive and called the number listed. A very friendly and helpful guy gave me a lot of good information and it boiled down to me having the option to purchase the photos I wanted from them if they weren’t public domain for $75 – $100 each. Not horrible but more than I wanted to spend at the moment (when I have a massive following maybe I’ll reinvest into the blog in this fashion but I’m not ready for that). He did say generally you can get an idea if an image was distributed by a film studio if you go to ebay and see one there for sale with the studio info printed on the bottom. This generally indicates that you can use it. None of my top 5 are available on ebay but I will provide links to them if they are available on the web – one for example is right on Wikipedia and I believe Wikipedia has the right to display it. Whether the others do I’m not sure… if they don’t and the image isn’t there when you click on the link then maybe they were caught and were forced to take it down…
Now for our top 5 – caution – there are spoilers here:
1. The final shot in The Shining – 1980
If this didn’t give you a chill the first time you saw it then nothing in a movie will. When it’s revealed that Jack Torrance was always the caretaker at the Overlook Hotel when we see his smiling face in the July 4th, 1921 photo hanging on the wall it’s the perfect final scare to the scariest movie ever made… The classic Kubrick slow zoom into the wall and then the photo builds the lump in your throat as you realize what you’re looking at.
2. The moving photo in the scrapbook in IT – 1990
Many Stephen King fans will agree that It was one of his scariest books. While the TV movie with Tim Curry as Pennywise the clown didn’t quite do the book justice I still feel it had its moments – one of which was the depiction of the moving photo in the scrapbook that the kids are looking at together. When Pennywise stops and sees that they are looking and makes a beeline to the surface jumping up onto the lamppost it’s a pretty good rush.
3. The old photo of Eva Galli and the Chowder Society in Ghost Story – 1981
This film gave me nightmares after I saw it in the theater at the age of 11, and I still love it. There is something creepy about the fact that the only photo which exists of Eva Galli is one where her face is blurred since she moves right as the photo is being snapped. While I was able to find numerous images from Ghost Story I was not able to find the photo itself anywhere on the web.
4. The photo from Blow-Up which turned out to be more than meets the eye – 1966
In this groundbreaking film by Italian director Michaelangelo Antonioni a photographer takes a photo of two lovers in a park but discovers upon enlarging the photo what appears to be a dead body in the background.
5. The discarded Polaroid negative from No Way Out – 1987
This is a case where the photo itself isn’t scary or freaky, but the fact that it was a Polaroid negative required lengthy computer processing to become visible. The photo was the only forensic evidence in a case with plenty of twists and turns and the processing creates a suspenseful race against time for Kevin Costner’s character who is ultimately revealed to be the spy all along. Great movie, but once again I was unable to locate the photo on the web.
Honorable Mention – the vanishing siblings of Marty McFly in Back To The Future – 1985
This suggestion came from someone on our facebook page when I mentioned I was writing this post. While not actually “scary” or “suspenseful” since Back To The Future is a comedy, I’d be lying if this photo didn’t cross my mind and put a smile on my face when I was putting together this list… 🙂
Can you think of any others?
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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!
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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
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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?
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Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World! Click here!
We had a great morning today at West Hills Middle School in Bloomfield Hills, MI for career day! We presented to two separate groups of 8th graders about a career in photography and it was so much fun. The kids had really great and thoughtful questions, and it got me thinking that I should share some things to tell your kids about photography just as we did today.
1. Getting an expensive camera isn’t the only route to becoming a great photographer. It can certainly help, but it’s not enough. If you are truly motivated and it’s in your heart you can hone your skills and become pretty good with almost any camera. Having the most advanced medical equipment wouldn’t make you the best doctor and having a $100 football doesn’t make you a great quarterback. I’d rather have a great person I connect with with a good eye and a $75 camera (or even an iPhone for that matter) take my picture than an arrogant know-it-all jerk with a $10,000 camera. Now keep in mind I won’t want to enlarge an iPhone photo and put it on my wall – you will certainly be limited by a cheap camera and you probably will never be able to call yourself a professional photographer with a basic digital point and shoot camera, but equipment isn’t everything. It’s pretty important (eventually it becomes really important), but it’s not everything.
2. Being a great photographer only comes with experience so just start shooting. Get out there! Learn what photos you like to take the most, experiment and find your style. If you like portraits take your friend or your sibling to a park. If you like landscapes or wildlife go to a nature preserve. Inspiration is available all around you.
3. Being a great photographer only comes with knowledge so don’t only start shooting. Learn how to use your camera. Read the manual (crazy right?). Learn about lighting. Learn about posing. Learn about editing – kids can play with cropping and basic post production techniques with programs as simple as iPhoto. It’s not too early to start to appreciate the craft behind becoming an accomplished photographer.
4. Be aware of what you share online. This doesn’t mean don’t participate and be terrified of the Internet. It does mean be aware of how you represent yourself, how mistakes can hurt you, and the power of enhancing your life and making connections with social media. Social media is obviously very visual and images can be very powerful in good and bad ways. If you are a musician you can post links to your music or you can stream it on soundcloud, if you are a sculptor you can post a picture of your sculpture but it might not do it justice, but if you are a photographer your work is ON facebook if you post it there and it shows up in people’s news feeds – bam. Instagram is built on photos. It is critical that your kids understand the reach of these platforms – how they can use them to their advantage but also the dangers of posting something foolish and opening up their private lives to the whole world if they aren’t careful. Social media is here to stay and we’ve used it to build our business so it’s important to become savvy online – it will continue to get tougher to thrive without it. The 8th graders we met with will be able to take a whole course on social media when they get to high school next year.
5. Taking pictures for a living can give you a ton of freedom but it won’t happen right away. The allure of being your own boss can be strong for an artist. Whether you want to own a studio, be a freelance photographer or photojournalist you may be the type that marches to the beat of your own drum. For me I know that working in the corporate environment and having a boss was a nightmare. I much prefer having my own business, but I know we would not have been able to pull it off if we hadn’t had plenty of experience in the workforce learning how business works (and how it doesn’t work). I don’t think it’s the best advice to tell a youngster to plan on never working for someone else – to go from graduating from school straight to —–> business owner. Just my opinion… We see a lot of photographers fail because they don’t respect and learn the business of photography.
6. Taking pictures is extremely rewarding and a worthy pursuit!!! This holds true for professionals and amateurs. Taking pictures is expression, it’s connection, it’s celebration, it’s history, it’s emotion, it’s a moment, it’s flat out fun. Kids love to snap and share pictures. Instagram selfies, facebook profiles, snapchat, tumblr – this is how they connect and express themselves. What an outlet! It’s a fun byproduct of technology that some old school photographers can’t understand and they lament how it’s devaluing what real pros are doing. We feel it’s the opposite – the more people appreciate pictures the more they’ll appreciate good pictures. We never discourage youngsters from having fun with photography. We embrace this new culture and here is a funny example of a guest post I wrote for another blog where I discussed ideas for good content on Facebook for photography studios. Look in the comments where some angry old school photographer chimed in and just ripped me apart for validating these fun new forms of expression.
7. Find mentors and ask questions. Go to a local studio. Go to a local independent camera store. All of us pros started somewhere and there were photographers who helped us along the way.
8. You aren’t too young to subscribe to blogs and websites like Peta Pixel where you can learn a ton. There are a lot of sites like this one with tips and examples of new and creative photos. We share many articles that stand out on our facebook page as well. In addition to gaming or surfing silly videos on YouTube maybe your kids can mix in a few of these – they might find plenty they like.
9. Think about the businesses you love and why. Whether it’s a certain ice cream shop, or a clothing store, or a gaming store, or some other specialty store, think about why you like them. Kids are consumers – they can learn from the businesses they like if they are paying attention and it can shape the kind of business people they can be. If you are a photographer of people you will want to treat your people the way you like to be treated as a customer. These are simple lessons that shouldn’t be lost on kids.
I hope these help! Feel free to chime in or even better have your child chime in – if you’re local stop by and visit! We would be happy to answer questions.
Check out the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST!!!
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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!
We love maternity sessions and they are especially fun when they are the second one with the same family! To be a part of this the second time around with a soon-to-be older sister who we have been photographing since she was a newborn is really special.
Older sister’s name begins with an “H” and something else she is that starts with “H” is a HAM. She is so funny and we love her – such a character! Great family and great session!
We are excited to present a two part series of images of our new class of 2014 high school senior spokesmodels! We couldn’t be happier with this wonderful group of young ladies and are very proud to have them representing Frameable Faces Photography for this upcoming school year! Some of them we have just met recently and some we’ve known much longer – it’s hard to believe they will be seniors in a few short months!
DANIELLE
MARA
MARISSA
TAYLOR
ALANAH
We love these girls and we’ve actually known them their whole lives which makes having them in our studio an extra special event! When we first got all of our tutus we figured they’d be great for little babies and toddlers, but they’ve proven to be fun for girls of any age as you can see – the twins had a lot of fun with them! This was a super fun session and it’s fun to see these two growing up!
Okay so this is a little change of pace… Usually when I blog about social media it’s the standard “5 ways to….” or “7 tips for….” or “the 6 best….” – some type of informative lesson with the perfect title designed to explode our SEO to Jupiter and make our blog the envy of every photography studio East (and West) of the Mississippi. Okay well maybe that hasn’t quite happened (yet) but one can dream…..right?
This time it’s a little different…
This is part 1 of what could be a series of streams of consciousness about social media as it relates to Frameable Faces, being a small business owner in general, or whatever else I feel like ranting about. It is a stream of consciousness after all, so who knows what I’ll say right? And just because there’s a part 1 doesn’t mean there will be a part 2 – that could depend on the response, so be sure to comment and share this post or lose this potential opportunity forever (see – when all else fails just scare them into sharing – that should work).
Facebook Fail?
I am a facebook power user. Have been for 5 years. Facebook has changed and I’ve blogged at length about how to navigate the changes. I practice the techniques I’ve preached when it comes to staying the course, but I will admit that I’m not perfect (HA) and yes occasionally I get a little annoyed at how facebook manipulates the user experience to generate money (this usually happens after I post something boring that no one shares). While you’ll normally find me preaching to stop whining about the facebook changes and create better content, I’m just being honest here – I do whine once in a while. Observe:
Text-only posts are getting the most reach right now by a mile for business pages. I had a text-only post on Friday get a 450 reach with no likes or comments. It was a dud and yet it still went out to almost half of our following. The following day I posted a link to a blog post I thought was a good one – no one agreed with me since no one commented and it only reached 93 – only slightly more than one fifth the reach of the text-only post. Then there’s the recent status of ours that contained a link to a blog post which got 25 likes and 9 comments and only reached 306. Oh yeah facebook – that’s really hilarious. Hahaha. Ugh. BUT – the other way of looking at this is that I’m okay with 306 people seeing a great post and a good percentage of them clicking on it and appreciating it. That’s a more successful post than a post that went to 450 that no one cared about. And if my other post that only went to 93 would have been more interesting then more than 93 people would have seen it. Remember to take accountability for your content. So you see how that goes? I have my moment of weakness, but then I right myself and get back on course creating the best content I can. That’s what happens in my head.
That said, I notice as an end user that my “most recent” items in my newsfeed aren’t recent at all. Sometimes the most recent is two days old – I can see how facebook is holding back the content I want to see, so I have to go find the info manually. Annoying.
Facebook Future?
This all makes me wonder about the future of facebook – it’s not as cool of a place as it used to be. Too much garbage, spam, memes, chains, links, etc. I just wish people would post a little bit less of that stuff and more of their own thoughts, and I wish brands would stop littering with salesy posts, crappy ads and specials begging for business. Sigh. Now I’m in no way thinking about jumping off the facebook bandwagon, but I’ve always been careful to make sure our eggs are never only in the facebook basket either….
Looking on the “plus” side of life….
I’ve actually been thinking about revisiting Google+. I’ve always thought it was a ghost town, but a very interesting thing happened on Scott Stratten’s blog recently where he ripped G+ for inflating their numbers based on total Google usage across all of their products and a lot of people ripped him in the comments… he defended himself for a while but eventually he posted an updated retraction when he was proven to have had a slightly incorrect reading of the numbers. Keep in mind that Scott Stratten is one of the baddest dudes in marketing in my opinion (he calls what he does UnMarketing) and whether it was just a technicality that prompted his retraction or if he is really softening his stance on G+, it was the visceral reaction by so many on his blog defending Google coupled with the changes on facebook that is making me look at adding G+ as a regular spot for us. I’ve referenced Scott here not to point out that he was wrong, but to point out that I think he is almost never wrong and this got my attention. The question now is how we might use G+. We mostly use social media platforms for one of two reasons:
1) The “age old” (at least a few years) social media criteria of be where your peeps are
2) We use the platform for a specific purpose – either for a certain kind of content (like Instagram is our behind-the-scenes platform) or maybe it’s a good place to get info (still our favorite use for twitter – not the only use, just our favorite). I don’t like to simply duplicate content and behavior on two different platforms (part of the reason we don’t automate from one platform to another).
So that leads me back to G+ where I suspect that there is some exploration to be done specific to photography – seems that some photogs/bloggers/hangout-ers are getting a lot out of it. It might be a good time to make some connections there if it’s really still growing. Disclaimer here – we actually have a G+ page for Frameable Faces and yes I have been posting links to new blog posts there, violating my own rule of not simply duplicating content. I only do it because it takes two seconds and early on people were saying to post there to help with SEO. Google is the #1 search engine after all. Is it helping? Who knows… But I do know that G+ is not likely to be going anywhere. We just got Google computers for our kids…. Google is a monster. Do you use G+? Personally? For your brand? What do you like about it? I really would like to know.
So there you have it…. a little bit of my mind in words…. fascinating right? Stay tuned…. 🙂
We love Instagram! For those of you still not familiar with this (it’s okay we won’t tell anyone) Instagram is a social media platform that enables its users to take pictures (generally with their smartphone), apply digital filters to them, and share them. As with all of the different social media platforms we use such as facebook, Pinterest, twitter, YouTube (just to name a few), Instagram has its own unique purpose for us. We generally do not use it to post examples of our work, but rather to post what happens behind the scenes at Frameable Faces. If you don’t use Instagram you can still see ours by going here.
Meanwhile we thought it would be fun to post 7 of our favorite Instagrams here representing 5 typical categories. We hope you enjoy them whether you are a Frameable yourself or another photographer/small business owner looking for ways to connect with your peeps.
1. Behind the scenes on a photoshoot
We love these – showcasing the process of creating the images is a lot of fun. It’s instant gratification since I can snap a quick shot of Ally photographing a high school senior for example with my smartphone and upload it right away while we’re still on location. Instagram also has a location map feature which uses the GPS stamp from the photo to create a map of locations where the images were produced. This way people following us can get ideas for where they want to take their photos by seeing where they were taken.
2. Happenings in the Orchard Mall
The Orchard Mall is our home and it is a very cool place with many other independent businesses and good eats. It’s a central meeting place in West Bloomfield and any time there is an event or even just beautiful new decorations we Instagram it.
Events:
Decorations:
3. Fun Shout Outs Just Because
We like to celebrate our community – our brand, and life in general…
4. Visits From the #Frameables
Nothing brightens our day like visits from our #frameables and yes these visits make us want to share! #Frameables is our hashtag on Instagram which works much in the same way hashtags work on twitter. Our peeps ARE our studio and we mean it.
Seniors:
Babies:
5. Stuff That Has To Be Shared Because…Well…It’s Just Too Good Not To
This speaks for itself – you just know when you have to snap a shot and post it.
There are plenty of others – a banana tree at a greenhouse, a practical joke, our snarky reflector Reflecto, road trips, selfies (of course)….. What are some of the things you like to Instagram?