Category Archives: General Frameable Faces Updates

Building Entrepreneurship 2023 With BBYO Here At The Studio!

Building Entrepreneurship is a BBYO program that we have been involved with over the years – it returned last year in Detroit after a little hiatus and we were honored to participate!  BBYO is the leading pluralistic Jewish teen movement aspiring to involve more Jewish teens in more meaningful Jewish experiences, and both of our kids were very active in it while they were in high school.  We love to give back and anytime we can tell our story and mentor young people about business and careers we are game!  This year they came to us here at the studio and we were thrilled to host them!

Building Entrepreneurship 2023!

As we’ve said before we think it’s important to get young people to start thinking about viewing the world from a business standpoint – even if it’s just in terms of following their passions and looking at the social media platforms they are already on from a marketing and career standpoint.  Follow the brands and professions you like on Instagram for example in addition to your friends!  See how they operate, how they communicate to their communities.  It’s easy to learn plenty even if you aren’t sure what you want to do with your life!  The girls asked some great questions and some of them are clearly already thinking about their futures.

We have a little fun behind the scenes from Facebook:

After we told the story of Frameable Faces with some tips about how we grew the business and some advice mixed in we took a couple of fun group photos and put together this fun composite!

Building Entrepreneurship 2023

We loved hosting Building Entrepreneurship 2023 and we look forward to being a part of this wonderful program again next year!

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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
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
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!
 
Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW

Elona Is Sixteen and She Brought Her Crew To Celebrate!

Okay so we love Elona – we’ve been photographing her over the years starting when she was just a wee little ballerina and a canvas of her hung on our wall for years!

She was adorable then and she’s adorable now!  We had a great time with her and her friends here at the studio, mom Harolyn and dad Ulrich were on hand as well and we’re excited to present these highlights of the session!  So let’s get to it!

Elona is Sixteen!

 Here’s the birthday girl:

Elona is sixteen

Growing up to be a gorgeous young lady!

Here’s some behind the scenes with Elona’s peeps from Facebook:

 

…and the result:

What a group!!!

And now a couple more of Elona solo with a background and outfit change:

Elona is sixteen

Stunning!

We’ll leave you with one more with our girl and a few birthday balloons!

Elona is sixteen

So fun…!

Plans are “in the works” to have Elona on our blog again in the potentially not-so-far-future…..so stay tuned!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of this session!

**********************************************
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
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
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!
 
Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW

A Weekend Of Giving Back With Zoofest and For Those Who Stayed!

We have always tried to give back to the community wherever possible and this past weekend was one to remember with TWO different nonprofits we are involved with that mean a lot to us.

Words Of Hope 4 Life – ZOOFEST

Let’s start with mental health in general and the amazing organization Words Of Hope 4 Life!  We have lost too many people we know – young people in particular who have taken their own lives over the last few years including people we have photographed like Noah Cutler,  Zach Raider,  and Anya Middle.  All three were delightful, vibrant people.

It’s been devastating.

We decided we had to get involved – to try to make some kind of difference.  To help end any remaining stigma that exists around mental health in any form and make sure young people are loved and supported.  The pandemic in particular took a toll on everyone and resources are needed to help people who are struggling.  With that in mind we have gotten involved with Words Of Hope 4 Life and we sponsored Zoofest this past weekend at the Detroit Zoo which included the Wild Walk 4 Mental Health.  We were at the Frameable Faces Selfie Station and we also took photos of the event.  It was a big success!  A perfect, sunny room temperature day and the event was well attended!

Here’s a livestream we did on Facebook that will give you a little idea and just remember our amazing event photographer Angela gets the urge to dance anytime we put her on camera: 

Here are a few more images from Zoofest – you can see all the photos Angela took at this link:

Zoofest

Tons of activities, food and vendors under the tent!

Zoofest

A great turnout and fun for all!

Zoofest

YUM!!!

Zoofest

18 year NFL veteran & 7-time pro-bowler Lomas Brown gets interviewed about Zoofest!

Zoofest

We’re happy you’re with us – every day. You matter!!!

Zoofest

Here we are at the selfie station!

For Those Who Stayed

So you may know that Doug played football at the University of Michigan.  He was an outside linebacker on the 1988-89 teams that won back-to-back Big Ten Championships and went to back-to-back Rose Bowls before a knee injury sidelined him, and he continued to work with the staff before graduating in 1992.  It was an amazing experience.

The thing is, playing football at that level is like going through a meat grinder.  It’s HARD.  And for many players the rollercoaster of emotion and the physical brutality of the game isn’t easy to handle.  Some guys come from challenging backgrounds, suddenly find themselves famous at 18, 19 or 20 with massive expectations, and then after a few short years it ends.  In some cases it ends abruptly due to injury, or they don’t make it in the NFL, or they make it briefly in the NFL but aren’t prepared for the comedown of it being over when it ends.  Not everyone has the storybook ending of a long successful football career with lots of money and/or their health intact, and the effects of CTE in particular can be devastating.  Depression, disability, poverty, and yes suicide – these things do happen to the fraternity of brothers who wore the maize and blue.  For Those Who Stayed was created to help and provide resources for those who gave so many thrills to the hundreds of thousands who fill Michigan Stadium on Fall Saturdays in Ann Arbor, and Doug is on the board of directors.

We headed from Zoofest on Sunday to Grand Rapids for the Sunday night reception dinner and the 2nd Annual FTWS Golf Outing at Thousand Oaks Golf Club on Monday, and what a great event it was!  We sponsored a hole and Ally took photos of the foursomes.

Here are a couple of livestreams, and if you’re a fan of Michigan football you’ll recognize a few of these folks…

First from Sunday night – Mike Smith was presented with two beautiful framed photos of his only touchdown for Michigan that he scored in 1977 vs. Northwestern and he was pretty moved.

Next Doug went around to get some other former players on camera in the morning during registration and breakfast…

And here’s one more when Doug’s foursome with Barry Kelley,  Mike Tilmann & Dorian Taylor arrived at the Frameable Faces hole!

Here’s Doug’s foursome!

Barry Kelley, Doug, Michael Tilmann, Dorian Taylor

Our hole!

Fatheads of all the participating players were stationed all along the golf course!

Our crew – missing Tony who was leading a Western Trip with Camp Tamarack!

Doug, Chris Hutchinson, Paul Manning, Barry Kelley – from the incoming freshman class of 1988!

Overall a fantastic and rewarding weekend and we look forward to more!  You can get involved in either of these organizations at any time and Viewfest is coming up on September 17th with Words Of Hope 4 Life in Walled Lake!

We hope you enjoyed the recap of our weekend and we urge you to get involved – make a difference!

**********************************************
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
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
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!
 
Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW

A Few Of Doug and Ally’s Recent Appearances!

We have had some wonderful opportunities lately to appear on a few different shows on the Internet as well as local TV and we thought we should gather a few of them in one place here on the blog! 

Appearances

Doug & Ally’s Recent Appearances!

Let’s start with the one Ally and I appeared together on which was on Fox 2 Detroit in a segment about how to take a great selfie for dating sites!  This one was pretty fun…

 

Next I appeared on my friend Rachel Moore’s livestream show Social Glue which airs on LinkedIn & YouTube ever week and covers all things social media with weekly news (which in the social media world can be like a month haha).

 

And last but not least here is my recent appearance on the Civic Center TV Megacast to discuss M10 Social and how businesses are adjusting and can adjust to the need for more of an online presence in the pandemic!  Give it a watch:

 

We hope you enjoy these appearances and there are actually more to come!!!

Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW
 
 
BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
**********************************************
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
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
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!

 

 

Hello HAPPS! The New Home Of The Doug & Ally Morning Show!

HELLO HAPPS!!!!!

It feels good to be recharged again with this incredible new app called Happs, but first a little context to explain why…

Hello Happs

Periscope Changed our lives and then……nothing.

We’ve written and talked at length about Periscope – the livestreaming app that launched on March 26th, 2015 and we started broadcasting on on March 31st, 2015 at my buddy Alex Steinbock’s suggestion.  Right away we saw incredible potential to reach people around the world and share our studio in real time.  It took off for us pretty fast, and we made a big splash in the community with the first of several posts accompanied by livestreams where we did a fun take on the types of chatters and scopers you might encounter on the app.  Before we knew it we were trending, gaining thousands of followers around the world and being invited to speak at the Periscope Summit in San Franciscowhich we did!  That was a magical weekend and a magical time in general – it’s hard to describe what it was like in this shared community of streamers from all around the world.  If you were there, you know.  Even the Periscope team was there to hang out even though it wasn’t “their” summit.  That was nice and they were cool enough, although I’m not sure they ever totally got what was happening on their app…

It was around this time that we went beyond just scoping for fun and it became The📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show!🎙☕️  which we did daily and are still doing to this day (more on this in a bit), along with a whole schedule of other shows on the platform including one we developed with our friends from the Periscope network channel Parachute TV called “The Photo Shop” and a game show on the Play For Stuff TV network called “The Frame Game”!  We were having a blast.  We continued to meet people at meetups in New York City, here in Detroit and we met more Periscopers on roadtrips in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi!  We even photographed some of them.  Periscope eventually monetized the app which was nice as our generous community tipped us for the work we put into the show to help make the time and “effort” sustainable (even though it didn’t usually feel like “effort”).  Twitter owned Periscope and integrated it into Twitter so we thought the future was bright.  Periscope had a VIP program with verified badges for people who had bigger audiences and we became silver VIPs.  They had “office hours” in a Slack group to answer questions from VIPs and presumably to get our feedback as valued members of the community.

But then it changed… 

Office hours suddenly started happening less and less and then they canceled the Slack group altogether.  A solid year or more went by with no updated features to the app.  Accounts started being randomly suspended and people – like us – got stripped of their monetization status leaving money contributed by their communities in limbo…with no explanation.  What a shame.  A real shame.  It seemed it was only a matter of time before yet another thriving app/community would be destroyed by Twitter (Vine anyone?).  We still kept on because our community was still tuning in and we were still having fun with our morning show, even starting up the Doug & Ally Morning Show Podcast, but we weren’t really innovating on the show itself anymore.  Like the app, it was running on autopilot.  And then just this week the announcement came – Periscope would be going away as a stand alone app.  Going out with a whimper.  Pathetic.

Hello Happs…

Almost instantly the buzz in the community turned to a livestreaming platform called Happs.  I was a little skeptical because so many livestreaming apps have come and gone such as Meerkat, YouNow, MeVee, Blab, Busker, and yes, Periscope.  But we downloaded it and set up a profile out of curiosity, and were immediately WOWED.  HELLO HAPPS indeed!

Hello Happs

This app has a dizzying array of features and yet is very intuitive to use.  People suggested we move our show to Twitch for example, but I’ve spent some time on Twitch before and find it to be the most confusing user interface ever.  It makes my head spin.  On Happs I had us up and running in a matter of minutes and I’m blown away at what you can do there.  It’s monetized which is great, you can multicast from Happs to other platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all at the same time with all the comments from the other platforms in the same feed.  You can bring other folks into your livestream on camera, and you can put up links, graphics – heck you can do just about anything that you might think would be cool to do on a livestream.  There is an entire producer studio on the desktop version and you can work the controls there while you stream on your mobile device.  It makes Periscope look like Prehistoriscope.

The CEO and other members of the team have been engaging with the community dropping into broadcasts answering questions, taking suggestions and they have been extremely welcoming to this huge influx of Periscope users.  They are working their butts off to add servers, keep up with stability and adding features on the fly.  It’s an exciting time again!  They even “transferred” our Periscope VIP badge to Happs and verified our account.

So we’re all in.  We certainly hope they can sustain their success and we are going to do everything we can to help.  We invite you to join us in this reinvigorated community to have fun, meet people and discover new corners of the world you haven’t seen!  We’ll be on in the mornings T-F sometime around 10ish to 11ish EST for fun and shenanigans and maybe even a little photography hehe… 

So once again, with great enthusiasm we say HELLO HAPPS!!!

Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW
 
 
BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
**********************************************
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
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
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!

 

The Doug & Ally Morning Show PODCAST is here!

 

Morning Show Podcast

We have a PODCAST!!!  I guess you could say this story began almost 5 years ago really… We have been livestreaming on Periscope since March 31st, 2015 – 5 days after the app launched in the app store.  Since then we’ve met people virtually through Periscope all over the world, spoken at the Periscope Community Summit (Summit Live) in San Francisco, visited and/or photographed people we’ve met in Biloxi, Pensacola, Orlando, Mobile, New York, and Harbor Springs, restored photos for people around the globe and had visitors from Periscope at the studio from Chicago, Delaware, Washington D.C., Kansas, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, England, and Australia!  Doug got one of his digital marketing clients from Periscope too!

It’s been one amazing ride.

Our show is on in the mornings generally Tuesday – Friday (and once in a while Saturday) sometime between 9:30 and 11:30EST and usually goes for about an hour.  There’s lots of fun banter and a crew who is known as the “Octosquad” – plenty of shenanigans and inside jokes, not to mention telemarketing pranks.

We even have a hilarious logo designed by the amazing Rich Nairn and you can see the “history” of the Doug & Ally Morning Show in the form of his doodles at our Pinterest board… should give you a chuckle.

Morning Show Podcast

Enter The Doug & Ally Morning Show Podcast!

Meanwhile, over time our peeps started suggesting that we start a podcast.  Podcasting is becoming a popular medium – people love to be able to listen to them on demand while they’re commuting, making dinner – in their car, on their headphones, with Alexa….  So after a brief series of episodes exclusively on our Patreon page which was subscription only, we decided to reboot it and open it up to the masses!  We have three episodes live already and you can listen to them at the following embedded players and/or links.  We’re still adding new platforms and we’re already almost everywhere you likely get your podcasts. 

One last thing.  The podcast is free.  IF you are inclined to support the podcast, we would like to treat this separately in terms of the time it takes to line up guests, record, and invest in the podcast.  We’d like to start upgrading to some proper equipment to upgrade the quality as well.  So if you want to visit the Patreon page and subscribe we will give a shout out on the show when we get supporters, we’ll send you a Doug & Ally Morning Show bookmark and we’ll keep growing it – maybe with behind the scenes goodies and who knows what else?  Like I said – it’s not required, but it’s worth it for some people to get involved and help grow this thing, and then we’ll get sponsors and maybe we can make a few dollars!  We’ll be grateful if you do!

The current episode is the one that shows on the embedded players below, but you can click on the links and binge ALL of them from the beginning!  Subscribe on your platform of choice and reviews (on Apple podcasts / iTunes for example) help too!

So enjoy, and there will be more to come – we’re just getting started!!!

Our host site is Anchor.fm and here is the podcast player for it.

You can also get us on Spotify:

RadioPublic:

Castbox – you can see all 3 episodes in their embedded player (kinda cool):

TuneIn (which is the one Alexa uses – you should be able to just ask Alexa to play The Doug & Ally Morning Show Podcast!

Here are ALL the links (so far….)

Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW
 
**********************************************
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
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
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!

 

 

Some Thoughts On Senior Pictures And Why They Are So Special

We were sitting and talking with one of our high school seniors and her mom yesterday and it was a conversation I really enjoyed – one that got me thinking about our seniors and why their sessions are so special.

Special

We have had parents thank us before for “making it such a great experience” for their senior and “really capturing them” or “making them feel so special”.  Yes – we are really good at what we do.  Ally is an awesome photographer and she connects with people really well.

But here’s the thing, and I said this yesterday in what was a similar conversation to many we’ve had with comments like the ones above:

Special

Often the case is that we made someone’s daughter or son feel good NOT just because we said lots of things, complimented them and focused on them, but because the senior kicked butt.  At the end of the day the senior gets credit too.  It’s the senior who has to prep, dress, smile, pose – for hours!  It’s the senior who projects the confidence and the personality. 

Special

Sure Our Approach is Key…

Take the girl who was here yesterday with her mom to place their order.  Did we have something to do with her having such an amazing session?  Well sure we did.  We meet with each senior ahead of time to get to know them.  We want to get a sense of what their style is, their personality – and we empower them to be involved in planning their session.  We know what questions to ask, we know tons of great locations, we have a great studio with perfect lighting, fantastic backdrops and really cool vintage furniture.  We’ve been at this a long time and it’s our livelihood, but we want them to know this is about them.  So yes this approach breaks down barriers and paves the way for a better session.  It’s really important, and once we’ve done it the senior can own their part.

Special

…But it’s a Team Effort & The Seniors Make It Special

It’s truly a collaboration.  No different than a coach and an athlete, a conductor and a classical musician.  The girl who was here yesterday really rose to the occasion.  SHE was what made it special.  She looked great!  You could see the fun she was having and the confidence on her face in the photos.  Ally laughs at how I always say the senior is “killing it” or “slaying the game” haha…  But that’s not B.S. – it’s true!  And with yesterday’s senior everyone brought their A game, everyone feels like we really accomplished something great together, and now we’re friends.  We can’t imagine the tedium of doing it any other way for something that can and should be so special and our clients come here because that’s what they want. 

Special

So yes, we love what we do and we’re good at it, but it’s the team – us, the parents and the SENIORS that make senior pictures at Frameable Faces so special!

**********************************************
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
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
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!

 

 

Sports Update With Frameable Seniors Who Are Now College Athletes!

We have done Frameable Flashbacks before where we check in with a former Frameable senior but this is the first time we’ve ever done a sports update with all of them!  We hope to make this a recurring thing as we follow the careers of these inspiring young student athletes!  We got the idea because this year we had a big run on athletes in the class of 2019 and we were thinking how cool it will be to follow their exploits at the next level.  But that got us thinking about all the other athletes we’ve had come through the studio who had great college sports careers already or who are currently getting it done now, so we thought this would be fun to highlight them!  Note:  We did NOT take these sports photos – we have credited them to the appropriate websites from the schools.

Frameable Sports Update #1

Let’s go back a ways to some of our seniors who have already finished their careers starting with Jarred Bratley!

Sports Update

Photo from mgoblue.com

That’s Jarred above with the long hair running cross country for the Michigan Wolverines!  He graduated from Bloomfield Hills Andover and had a nice career at Michigan including Academic All-Big Ten honors.  What a great family, and his mom Elise would always come by the studio and keep us updated!  Jarred is going to be a doctor too.

Next we have Hallee Kansman who played soccer at Eastern Michigan!

Sports Update

Photo from EMU website

Hallee comes from a soccer family and we’ve known her mom for ages – so not to be outdone, her brother Kyle who was a spokesmodel for us played at Alma and earned all-conference honors there!  Both Kansmans played their high school soccer at North Farmington!

Sports Update

Photo from Alma website

Way to go Kyle!

Next up is David Attenson who played football at Northwood – we remember cracking up on his senior session with a couple of intentionally goofy photos for fun!  David graduated from Bloomfield Hills Lahser.

Sports Update

Photo from Northwood University website

He looks ready to rock in that photo!

Oh and let’s stay with Northwood with current player and son of Doug’s former Michigan teammate Doug Skene, Nathan Skene!  He’s a tight end up there and doing a great job!

Sports Update

It’s cool to see the next generation getting it done.  Nathan’s sister Madelin is about to start her freshman season at U of M Dearborn as well so we hope to have some updates from her soon too!

Next up is Jack Wangler who played wide receiver at Michigan – that’s Jack #16 on the left!

Sports Update

Photo from MLive.com

We’ve known the Wanglers for years and did senior pictures for three of the sibs as well as some great family photos.  Jack’s dad John played quarterback at Michigan back in the day with Doug’s older brother Jeff so we go way back.  We still talk about the laugh we had on Jack’s session when an older lady peaked her head in the door to say how good looking he was… hehe…   Jack has graduated and just came in recently for a headshot for his new job!

Once again we have a sibling student athlete with Jack’s brother Jared who just finished his career at Michigan this past season and he scored a sweet touchdown this year against Maryland!  Both of these guys played their high school ball at Warren DeLaSalle.

Sports Update

Photo from detroitnews.com

That’s Jared #5 celebrating his TD!  Our first “night time bleacher shot” was done with Jared and it still hangs in one of our windows!

Next we have Kayla Cornett from Birmingham Groves who after starting at Macomb Community College has just signed to continue her career at Madonna University!

Sports Update

Photo from macombdaily.com

Love that girl and we’re excited for her!

Next we have Jubilee Jackson who was a spokesmodel for us and graduated from Bloomfield Hills High School.

Sports Update

Photo from Hope College website

Jubilee played lacrosse for a season at Hope College – she’s one of a kind that one…. love her!

Next up is our nephew Jake Cohen who has been playing football at Wooster in Ohio!

Sports Update

Photo From the-daily-record.com

That’s Jake #43 and Jake graduated from North Farmington.  Unfortunately Jake had a really bad knee injury this past fall but up until that point he was having a really nice career starting at linebacker for the Fighting Scots!

Sticking with Wooster we go to double threat Akwia Tilton who plays basketball AND runs track for the Scots!

Sports Update

Photo from Woosterathletics.com

Sports Update

Photo from Woosterathletics.com

Wow!  Now that’s impressive.  Akwia attended Roeper High School.

And yet one more at Wooster!  Anabel Faigin is a West Bloomfield grad and is a cheerleader at Wooster!

Sports Update

Photo from Woosterathletics.com

That’s Anabel on the right in the second row!

Staying in Ohio we have Jake Rubin who is playing soccer for Wittenburg College!

Sports Update

Photo from Wittenbergtigers.com

Jake attended Walled Lake Central and we just photographed his class of 2019 brother Josh!

Sticking with soccer for a sec we go to Centre College where Abby Hegarty is a defender for the Colonels!

Sports Update

Photo by Kyle McGinnis from centrecolonels.com

That’s Abby above wearing #26!

Next is Marquian Johnson who played high school ball at Clawson and had a couple of great seasons playing wide receiver for Saginaw Valley State!

Sports Update

Photo from Saginaw Valley website

Another great kid with a wonderful mom Brenda!

Next up is Scotty Grant who is playing baseball at Albion – another one with a younger brother we photographed this year from Orchard Lake St. Mary’s!

Sports Update

Photo from Albion University website

Scotty reminded us of our Tony a little when we photographed him – before he grew his hair long of course… lol!

Last but not least is Nick Seidel who captained his West Bloomfield Lakers to the state championship game his senior year.  Nick was a spokesmodel for us as was his older sister Emma!  We love this family and Nick is a great kid.

Sports Update

Photo from hopkinssports.com

Nick is currently playing football at Johns Hopkins and that’s him in black and blue #43!  He had a fantastic freshman season and helped the Blue Jays get to the playoffs!

That’s it for now – we can’t wait to include Grace, Anika, Meg, Josh and Morgan as soon as they go off to Florida, North Carolina, Central Michigan, Spring Arbor & Utica to play track, tennis, field hockey, soccer and hockey!  We have also created a Twitter list of all of the current teams that have Frameables on the roster – you can follow that list HERE!

BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
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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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Social Media Services: http://M10Social.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?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

5 Totally Legit Reasons You Should Join Our Patreon Page!

Patreon is described in Wikipedia as “a membership platform that provides business tools for creators to run a subscription content service, as well as ways for artists to build relationships and provide exclusive experiences to their subscribers, or “patrons.”  We have our own Patreon, we are working really hard on it and we believe in it.  We hope you will join us and here are 5 totally legit reasons why you should.

Patreon

5 Totally Legit Reasons Why You Should Join Our Patreon Page

 

First of all, Patreon itself is really cool.

Let’s just talk about Patreon for a second if you aren’t familiar with it.  It’s a great website as well as mobile app that is growing and adding features and opportunities constantly.  You can find creators of all sorts to connect with there and subscribe to their page for anywhere from one dollar to $15 per month (and sometimes more for really big rewards) just for various levels of fun basic content.  Artists, musicians, comedians, business gurus, podcasters, vloggers – you name it.  And the creators who rely on this platform to make a living at what they do are generally really thankful for their communities who subscribe for their content.

As an end user you can go on the desktop version and even better download the mobile app.  The creators you subscribe to can upload video, audio, photos, livestreams, links, polls, stories, or just text  right to the app.  So you can listen, watch, comment, and interact with other fans & followers all from your smartphone.  You can access all of these things on demand as you like – a great way to support the people you enjoy on the go.  You’ll love it. 

Keep in mind that the best creators on Patreon typically have YouTube channels, blogs, Instagram and Snapchat, and a whole variety of profiles online where they’re sharing free content, but the ones who do it right are giving extra rewards and exclusive content to their patrons because the patrons are paying for it – they definitely appreciate your support.

As for OUR Patreon page, we’ve already posted a TON of stuff there…and we’re adding more.

We aren’t messing around.  We are off to a solid start with a handful of subscribers and we are working really hard to create content exclusively for Patreon.  Heck, part of the impetus for starting Patreon was the fact that people were asking us on our Periscope 📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show!🎙☕ to do a podcast.  While we thought that would be fun we figured at some point it has to be sustainable for us to keep adding content that isn’t exactly our core business of photography.  Yes our content highlights our brand and is great for promotion but certain content in and of itself has value if we do it right and there are only so many hours in the day – as I said it has to be sustainable.  We felt a podcast along with some other things would fit the bill… so The📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show!🎙☕………Podcast!  was born…

Patreon

We are having a blast with the podcast, and a shout out goes to the amazing Olivia Thai who supplied the little impromptu beatbox intro that you hear at the beginning of each one which we literally pulled from when she called into our morning show one day!

Meanwhile, we have SO much else to offer, and so we’ve been pouring ourselves into creating content for Patreon much like the courses we have taught here at our studio such as Doug’s teachings in his “2 Hour Social Media Class” and Ally’s “Photography 101” class.  People who follow us outside of the Metro Detroit area had been asking for a way to learn from us or get online courses and now Patreon gives us a way to do that with in-depth tutorials that we upload there.  The feedback on these has been solid (more on that in a bit) and we’ll even take requests on topics that our Patrons want covered specifically.  We do some of these with recordings of our computer screens while we’re walking you through how to create social media content or how to edit a photo in Photoshop.  These are great because you can access them on demand, at your own pace and you can watch them repeatedly.

We’ve added a few other exclusive series there too such as “Entrepreneur Life” where we talk about the highs and lows, thrills and challenges of having your own business – things that we’ve learned and sometimes the hard way…  We even include the occasional blooper!  As of this first writing we are at over 40 pieces of content total, available at the various levels.

You may find if you browse around Patreon overall that there are some who use their page simply as a donation mechanism – a way for their followers to contribute money to support what they are already doing elsewhere.  Not calling anyone out specifically or saying that’s bad per se…  But that’s not our strategy.  If you’re paying for our Patreon, you’re getting your money’s worth ON Patreon.  We’ll even send you a 📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show!🎙☕ bookmark at the $5 level and up!

Our Patrons Are Happy – they are validating what we are doing there – so take their word for it!

We are getting great feedback so far and there are subscription levels for everybody – from just $2 per month to be included in our private Periscope group – this is a great thing by the way.  Sometimes we just go on Periscope live in a private broadcast just for our Patrons to get feedback, chat or we’ll even livestream there under our own personal profiles @dougcohen10 or @AllyCohen_1 if we feel like waxing poetic on our own passions like music, history, football, parenting – whatever, and the patrons are really enjoying this.  We are getting great feedback so far at all of the various reward levels.  Take a look at some of the comments from the page…

Podcast

Patreon

Tutorial on Twitter Lists

Patreon

Tutorial on Canva

Patreon

Random Blooper

Patreon

Participation and Community is at the heart of what we do – Patreon is a shining example

We’ve always said we are all the Frameable Faces – sure it’s Doug & Ally – we own the business.  But we’re part of the community just like everyone else, and it’s our peeps that make our studio and it will be our peeps that make the Patreon page too.  Our friend Gareth from the UK is “Pliny The Round” and he’s already been posting in the “Community” tab on the Patreon which is awesome.  The people do and will continue to shape the community there.  We’ve had Patrons make suggestions for things to include in the Podcast and we frequently reach out for feedback.  At this point we are toying with adding Discord to our page (an app much like Slack that gamers have traditionally used for group chat and voice to text around certain topics) which can be integrated with Patreon.  Just another way to bring the community closer together – so we’ll see how Discord plays out.  Regardless, with Patreon since people are subscribing everyone has a vested interest in making it great!

When we share tips we don’t hold back – we pour out our knowledge…

We don’t really horde our secrets.  We subscribe to the idea that sharing helps the community, it helps the industry whether that be social media or photography, and we never have just one main magic sauce really anyway.  Once we’ve shared the sauce we’ve already concocted the next one.  We’re always concocting a new sauce and improving the current sauce, and just because someone took our sauce and tried to make it doesn’t mean they’ll make it exactly how we made it.  If by chance they made it better than us?  Well than that will just give us something to shoot for won’t it?

If you like the way we do things and you think you could learn from us, you will at our Patreon page.  We promise.  Thanks for reading and we hope to you see you there!  We won’t let you down!

 
BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
**********************************************
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
************************************************
***************************************­*******
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!

 

 

How the Octopus Became A Symbol At Frameable Faces! #Octosquad

The Octopus is a really cool animal.  They’re smart, fascinating to watch, and there are 289 kinds of them!  But why have they become a symbol of a local independent photography studio in West Bloomfield, MI where none of them live within thousands of miles?  Let’s find out…

Octopus

How The Octopus Became A Symbol At Frameable Faces

As you may know we name a lot of stuff here.  We name locations for the seniors who pioneer them, we name equipment and some of them even take on their own personas and start tweeting, sitting down for interviews…. etc.  Oy.

Meanwhile we have a studio light that is octagonal shaped and we started referring to “him” as “Octo” just for fun.  That was how this whole thing started.  You see, over the last few years (it will actually be exactly 3 years on 3/31/18) we have been periscoping as you may know, and along the way The📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show!🎙☕ became a thing.  We made the trending list on the app which is owned by and integrated with Twitter as “Twitter Live” and we now have over 22k followers literally around the world.  At some point during the show when a newbie shows up we welcome them and give a tour of the studio, and the tour itself has become a daily event with many recurring hallmarks and themes of its own – one of which is Octo which somewhere along the way became “The World Famous Frameable Faces Octopus”.  Not sure the exact origins of this can be traced beyond the likely scenario of someone thinking I said Octopus one day instead of Octobox, and…..well…..take a look below and you’ll get an idea of what has happened:

Yes the World Famous Frameable Faces Octopus gave way to the rise of the #Octosquad!  Our friend Lauren (@Sound_Of_Boots) usually makes the announcement and everyone gets their octo on.  Pretty much anyone can be a member of the Octosquad, just like anyone can be a Frameable – it’s an attitude, a lifestyle if you will, and you just jump on in!

Since then octopuses (yes that’s the proper plural of octopus) have been popping up everywhere.  In the studio….

Octopus

That’s the octo we brought back from the Keys with his partner Fitzy’s Maine Lobster.  Fitzy is one of our Periscope friends who sent us that from his trip to Maine.

Octopus

These little octos who sit by Doug’s computer were a gift by Periscope friends Jacqui Of All Trades and Laughing Leo who brought them to the studio on a visit…

We even found a tiny octo with our friend Steve (Steve named him Ocho) in a bucket down in the Florida Keys on the Frameable Faces 2017 Spring Break Tour

Octos even adorn our bookmarks which we’ve been giving out as rewards for subscribers of our Patreon page…  Our friend @McFannie showed hers off with a tweet!

Octopus

It’s gotten to be such a big deal that Reflecto seems to be getting a little salty about it…

Octopus

He’ll get over it….

And there you have it!  Now you know how the #Octosquad was born and how the Octopus became such a symbol of Frameable Faces!  We hope you’ll join the Octosquad too!

BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
**********************************************
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
************************************************
***************************************­*******
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!