A Senior Spokesmodel Jubilee…Literally!

by
3 Comments

A Jubilee is a type of celebration and we want to share a few peeks from a senior spokesmodel Jubilee…literally!  Jubilee is her name and being around her makes you want to celebrate!  She is smart, funny, pretty and the type of person who lights up a room when she walks in.  We were looking forward to this day for sure.

Senior Spokesmodel Jubilee

As we have done with every spokesmodel for the class of 2015 we spent a little time with the black background.  It seems like a good “warmup” for us to get a session going and it always looks fantastic.  Meanwhile our game plan for this session was to get outside and get some photos in an urban setting.  We have been itching to get some since the only outdoor photos we were able to get so far were snowy.  We love the snow scenes but with the temperatures warming a little we thought we could walk around outside comfortably and get some shots on pavement without snow around.  It turned out we were half right…

Senior Spokesmodel Jubilee

The part we were right about was that we were able to get great shots in an urban setting without any snow around.  The part we were wrong about was that we would be able to comfortably walk around outside.  It was still really cold – windy and frigid!  Jubilee however was a total pro and did not let the cold affect her!

Senior Spokesmodel Jubilee

While it may have been cold we still had some sunlight and the backlight looks nice in the photo above.  The last thing we did was an experiment that we had not tried before and we think it yielded an interesting result.  There was a glass-enclosed stairwell in a parking structure and I suggested that Ally photograph Jubilee through the glass just to see how it would look…  here is a little behind-the-scenes vine:

How To Make Cool Instagram Collages

by
No Comments

If you follow us on Instagram you have noticed that we don’t post a lot of final images there.  For now we prefer to show what is happening at the studio closer to real time so I usually snap photos of Ally doing her thing with my iPhone.  I am not the pro photographer here – Ally is.  So while the photos we post on Instagram aren’t of professional quality, that’s not quite the point of Instagram in the first place.  That is not to say you can’t post professional and artistic photos on Instagram, it’s just that a professional photo might look better as a fine art piece on a wall.  Meanwhile I am going to show you how to make cool Instagram collages so you can have some fun!  We had a recent session with the men from Tapper’s Jewelry which is down the hall from us here in the Orchard Mall for their upcoming in-house magazine, Accent.  Here is the Instagram collage I made from the photo shoot.

How to make cool instagram collages

Get Your App

First download an app from your app store.  I use the free version of Snap Collage which I find to be pretty user friendly and effective.  There is a paid version but so far I haven’t felt like I’ve needed it.  For this little tutorial we will be using Snap Collage.  Some of the other apps are similar and the steps will be similar as well.

Think Ahead

Keep in mind the type of collage you want to make when taking your photos or at least give yourself some options by taking some vertically and horizontally so that when you’re trying to fit your photos into your collage you’ll have more flexibility.  You’ll get better at this as you go.  You may even want to clean up your photos with another app before you start – I just started using VSCO and I think it is a great app.  Here is an iPhone screenshot showing the sharpening tool within VSCO.  The process of taking photos and editing them on a smartphone is a whole other topic that I won’t go into in detail here.

How to make cool instagram collages

1.  Launch the app

You’ve got your photos now let’s go to our Snap Collage home page.  You will see the different galleries available there – just click on one and it will bring up thumbnails of the photos there as you can see below:

How to make cool instagram collages

2.  Select the photos you want to use.  The nice thing is that Snap Collage automatically slots them into a few different templates which you can choose from along the top of the screen.  You can add or remove photos by tapping the thumbnails.

How to make cool instagram collages

3.  Pick the collage template you want to work with.  I have picked 4 photos I want to use and Snap Collage has automatically slotted them into several 4 photo templates for me.  You can scroll along the top to look at the choices and if there is a template you like but don’t like the way the photos are arranged then just deselect one of the photos and re-add it and the photos will rotate within the template.  Tap the one you like to see it in full screen.  Note the options at the bottom – we’ll be using the “borders” option shortly.

How to make cool instagram collages

4.  Edit each photo if necessary.  Tap on a photo in the template and Snap Collage will bring it to the forefront where you can play with it.  Pinch and expand to zoom and/or rotate the photo to reposition it to your liking, and you can see there are a number of tools you can use to make more changes to that photo.

How to make cool instagram collages

5.  Add color, drop shadows, rounded edges, and/or themes to your collage frame.  There are several tools in the app to do this.  First tap again on the zoomed in photo to get back to the whole collage and then tap on the “borders” button at the bottom.  This will bring up the dashboard for editing the frames of the collage.

How to make cool instagram collagesThe ratio choices at the far left determine the aspect ratio of the whole collage – ideally I go for the 1:1 or square ratio which is the Instagram standard.  The icons directly under the highlighted word “Frame” indicate which aspects of the frame you are adjusting as you slide the white circles next to each to the left or right.  In this case I’ve already adjusted a couple of them including giving my frames some drop shadow to give them a little dimension (this is 5th and last icon at the bottom that I’ve slid almost half way across).  The 4th one down allows you to round the edges as such:

How to make cool instagram collages

As you can see I’ve adjusted it more than 50% to the right and the edges are quite rounded.  That’s a little more than I want so let’s slide it back a little:

How to make cool instagram collages

There that’s a little better.  Next let’s click on “Color” and start adding a little color to the frame.

How to make cool instagram collages

You can now simply slide the vertical scale with all the colors of the rainbow to the right and then within each palate range hone in on the exact color you like in the square.  You can see I’ve selected black and grey for the border and inner frame.  There are also pre-loaded patterns you can select instead of colors if you click on the “Pattern” button.

6.  Share your collage!  When you have it just the way you want it you can either save it to your device or open it directly in Instagram right from the app.

How to make cool instagram collages

As you can see in the last screen shot you can use this app and save these collages for use anywhere – not just Instagram.  I’ve used it for posting elsewhere often.  This is not the final word on Instagramming or making collages so please share your own techniques!  I learn something new every day as I use these tools and play with all the different options.  What tips do you have to add?

Alexa In The Senior Spokesmodel Spotlight!

by
No Comments

As we put Alexa in the senior spokesmodel spotlight for the class of 2015 she continues the trend as the third straight one whose older sibling was a Frameable Faces senior!  Alexa’s sister Jordyn was featured in this post from the class of 2013 – she is the fifth one from the top lying down with her face towards Ally’s camera in a close crop.  We are big fans of these girls and we have been looking forward to photographing Alexa for a long time!  We can say without any doubt that it was worth the wait and we are so happy to have her representing our studio!

Alexa in the senior spokesmodel spotlight

We started out on the black background and we love the way the above photo turned out.  The shirt, the leather, the shoes – great combo.  Often the approach to a photo is a collaboration and the fashion is such a key part of a senior shoot.  The seniors bring a couple of suitcases of style.  Both Alexa and Sierra in this class said the exact same thing when they showed up for their sessions – “Okay I’m movin’ in!”  Then they go through the clothes with Ally who can help match the clothing with the photo set up.  Keep in mind for senior pictures we always meet with our senior ahead of time to go over strategy as well.  With our spokesmodels we can experiment a little more, but Alexa nailed that first look right out of the gate.

Alexa in the senior spokesmodel spotlight

Next we moved to our spotlight set above which we built last year and it has proven to be a popular one.  It is versatile too since we can make the spotlights different colors but for this session we went with standard white.  Love it!  After we finished with the spotlight we broke out some colors.  We started out with Alexa in a green dress against the pink background:

Alexa in the senior spokesmodel spotlight

We were having fun and laughing a lot as you can see in this vine…  🙂

Milian, Milton, and a Million Smiles!

by
No Comments

Milian, Milton, and a million smiles seemed like the perfect title for this post, since 6 year old Milian had us cracking up in amazement the whole time he was here.  I don’t think we have ever met a kid like this at his age.  He is like a little prodigy!  He has a sense of humor and an ability to carry on a conversation that plenty of adults are incapable of.  Such a cool kid!

Milian, Milton, and a Million Smiles

We focused mainly on the little man for most of the session before dad Milton jumped in for a few pictures together.  We started out on the white background and we actually posted two vines from this session – like I said, we were having fun!  Ally did not really need to give Milian a lot of direction.  Really we just needed to put on some music and away he went.  Milian was in charge of the music – heck, he was in charge of the whole session!  This vine is the behind the scenes clip from the photo above!

A Spokesmodel Session With Annabel 5 Years Later!

by
No Comments

A spokesmodel session with Annabel 5 years later?  Later than what?  Let me explain.  Almost 5 years ago a 12 year old Annabel was in the mall with her dad not too long after we set up shop in our studio and she brought him in here and told him they needed to do some family pictures!  He listened and we did a really fun outdoor fall session with her dad, brother and grandparents back in 2009.  We also photographed Annabel’s brother Harry for his senior photos, one of which is featured here (he’s the one with the flaming baseball bat).  We knew they were good people from the beginning and we have been talking to Annabel about being a spokesmodel ever since.

Spokesmodel session with Annabel

For all intents and purposes she has been doing it for a while now – referring seniors to our studio and recommending other spokesmodels from the classes before hers.  Last year we featured her and one of our class of ’13 spokesmodels Sierra in a blog post announcing our BFF mini sessions, and now after 5 years of “planning” it is her turn for a spokesmodel shoot all her own!  We love her in the close crop black and white photo above.  Here is another photo on the white background this time in a full length crop and in color:

Spokesmodel session with Annabel

Next we moved to the black for this one – she looks great!!!

Spokesmodel session with Annabel

The whole session was a bit surreal just because we were looking forward to this day for so long!  Here is a fun vine with a couple highlights of the day, including the graffiti shot which we had to trek through some seriously deep snow to get to – you can see how it’s almost up to her knees!  “Lean into the love” Annabel!!!  🙂

And here is one of the resulting photos with the graffiti wall – we love graffiti and we hope to get some more urban settings as the weather breaks (if it ever does) with our spokesmodels so stay tuned.  For now we hope you enjoyed these photos of Annabel!

Spokesmodel session with Annabel

Sierra’s Spokesmodel Session Had Glamour AND Grit!

by
No Comments

Sierra’s session starts a little trend with the class of 2015 spokesmodels as the first of three younger siblings of former seniors of ours and she is also one of five in this class whom we have photographed before.  Sierra actually appeared on the cover of our brochure from last year with the rest of her wonderful family, and we photographed two of her older siblings for their senior pictures featured here and here.  Sierra’s family has a strong athletic tradition and we of course wanted to highlight that here, but that was only a part of her session, and we will get to that a little later.  There are plenty of sides to Sierra so we wanted to present some options for the senior who can display versatility!  The “glamour AND grit”!!!

For now let’s start with super cute.

4180-WEB

Just a simple white background and a nice smile can work every time and we like poses that frame the face like this one.  We also like a thoughtful pose up close in black and white like this next one – stunning!

4212-WEB

We also love a little bit of attitude – so much fun!  Loving the leather…

Glamour and Grit

Now is where the session started to “heat up”!  Check out this behind-the-scenes vine of the action and you will see what we mean…

Sibling Photos: A Dapper Dude and a Baby Blossom!

by
1 Comment

We have been really excited to get these sneak peeks up on the blog of “a dapper dude and a baby blossom”!  Such a precious session with these little siblings and they were a total pleasure to work with.  Very sweet and well behaved, they followed instructions like champs!

We started off by getting some photos of the two of them together on the white background.  Our dapper dude was styling with his sport coat and tie and his little sister was looking pretty in pink with the flower headband and flowery dress.  Flowers were definitely a strong theme for this session and if you have been a regular here on our blog you probably can guess where we are going with that….a dapper dude and a baby blossom

The white always looks great – nice and simple and can be displayed pretty much anywhere.  Next we moved to the black background and the kids changed up their look a little.  We love the red dress in particular against the black – it just pops and both brother and sister are beaming!  Big brother looks really proud and happy to be with his little sis!a dapper dude and a baby blossom

Next we gave our dapper dude a moment in the spotlight for himself…  That smile!

a dapper dude and a baby blossom

Here we have a fun little behind the scenes vine of the session which will give you a precious peek into the flowery fun that came next…

Needless to say we never get tired of the flower pot babies.  How could we?  These make us smile every time and the little ones always seem to have a lot of fun being in the pot while everyone is smiling laughing and cheering for them!  They are perfect for right around the 6 month milestone or slightly after as long as they are sitting up.a dapper dude and a baby blossom

All in all we had a really memorable time with our little friends and their mommy and grandma here at our studio!  We hope these made you smile too!

Jessica’s Sublime Siberian Senior Session!

by
No Comments

Welcome to “Jessica’s Sublime Siberian Senior Session”!  If you are a regular here at the blog you might recognize these snowflakes from yesterday’s post…  We were able to get two great sessions in the snow on this particular day since it snowed for several hours.  In Jessica’s case it was so perfect because she was specifically holding out for a day just like this one, and as we said the conditions were positively Siberian, which was a good thing as you’ll see a little further down the page…

For now let’s start in the studio as we did with Jessica:

2623We did photograph Jessica against the black backdrop and we are really pleased with those results, but here we would like to show her off with the pretty color combos because they really pop off the screen – look at all the purples, violets, reds, and golds!  Jessica looks great – there was a lot to choose from this session and it was hard to pick…

2747

Okay now let’s take a trip outside into the snow shall we?  We love the playfulness of this next shot!

Siberian Senior Session

Here’s where the session really takes a Siberian turn…  with Jessica’s Siberian Husky Diesel!!!  You know you have taken a lot of photos when you have photographed two different four legged Diesels – although they were not both pups – the other Diesel was a horse!  Meanwhile this Diesel was clearly at home in the snow and he was loving every minute of it.  Running around and playing in the snow with plenty to say too.  Love his coloring and we were able to get him to sit still just long enough to get this awesome shot with Jessica!  A girl and her pup!  Love it! Siberian Senior SessionWe hope you enjoyed these photos of Jessica’s Sublime Siberian Senior Session!  We certainly enjoyed our time with her (and Diesel)!!!

Leah – Senior Spokesmodeling In The Snow!

by
2 Comments

Since we photograph our senior spokesmodels from January to April we usually get a few spokesmodeling in the snow which is fine since there actually is a little demand for snow pictures every year.  This winter has been brutal and we have certainly been able to get all the snow shots we need already.  However no matter what the conditions are each year it is rare that a day lines up so perfectly where you can get nice big fluffy snowflakes fluttering gently down from the sky.  A day with no wind, not bitter cold – just right.  We had one of these days ordered up just for Leah!  But more on that later….

High School Spokesmodel

We started out in the studio so we could get some on the black background.  We used the black stool with the black once so far with this class but this look is a little different with Leah in black and crouching on the stool instead of sitting.  We are planning on using the black for every spokesmodel girl at least for a few shots even if we don’t end up showcasing them all because 1) we love the black and it is very popular, 2) it is a dramatic look and very versatile and 3) we may do something fun with all of these photos on the black when we’re done with the 2015 spokesmodels – we’ll see…  Meanwhile this next shot is a brand new look for us – a different take on being in the spotlight – literally!  We love the way this turned out.

High School Spokesmodel

We should also mention that hair and makeup for this session was done at The Beauty Lounge here in the Orchard Mall – hair by Tammy and makeup by Gloria.  They are right down the hall from our studio and The Beauty Lounge is one of three great salons here in the mall.  Next we broke out our cerulean blue backdrop and this next picture of Leah is just sweet and simple.

High School Senior Photo

At this point we were ready to go outside!

Here is a vine that will give you a little flavor of the studio portion of the session and then the winter wonderland we stepped into…

…now check this out!

spokesmodeling in the snow

We love the way Leah looks in the light dress against the white snow – white on white or black on black look great in the studio and the white on white looks great outside in the same way – it is an approach we have worked with in the past with great results, and it clearly worked again this time – spectacular!!!

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

 

 

Stunning Portraits Of Our Three Favorite Sisters!

by
No Comments

We are thrilled to present some portraits of our three favorite sisters together!  You have seen these beautiful girls grace our pages before whether you have seen them here on the blog, on Facebook, our website or elsewhere.  It would not even be a big surprise that if you have been around our studio a lot you have met at least one of them before.  This is the first time we have had them in our studio together for a session and what a special session it was!

Portraits of Three Sisters

How gorgeous are they…?  We have become very close to these three and they are pretty much like family to us now.  While they were posing there were plenty of laughs, arguments, disputes, smiles, and overall a lot of love.  Sisters doing what sisters do right?  We photographed them against the red background quite a bit – we have been into the red lately and it really worked for them as you can see above.  Here is a behind-the-scenes vine of the session: