Author Archives: Doug Cohen

Doug’s Rant – Why Is Social Media “So Quiet”?

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So quiet

Why is social media so quiet lately?  It just doesn’t seem to me that there has been a lot going on.  Let me explain.  For a few solid years there it seemed like it was the “golden age” of major platforms – such as:

  • Facebook Pages switched over to “likes” from fans in April 2010 a month after we set up the Frameable Faces page.
  • Instagram launched on October 6th, 2010 and we joined it in May of 2012.
  • Pinterest launched in April of 2010
  • Snapchat launched in September of 2011 (more on that in a minute).
  • Google Plus pages for businesses launched in October of 2011 and they added Google My Business last June.
  • The major Twitter redesign launched in April 2011.
  • Vine launched in January of 2013 and at the time we had to wait until June for Android since T-Mobile didn’t have iPhones yet.

Since then……not a whole lot.

All of those platforms seem to still be thriving and growing as a general rule and it has now been two years by my count since a new “major” platform has made a splash.

Is a lull a good thing?

I can’t decide if I like the fact that it’s been a little quiet or not.  The thought of feeling like I have to manage additional platforms can be stressful especially if we are only adding more and not dropping any, but the rush of starting out on a new one is exciting and a lot of fun.  For example I was pretty excited about Pano Perfect which I thought might be the next big social photo sharing platform but that one has gone nowhere…  I hear people talking about Swipe and sure there are others.  We can debate all day about what a “major” platform is – I am not using any scientific criteria here…  I’m just ranting after all.  Feel free to jump in in the comments and add your two cents.  What do you think is the next big thing?  I want to know.

Meanwhile Snapchat is the one I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.  Of the big ones I listed it’s the one that we don’t have an official Frameable Faces profile for, and after weighing it I don’t know if it’s right for us as a brand at least for the moment.

Edit*** – A Curve Ball

I wrote that last paragraph earlier today and one of our spokesmodels just happened to pop in to the studio and we were chatting about Snapchat since it was on my mind, and I think I just changed my mind again.  She showed me a couple things that convinced me that it could be a good platform for us.  For example I didn’t realize how it notifies you how many people have viewed your snapchat stories and which people viewed them.  So look for it – my wheels are turning now!

So as it turns out I have Snapchat to work on.  I started out wondering why it’s been so quiet in social media, but now that I’ve got another platform to play with I’m hoping things stay quiet for a bit!

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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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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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A Family That Fits Together Like Pieces Of A Perfect Puzzle!

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We have been really fortunate to meet some really special families over the last few months, like several in a row that we’ve just connected with from the first minute we met them and this next family was no exception.  This is a case of a crew that have only been all together for several short years, and yet they clearly fit like pieces of a perfect puzzle and you would think they’ve been together forever – they all get along so well and just seem comfortable together!  Paige and Dean have awesome kids, and as it turned out Dean and I have some shared and unique connections that we discovered that night going back to Dean and my brothers’ college football days.

Meanwhile the oldest son was in town from college on break so this provided the occasion for some family photos while they were all together, and we planned the shoot for their house.  They liked the idea of focusing on black and white photos, and they turned out so well!  We actually shoot in color and then convert them to black and white afterwards, but it’s neat when you know you are shooting for black and white – it forces you to approach the photos in a slightly different way which is a lot of fun.  Let’s start with a nice family portrait of everyone together…

Perfect Puzzle

What a fine looking group!  Next let’s take a look at a couple different combos.  First Dean and his two guys:

Perfect Puzzle

Followed by Paige and her guy and gal!

Perfect Puzzle

Here is our little behind the scenes vine of the evening – gotta love the “brotherly love” – haha!

Now for one more and this is a unique one – shooting down at them from the upstairs landing.  We love the way this one turned out!

Perfect Puzzle

So there you have it – the family that fits together like a perfect puzzle!  When we were done they “made” us stay for dinner and we had a great time!  New friends!

Some Brotherly Love and Some Birthday Cake!

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Some brotherly love, some birthday cake and some general yumminess on multiple levels happened here at the studio when these two showed up that’s for sure.  What great kids!  The age gap between these two brothers was enough that having big brother here was basically like having an assistant for little brother’s first birthday photos.  A first birthday is always a great occasion for a photo shoot and a little birthday cake too, but we’ll get to the cake in a bit.

For now let’s focus in closely on these two by themselves.  They came in with their mom who is a doll and they both totally nailed the poses and the smiles – total pros!  Let’s start with our one year old.

Brotherly Love

How cute is he?  And such a great disposition – on him and his awesome older brother…

Brotherly Love

We love these two shots in black and white – they just go together nicely.  These two were having fun (as were we) as you can see in our behind the scenes vine of the morning:

We love this next photo of the birthday boy expressing how big he is!  Soooo big!

Brotherly Love

Then it was time to break out the birthday cake.  Sometimes our one year olds need a minute to process that this big cake is sitting in front of them for them to dive into all by themselves, so big brother jumped in to provide a little help.  As I mentioned before he was great – he just knew what to do and he really loves his little brother!

Brotherly Love

Just love that last shot – the interaction is priceless!  So there it is – a little bit of brotherly love and some birthday cake for you all!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights!  We certainly enjoyed being with these guys!

Lots Of Fun Smiles and Love In The Room With This Family!

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There were lots of fun smiles and love in the room with this family that we are about to share photos of with you!  There were (double) family hugs, cute sisters riding on horsies, dancing and singing, laughter, casual shots, formal shots – just really a session that had everything.  What a great bunch!  A great couple with three grown children, a son-in-law and two beautiful granddaughters!

Krista (the mom of the three grown kids) decided on the brown backdrop for the photos and we love photographing on the brown.  We did a few family shots first including the family hug.  But this family hug was extra special because the two little ones added their OWN mini hug in front of the family hug….  a double family hug!  So cute!

Fun Smiles and LoveNext we broke the crew up into some groupings including the oldest daughter with hubby and the two granddaughters who gave us the mini hug above.  Here’s a shot of the four of them:

Fun smiles and love

At this point it was time for the little ones to completely take over the show!  They were so funny – and total pros both of them throughout the whole shoot.  They were perfectly behaved and they were cracking everyone up – you can take a look in this behind the scenes vine from the session!

Here is a great photo of the two of these cuties:

Fun smiles and love

Love it!  At this point we were done with all the fun casual photos and we got all the shots of the girls that we wanted, so Krista and Joe stayed behind and changed into something a little more formal for a portrait together.  A great couple who produced this great family!

Fun Smiles and Love

And there you have it!  You can see that there were lots of fun smiles and love in the room with this crew and we had a ball hanging out with them and photographing them all!

We Heart This Little Guy And His Parents!

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Ally is always fond of saying “I heart so and so” and this should be obvious but that means she loves them…  haha!  Well this is a case where we really “heart” this little guy – not only because we love him but we really did “heart” him!  You’ll see what we mean in a bit…  Meanwhile his parents are a delight and they just really fit in here – we totally clicked.

Baby Neil is only 4 months old and already he’s so smart, so alert, so smiley, and has such a nice and mellow disposition.  We got going with him with a handmade quilt that a friend made for them for starters that he was peeking out from – so cute!

We Heart This Little GuySee what we mean?  Smushy and smiley.  We love that shot!  Next we used a really nice green traditional Indian scarf for this photo.

We Heart This Little Guy

A little mid session snooze is always welcome!  At 4 months it’s nice if they happen to fall asleep because you can get some really cute sleeping baby poses and you can pose them how you like!  So while we were “hearting” the little man it was now time to “heart” him for real – with heart pillows and baby kisses all over him!

We Heart This Little Guy

Makes you smile right?  Let’s take a look at our little behind the scenes vine of the day where you’ll see some of the other fun we had including making him into a little human Tootsie Roll:

Lastly it was time to get the whole family into the act and one of the really pretty shots we captured was this one with bare shoulders – really nice.

We Heart This Little Guy

And that’s a wrap on this one for now!  We hope you “hearted” these shots as much as we did making them!

So Fun Getting Krazy with The Kamen Family!

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Getting Krazy with the Kamen family proved to be one of the most fun family sessions we have ever had here at Frameable Faces!  We love these guys.  You may recognize Courtney from her days as a high school senior spokesmodel for the class of 2014 if you follow our blog.  This time we had the whole fam here including their dog Shadow who was definitely the star of the shoot!  Haha!  This session had everything including jumping, family hugs, silly faces, Shadow “sitting on a throne” and various other shenanigans so let’s get to it…

For starters they chose to go with black clothes on the black background for colors which really looks cool.  Sometimes people wonder if that will work because they fear the clothing will blend into the background, but it looks great if you know how to light it properly.  The first shot is a classic hug between three siblings and a spouse.  Love it!

Getting Krazy

Next it was time to get Shadow involved and he’s quite a stud.  He holds an extremely important position and status within this family so it was critical to convey that in this next photo which is why we had him sitting on his throne for this one.  We think we captured the moment here…

Getting Krazy

Next we started to play around some and get some fun candid shots and that’s when the hilarious shenanigans started…  here’s a great one:

Getting Krazy

And here is our hilarious behind the scenes vine of the session…  so funny!

Lastly we’ll share this fun shot where Shadow jumped back in for another…  This was the photo we teased in our last year-end recap post.

Getting Krazy

So there you have it!  We had an absolute blast getting Krazy with the Kamen family!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights from their awesome session!

2014 Was A Wonderful and Frameable Year!

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2014 was a wonderful and “Frameable” year that we won’t soon forget and in many ways it was the best year yet for Frameable Faces!  As we charge into what should only be the best, happiest and healthiest 2015 possible for ALL of our peeps – we take a happy look back at the past year!

The Class of 2015 Spokesmodels

Okay so the fact that we assembled a new crew of spokesmodels wasn’t something unique to 2014 since we do that every year, but every class is indeed unique and this one was no exception!  A bigger class than usual, we really fell in love with this group and ended up with some great new friends out of it – not just friends of the studio but of our family.  We spent a good part of our winter and spring photographing these awesome seniors and I was playing with the panorama function on my iPhone camera the whole time.  Let’s reveal all of the behind-the-scenes panoramas from those sessions together here – these aren’t professional shots and they aren’t filtered or retouched but together they are kind of neat!

2014 201420142014201420142014201420142014201420142014That’s how we spent a good part of the first 4 months of the year, culminating with our spokesmodel party with our usual dinner (catered by Pine Lake Market) and Just Baked cupcakes and that’s where we create our composite which stays in the window of our studio until the next class!

2014

Summer – Relay For Life, more seniors, road trips…

Team Frameable Faces participated in the Relay For Life once again to try to help beat cancer and we had a fun and rewarding day raising a nice chunk of money this year.  We also continued photographing a whole bunch of seniors and we even took a couple of road trips including one where Ally took some breathtaking photos up at Sleeping Bear Dunes.  We worked hard this summer and at the same time had to plan and gear up for our son Tony’s Bar Mitzvah!  Our heads were spinning most of the time… but it was all good stuff.

Tony’s Bar Mitzvah!

What an awesome weekend this was!  Tony did a great job, the party was a blast, and our photographer – well she’s the best.  We hired our own event photographer Angela and it was really cool to be on the other side of the lens and in her capable and talented hands.  You can see a handful of highlights from our day here!

 

2014New Website, other highlights and cruising towards 2015!

Meanwhile plenty of other topics were on our minds and on our plates – the launch of our fantastic new website designed by our friends at EPK Design, continued Instagramming, Vining, Tweeting, Facebooking, YouTubing, Pinning, Google Plus-ing and blogging!  We photographed plenty of families including this recent one which we’ll give you just a peek of before their upcoming blog post…

2014

Reflecto had a bit of a rebirth as well after recovering from an injury and continued to focus on his favorite topic……himself.

So that’s our recap – we are thankful for all of you and for a great year and we are looking forward to what will be an amazing 2015!  We wish for all of you peace, health and happiness, and we will see you all soon!

All our best,

Doug and Ally

 

The Twilight Was On Point For Tristan’s Senior Photos!

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The twilight was on point for Tristan’s senior photos!  Every now and then we plan a nighttime shoot if it works into everyone’s schedule and when we shoot after the daylight savings “fall back” we get darkness by late afternoon.  For city portraits this can make for some really cool opportunities.  We don’t always get to try some of these creative shots with the different lighting that night shoots require.  Meanwhile we had a great senior model to work with – Tristan is a North Farmington Raider for starters which is always a bonus for us as Raider alums!  He’s a great kid with a great mom who came along for the shoot and we had much fun.  We’ll get to the city shots in a bit…

First let’s start with the studio photos where we went mostly formal.  We started with the grey backdrop which we like especially for guys in the formal wear and North Farmington’s yearbook headshots need to be on grey anyway so it’s convenient to boot.

The Twilight

From there we moved on to the black backdrop which always works well for this next close up shot:

The Twilight

We love these shots…  Tristan nailed them – really he nailed the whole session.  Here’s our fun behind the scenes vine where you’ll see us on location at night in Birmingham for the next couple photos:

The off-camera flash gives us great lighting and the shadows have a really dramatic effect here…  We use this wall all the time but this is the first time we’ve done this particular shot at night.

The Twilight

So cool right?  Totally on point.  Okay let’s take a look at one more nighttime photo…

The Twilight

Love the city flavor and the textures…  Tristan had an awesome session and we hope you enjoyed the highlights from our evening with him!

On Location With Old Friends In The Chicago ‘Burbs!

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We were recently in Chicago for a family event and while we were there we connected with my best friend from college in the suburbs for a family session on a brisk fall day in the park.  It’s fun to photograph old friends and to be able to get their kids and ours together for a visit during our road trip.  We go back over 25 years and it’s always a lot of fun when we get together.

Anyone who knows my buddy Barry knows he’s pretty passionate about his dogs and of course Half-Face and Omar were going to be included in the family portraits.  That’s where we’ll start – with all of the family!

Old Friends Great family and are those dogs beautiful or what?

Next we focused on getting some photos without the pups and if you have been a frequent follower of our work you know Ally is a big fan of the “family hug”!

Old Friends

The kids are getting to be so grown up!  To you they just look like great looking kids – for me it’s different because I’ve known them from the time they were born!

Here is a fun little behind the scenes vine from the session:

Next we focused in on getting some shots of just the kids as you can see from the vine.  Here are a couple of great ones…

Old Friends

So cute right?  Little sister loving on her older brother!  Having a boy and girl ourselves we just know this is exactly how they always get along!!!  Right?

And one more of the two of them just relaxing and hanging out together.

Old Friends

So there you have it – on location with old friends in the Chicago ‘burbs – it’s about as good as it gets for us!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights from the session!

We Just Couldn’t Wait….To Show You Kait(lin)!

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We just couldn’t wait to show you the highlights from Kaitlin’s senior session!  The plan actually was to wait because we’re not done!  We covered a lot of ground on part one of her session but we left a little time to grab a few winter shots when the snow comes so this session is to be continued.  However the same way money burns holes in people’s pockets these photos are burning holes on our Macs and they basically fell into the blog because they’re too good.  It’s pretty much beyond our control.  Kaitlin is a total star and she’s a cool girl to boot!  So without further adieu, let’s take a look!

First we went with the cosmopolitan look which is perfect for this girl.  These shots in the city brought a few looks from the paparazzi around!

Just Couldn't Wait

And now you see why!  Kaitlin just owned this sidewalk – or is it a runway….?

Just Couldn't Wait

What’s really unique about that shot above is the metro look but with the pretty fall colors framing our senior.  So cool!

Next we made a quick stop at the park to get a natural shot before we headed back to the studio and here we get to see Kaitlin’s winning smile in this playful photo!

Just Couldn't Wait

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

Lastly we stopped back at the studio for a few on the black background and well, this black and blowy shot is just spectacular…

Just Couldn't Wait

Enough said right?  The best part is that we will still get to photograph her again in the snow!  She’s a delight and now you know why we just couldn’t wait to show you Kait(lin)!  Ha!  We hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks from her session!