Tag Archives: Ally Cohen

Planning For This Killer Session Was Key With Kyle!

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Kyle’s killer session was a classic example of how good planning leads to great results!  We’ve known his parents for some time and we explained to them when they called to schedule Kyle’s senior pictures how important it would be to meet for a consultation to plan the session.  If you don’t meet ahead of time there will inevitably be general disorganization and cluelessness about what we’re doing and where we’re going on the day of the session…  With Kyle what came out of the meeting was that we wanted to get some natural photos with the fall colors and gritty urban shots.  So by planning our timeline and locations we were able to cover a lot of ground and finish right on schedule!

Kyle is a great kid and when both his mom and dad joined us on his session we were excited!  We had a lot of laughs, and we got some great photos!  We met on location first to get the nature shots – here’s one of them:

Killer Session

Pontiac is always a good idea for gritty urban photos for a high school senior.  It’s a cool city with a bunch of hidden treasures and while it has had its share of tough times and it might not be the shiny cosmopolitan locale that some of its neighbors are, Pontiac is a tough and resilient town and we love being there.  We have had some of our favorite senior sessions there and Kyle’s was no exception.  These next two photos were taken there:

Killer Session

Ally loves the way this next one highlights Kyle’s eyes…

Killer Session

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine with a couple quick highlights from the morning!

Finally we headed back to the studio (right on schedule I might add) and grabbed a few shots indoors – we’ll leave you with this one on the grey.

Killer Session

So there you have it!  Kyle’s killer senior session where planning made perfect!

Lively and Lovely With Lindsey On Her Senior Session!

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Lindsey came to the studio for her lively and lovely senior session on a beautiful sunny Saturday and while it was our first time photographing her here at the studio it wasn’t the first time we photographed her.  She jumped in for a few shots with her cousins a few years ago when she was a little younger and it’s always fun to do senior pictures with someone we’ve photographed before!  Oh – and especially a North Farmington Raider – you know how we love our Raiders being Raiders ourselves!

We’ve had great sessions with this class of 2015 and for different reasons – every senior is unique and different.  In Lindsey’s case she wowed us with her lively sense of style and fashion and won us over with her sweet and lovely way inside and out!

We began in the studio with some simple shots – like this one of Lindsey in a white top and jeans on the white background:

Lively and Lovely

She’s great in front of the camera!  We played around in the studio for a while including some shots of Lindsey in her brown and gold Raider letter jacket as you can see in our fun behind the scenes vine of the day!

Next it was time to head out on location for a little nature and a little city…  First we went to the grey wall that actually used to be white.  We love its new paint job and and we love Lindsey here:

Lively and Lovely

So Lindsey looks great so far right?  Well these last two outfit changes clearly kicked it up a notch or two – this one on the stairs which you saw a clip of in the vine is just so cool!  The hat, the haute couture feel, the hair twirl, the attitude – LOVE this.

Lively and Lovely

And then last but not least with the natural backdrop – just a spectacular shot of Lindsey here…  Wow.

Lively and Lovely

So there you have it!  Lindsey’s lively and lovely senior session!  We hoped you loved these photos of our day with her!

A “Senior Session Rhapsody” With Raina!

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Screenshot 2014-10-22 09.29.43

The word “rhapsody” works on several levels for Raina’s outstanding senior session!  Let’s count a few of the ways shall we?

  1. The idea of photographing Raina once we met this sweetheart and her mom was “music to our ears”
  2. She can play a rhapsody on her cello which she included in her session (as a former cello player myself this made her session extra special for me).
  3. Photos aren’t “written or spoken” per se but they can certainly be an expression of “great enthusiasm, praise, etc.” and we have great enthusiasm for Raina’s session!

So yes, we think it’s appropriate to present a few highlights from what we are calling a “senior session rhapsody” with Raina!

We started in the studio on the black background with our “black and blowy” setup that we love:

senior session rhapsody

We love the black and white stripes of her blouse against the black background, and her eyes look amazing!

Next we headed outside and we captured some shots in the park as well as in the city.  Let’s look at a photo from the park first…

senior session rhapsody

Beautiful right?  Now let’s take a look at our fun behind the scenes vine where the cello makes an appearance!

Next it was time to head to the city for a cosmopolitan look – Raina looked at ease in all the settings!

senior session rhapsody

And finally the grand finale with the cello!  Love this photo with the fountain in the background!

senior session rhapsody

So there you have it!  Our senior session rhapsody with Raina!  We really enjoyed our time with Raina and her mom and we finished it off with a group hug!  We hope you enjoyed these photos from such a wonderful afternoon!

Just A Great Hangout With Jeremy!

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Just a great hangout with Jeremy is what his senior session felt like!  Sometimes those are the best sessions.  Sure we are taking pictures and the senior is posing and changing clothes a few times, but when you’re just having a good time hanging out talking about life, and in this case a lot of American history which Jeremy and I have a common interest in, then it just feels like hanging out with a buddy.  Meanwhile Jeremy’s older brother Devin was here last year with his mom for a memorable senior session as well, so we were excited to have them back!

We had a lot of laughs and we’ll get to that a little later, but for now let’s just start with some great location shots…

Great Hangout

The colors are changing on a daily basis at this point which is obviously a photographer’s dream.  We love the reds, oranges, browns and yellows we get in the trees here in Michigan, and we had a great morning to be outside on this day!  This has been a good spot for us with the water in the background and Jeremy just looks relaxed and at ease don’t you think?

Next we hit some trails and captured this photo with this little triple tree…

Great Hangout

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine and here is where we get to a few of those laughs I mentioned.  Jeremy’s brother had a fun silly photo that came out of his session so we stopped at the store for a little Hubba Bubba to try to top it.  Haha!

Next we changed locations to go to one of our meadows…

Great Hangout

And then we changed locations yet again to go to one of our favorite bridges and this time we’re presenting it in black and white – just a cool classic and dramatic shot of our guy here…

Great Hangout

So there it is!  Simple – a great hangout with a great guy with a great mom and, of course, great results!!!  Hope you enjoyed these photos of Jeremy!

How Do We Spell Style? J-O-R-D-A-N Of Course!

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Photographing a guy who can rock a session like Jordan is a treat.  What a great kid.  And apparently the rest of the world shares our opinion because Jordan seems to know everyone around here and everyone knows him!  We knew this was going to be a good photo shoot and his mom came along to hang with us for the afternoon.  We had a blast.  The guy knows fashion, knows how to pose and has a great look so the session really came together nicely.  This is not totally by accident either since Jordan is considering a career in fashion.  So when asked how we spell style around here we’ll just answer J-O-R-D-A-N from now on!

First we started in the studio for one of several GQ looks that we love with the suit and tie this time on the black background…

We Spell Style

Then after some additional studio work we headed outside for what turned out to be a perfect fall day.  We went mostly for the natural look and we started out with this pathway through one of the meadows that we love:

We Spell Style

Here is our fun behind the scenes three part vine from the day!

Next we headed over to one of our favorite bridges for this one…

We Spell Style

Catalogue material right?  The boy knows how to dress and how to pose.  This last photo is a unique one with the hoodie and Jordan standing in the road – we love this.

We Spell Style

So how do we spell style again?  Oh yeah – J-O-R-D-A-N!  And now you know why.  We hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks from his outstanding senior session!  We certainly enjoyed our afternoon with Jordan!

 

A Melodic Senior Session With Matt!

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Our 2015 seniors continue with a melodic senior session with Matt!  What a great guy – his mom joined us on the session and their interaction was really cute – just cool and enjoyable and they have a great relationship.  Matt is a mature and laid back gentleman!

Meanwhile they took us to a new spot we never knew existed right under our noses not far from where we live!  I mentioned in the blog post for our last senior that lately some of our explorations have been more rewarding than usual and this was one of those.  A long raised pathway through the woods that ends as a dock on a small lake.  Such an awesome location and we were shocked!  We’ll get to that later.  In the meantime let’s start with a photo in the studio on the black background which was how we started our afternoon…

melodic senior session

Next it was time to head outside and explore a little.  Interestingly enough we made a stop at the same spot we hit with our last session but there are several different options at that location that we didn’t highlight in the last post, starting with this one looking out of the tunnel and down the pathway.  It makes for a really cool lighting effect!

melodic senior session

Then we used the adjacent stairs for this close crop – now that’s a good looking kid right?

melodic senior session

Now here is the melodic part – it’s our fun behind the scenes vine of the session including a little musical interlude by Matt at the end of our newfound dock!

And the resulting photo…

melodic senior session

So there it is!  New spots, guitars, great guy to photograph – that’s a pretty good day in our book.  We hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks from Matt’s session!

 

Bringing A Cool Spot Back With Becca!

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We are always on the lookout for cool new locations for senior sessions and it seems lately some of our explorations have been more rewarding than usual.  New meadows, pathways and bridges get us excited!  But once in a while during a consultation a senior sees something on our iPad that we hadn’t thought about in a while and leads us back to a spot that we get to see in a whole new way!  Becca did that for us when she chose this very cool tunnel that we hadn’t been to in years.  So yes – we are bringing a cool spot back with Becca!

We’ve also mastered a few new lighting tricks since the last time we were here, and we love the way this one came out:

Bringing A Cool Spot Back

So cool – and Becca looks great!  There is also a cool outdoor staircase right by the tunnel which we took advantage of.  Any location that has a couple of different looks in close proximity is a bonus.

Bringing A Cool Spot Back

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine that we made from this location before we headed back to the studio…

Next it was time to head back and get some studio shots.  Becca liked the purple which is fun – it looks great but we don’t use it a ton.  We love Becca on this color!

Bringing A Cool Spot Back

We finished up on the white background and this is one of those shots that just begs to be made into a black and white.  It just looks cool – Becca looks totally in control here – love the pose and love the attitude!

Bringing A Cool Spot Back

And that’ll do it for now – another fantastic senior and fantastic senior session!  We hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks!

Doug’s Rant – Happy Birthday Instagram!

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It’s been a while since I “ranted”.  We have had a very busy summer photographing seniors and planning and celebrating our son’s bar mitzvah so all I have been really able to think about for blogging is keeping up with sharing our wonderful seniors of the class of 2015.  There are plenty of seniors to come as we are just getting started with a whole new round of “fall color” seniors, and we will also be sharing some bar mitzvah photos too.  However I saw yesterday that it was Instagram’s 4th birthday and decided I need to comment (maybe not rant) on it and say Happy Birthday Instagram!

Happy Birthday Instagram

Yes – that was our very first Instagram 119 weeks ago of our exterior sign!  While many of our early Instagrams were not so stellar as we were trying to figure out where it fit for us, I actually still think that was not bad for the first one.

The Frameable Faces Instagram “philosophy”

We have become big fans of Instagram and we use it in a number of ways.  As for the content we typically share, we post pretty much whatever strikes us as fun and valuable to our followers, and we have stayed away from posting videos – we use Vine for short videos.  It’s also important to know the etiquette, such as being careful not to over post.  As for the types of Instagrams we post, the behind-the-scenes collages of photo shoots for example are our favorites.  It allows us to share a snapshot of our time spent with our peeps very quickly.

Happy Birthday Instagram

We started focusing on those because we weren’t sure that Instagram was the best platform to showcase our final images since people mostly look at them on such a small screen.  Our work is best displayed as a 24×30 print or canvas on a wall…right?  Well it turns out that our images look pretty darn good as wall portraits AND as Instagrams…

But here’s the thing.  When we reveal the first sneak peeks here on the blog for a senior session for example, we pick the four we want to showcase and that’s fine – it’s our blog.  But most of our seniors aren’t bloggers – they are Tweeters and Instagrammers.  So for seniors we prefer to make these images available to them first here on the blog with a sampling, and then later in digital watermarked proofs so they can be the ones to share and show off their Frameable Faces pics – it gives them some control and ownership of it, and then we can join in the fun with comments.

Happy Birthday Instagram

Occasionally we’ll post our real work on Throwback Thursday of a senior alum, but we still refrain from posting current final images… at least for now.

Here is how we break down by the numbers:

119 – Weeks on Instagram

2.34 – Average number of Instagrams per week

278 – Total posts

120 – Behind the scenes Instagrams of senior sessions

24 – Selfies

12 – Pics of our peeps on random visits

4 – Instagrams of Reflecto

14 – Instagrams about our home the Orchard Mall

44 – Behind the scenes of family (and a few commercial) sessions

10 – Throwback Thursday seniors

50 – Various other stuff

So there it is!  Happy Birthday to you Instagram!  We hope you enjoyed your day as much as we enjoy you!

Happy Birthday Instagram

Samantha Is The Last And Far From The Least!

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Samantha is the last senior and far from the least senior……not from the class of 2015, but from the class of 2014!!!  When she called and said she was interested in senior photos but she knew she was a little late I said “oh you’re still okay – we still have plenty of time” thinking she was a current senior.  The fact is she graduated in June so yes she was late indeed!  Haha!  But no worries we told her – better late than never, and there is no doubt in our minds that for the class of 2014 we got one of the very best for last!  What a sweetheart!

We spent most of our time together on location which is what we will focus on here, although we did come back to the studio for a traditional cap and gown photo too.

There is much to work with that we are still discovering in Heritage Park and that’s where we spent our morning with Samantha.

Samantha is the last

We love the boulders in the above photo as a backdrop – such great texture for a background.  And how great and sparkly is this girl’s smile?  She’s awesome.  Next we moved over to some pathways and bridges and our conditions were perfect – we couldn’t have ordered a better morning.  We love this next bridge and we had some nice colors all around here too.

Samantha is the last

Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning!

Next we grabbed a big rock that Ally remembered was on one of the trails with the sun behind it for this next shot… great backlight on Samantha’s hair!

Samantha is the last

Lastly we’ll share this next half length photo on another bridge – just a stunning photo of Samantha here – so beautiful!

Samantha is the last

So as I said – better late than never and while we think Samantha was the last of the class of 2014 she was certainly far from the least!!!

Happiness Is Photographing Hanna!

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Happiness is photographing Hanna for sure – we first met Hanna and photographed her with her little brother about three years ago on location on a cold winter day, and we fell in love with all of them back then – what a great family!  So when they came back around to the studio to talk about Hanna’s senior pictures we were thrilled!  We planned a great day and we had nice weather too so everything was lined up just right, and Hanna looked beautiful!

We started off in the studio with our black background and the fan for our black and blowy look – we are big fans (no pun intended) of this pose where Hanna’s arms frame her face but her hair is still flowing outward…

Photographing Hanna

Love it.

Meanwhile we introduced a new edition to the studio in this next photo…  one of our new chairs!  Hanna led the way with the first photos on this exquisite piece so it will be known as “Hanna’s chair” going forward – if you follow this blog you know that’s how we roll.

Photographing Hanna

Meanwhile here is our fun behind the scenes vine which leads us into the location part of the session!

Hanna’s session had a little of everything since we did some studio work, some photos in a natural setting in a park and some urban shots as well.  Let’s start with the pretty before we finish with the gritty.  Black-eyed Susans have been everywhere this year and we used a pretty patch of them here – Hanna’s flowery dress is totes appropes don’tcha think?

Photographing Hanna

Lastly we moved into the city where the new color of the wall-formerly-known-as-the-white-wall was great for Hanna – love her confidence here:

Photographing Hanna

And there you have it – nothing but pure happiness on this day with this girl!  We loved it – time flashed by since the last session when Hanna was but a freshman in high school and she is just as sweet now as she was then!