Tag Archives: Blogging

7 Reasons This Blog Post About Custom Framing Could Be A Disaster

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Custom Framing

We have always offered custom framing here at Frameable Faces, but frankly we never did it as well as we could.  Now that’s not to say that when we custom framed a piece for a client it wasn’t fantastic because it was – pretty much without exception.  The problem was we weren’t always as efficient as we could have been and we didn’t talk about it enough which is probably why we weren’t creating the amazing pieces we are now.  You see we’ve revamped our entire approach to framing – bringing in a vendor who has been in the game for a long time with an amazing eye and lightning fast turnarounds.  Our clients have already seen a difference.   Just as an example in our studio alone this photo of Mikaela one of our past seniors always catches everyone’s eye because it’s so stunning.

We decided to print it again and frame it for the window…

Custom Framing

  

So okay, this is very exciting right?  But does it make for a very exciting blog post just to say we are doing some awesome custom framing now?  Sounds a little salesy or infomercially.  But I was having trouble coming up with an exciting, entertaining and valuable way to present it – you know a way that would generate tons of hits to our blog and tons of custom framing sales without selling at you all.

Writer’s Block?

I was stumped.  In the past when I’ve been stumped I’ve turned to my handy dandy Portent’s Content Idea Generator to get some wonderful ideas for blogging.  I found 7 really great ones so why just stick to one?  I want to wow you about custom framing after all right?  So let’s not hold back – let’s do ’em all.  This could be awesome.  Or…..it could be a disaster.

7 Reasons This Blog Post About Custom Framing Could Be A Disaster

1.Custom Framing

You love the Biebs.  Of course you love the Biebs.  Who doesn’t love the Biebs?  Not…..me of course.  I uh, love him – yeah that’s it.  And guess what?  1) Every portrait Justin has in his house is CUSTOM FRAMED so you should really consider doing that, 2) The Biebs thought about getting a dog once and decided a photo of a dog in a CUSTOM FRAME would be just as good and it wouldn’t poop on the floor, and 3) The Biebs has a massive CUSTOM FRAME of the lyric “Baby Baby Baby” in his great room and it’s a huge hit when he entertains. 

2.Custom Framing

Okay there is NO way I have time to research 11 reasons the Amish were right about custom framing.  Besides is there even a way to research that without visiting the Amish themselves?  This blog post is going South already….

3.Custom Framing

Totally.  This is absolutely a thing.  If you are having problems in your marriage the only thing you need to fix it is a formal portrait together in a glorious custom frame that you can see when you walk in the door as a reminder of your immense love for each other.  Done.  Doesn’t even matter if one of you snores (ALLEGEDLY).  Phew – okay that was an easy one.

4.Custom Framing

Well YEAH….. of course it’s a Blankety-Blank.  Wait, actually that sounds bad.  Is this helping here?

5.Custom Framing

13?  I don’t have time for this.  Maybe this was a mistake – I could think of 13 for a single post but all that work for just a 7th of a post?  Okay let’s try a few:  1) Everyone assumes a custom frame will fall off the wall and land on their head.  NOT TRUE in most cases.  With good craftmanship and a wire on the back it should stay on the wall.    2) Everyone thinks custom framing costs an arm and a leg.  NOT TRUE but maybe just an arm.  Hey you don’t want garbage on your walls do you?  3) That’s enough – you get the idea….

6.Custom Framing

Okay Portent’s Content Idea Generator what kind of an idea is this???  Really?  Um…. I don’t know use a wad of gum to – oh forget it.

7.Custom Framing

There are plenty of reasons to be talking about custom framing!  Probably even more than 9.  And while canvas, acrylic, and metal are all great ways to display your photos as well, don’t forget about custom framing!  You can match your decor and put something on your wall that you can be proud of for years, and we can help you!  Okay that was slightly salesy but it’s totally true.

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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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The Best Photography Blogs On The Web – Part 2

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I could sit at my computer and look at photos all day especially when it comes to great photo blogs.  I love all sorts from big journalistic blogs with multiple contributors to blogs of independent studios like ours.  I wrote a post in 2012 about the 6 best photography blogs on the Internet and since then I have discovered some others that are fantastic, so now I bring you the best photography blogs on the web – part two!  Do your eyes and your soul a favor by clicking on these and bookmarking them!

Best Photography blogs

Steve McCurry’s Blog

Steve McCurry is simply put one of the most important photographers of all time.  His photo “Afghan Girl” taken in a refugee camp in Pakistan in 1985 is the most recognized photo in National Geographic’s history.  You have seen it.  Meanwhile his work continues around the world and the photo essays he posts on his blog are amazing.  Take this one for example entitled “Children of the Omo” which takes place in the Omo River Valley in Southwest Ethiopia.

 

The Photo Argus

The Photo Argus has something for everyone.  Photos to enjoy of just about every category are here.  You can also find plenty of photography resources and tips for beginners and pros alike on this site.  Here is a really neat tutorial on night sky timelapse photography.  This one gets pretty technical but the timelapse photography in the first few minutes of the video is really cool.

 

Sullivan J Photography

Here is another blog with plenty of emphasis on education and training for photographers which I like and recommend, but Janice also posts plenty of her photos which are largely macro, travel and landscape.  Her macro photos of flowers are really nice and I also enjoyed this little photo essay of a trip to Oatman, AZ which is an old mining town.

 

Proof

This is the new photo blog launched by National Geographic.  Who didn’t love looking at the photos in National Geographic growing up?  This site is everything you would expect from them like this article about the Chernobyl disaster with truly haunting photos – some of them inside the plant.

 

Twisted Sifter

Twisted Sifter is a unique site I came across recently which states as its objective “to educate, entertain, and inspire each and every day” with three new posts daily as well as a picture of the day.  This “close encounter with a curious cheetah” is unbelievable!

I hope these sites entertain and inspire you, and if you have any to add please comment and let us know!

Doug’s Rant – Facebook Comment Photos, Events! and Glipho – July 20, 2013

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It’s that time again….  🙂

Rant

Several topics to discuss this time out – please share and give feedback in the comments!

Facebook Makes a Cool Change

Facebook adds photo comments

I discovered this little tidbit on allfacebook.com and I think it could have some pretty big implications for how brands interact with their followers on facebook.  I think the fact that people can join in conversations on a facebook page with photo attachments is very cool.  As you can tell in the above photo by my little avatar I’m logged in as Doug Cohen, I’ve clicked on a photo on Leaf & Berry’s page that we took, and I can include a photo with my comment if I want.  We embrace the popularity of photography at all levels and this could bring new opportunities for our peeps to participate in fun and creative ways by attaching their photos.  Our wheels are turning… stay tuned and let us know how you have seen this used and what ideas you have.

An About Face… To Event Photography!

As you may know in the past if you asked us if we photograph events our answer would be “no” with a few exceptions.  Well that has changed…  Ally and I are still not personally looking to be event photographers – we have our obligations as parents on the weekends for starters.  However, our fantastic second photographer Angela Bell has proven to be fabulous with events!  We tested her out on some informal affairs such as out-of-towner dinners and engagement parties and she did really well.  Then she stepped up to a couple bar/bat mitzvahs and she really blew us away!  More on this to come but suffice it to say Frameable Faces is indeed now in the event business and we are excited!

Glipho – Another Cool Social Network

I signed up for a Glipho account and you can follow me here.  What is Glipho you ask?  It’s a social blogging site – a cool way to pull content in from multiple platforms (instagram, twitter, blogger, WordPress etc.) into a very simple blog interface.  You can blog on Glipho, make friends, follow and like other blogs and interact with people.  I’ve chosen to use it as an outlet for myself as me – Doug, as opposed to another branded Frameable Faces page.  Yes I will be posting some FF blog posts there and hopefully bringing more attention and readers back to this blog, but I like to dabble in other topics like music, food, and football and I guest blog elsewhere so I like the idea of this being an outlet for my “personal brand” so to speak.  Do you “Gliph”?  Let me know if you do!

Quick Hits

  • A photo definitely made huge news this week with Rolling Stone putting a photo of the surviving Boston Marathon bomber on the cover.  Let’s just say this sparked a LOT of controversy and debate as you probably know….
  • Detroit made huge news this week with the bankruptcy announcement – I wrote a love letter to “The D” a while back that warrants a repeat link here….
  • Scott Bourne has written another buying guide – this time for camera lenses.  Anytime he shares this type of info it’s worth bookmarking.

Doug’s Rant – To Vine Is Divine, Web Redditing and Digging – July 11, 2013

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Doug droid photoVine and Instagram continue to fascinate me and this is the third rant in a row that I’ve focused on it.  In the last couple of weeks I’ve actually become a pretty big fan of Vine and I’ve enjoyed discovering some really creative and funny Vines as well as making a few of our own.  Here are a few ways we’ve used Vine so far – a little humor, focusing on our community, and a fun hello to our second photographer Angela:

 

 

 

 

As for Instagram I must say I barely see any videos there… and I prefer Instagram without videos (apparently I’m not the only one).  Being a fan of Vine and not of videos on Instagram is an outcome I did not anticipate, but that’s where I’m at now.

Can you Reddit?  Can you Digg it?

I recently read an article on Smart Savvy Social that discussed 10 ways to promote your blog posts and the major takeaway for me was #8 about bookmarking your blog on various social bookmarking sites.  I had toyed with Stumble a while back but I had never really spent any time on Reddit, Digg, or Technorati, so I went ahead and registered this blog on Technorati, created a profile on Reddit and checked out the others.  I find Reddit to be the most interesting so far because of the community aspect and the points you accumulate for good “karma” in how positive your interactions are.  While I am not seeing a whole lot of discussion about the photography business there, I can at least report that so far Reddit is the one that has generated some traffic back to our blog.  Collectively they seem to be pretty good resources for web surfing and finding good content.

Quick Hits

  • Ally is working on a guest blog about using reflectors for lighting purposes on MCP Actions – be on the lookout for that for you aspiring photographers!  It may be a little while before it posts but we’ll announce it on facebook and twitter for sure…  I also have a couple of articles being published there soon as well.
  • Here’s a case of “don’t just take my word for it” as the ever reliable Rosh Sillars blogs about the 17 things photographers should not do.  I counted and I’ve specifically discussed 8 of them in blog posts and guest blog posts of my own.  Admission – we don’t bother with our tripod very often…  we probably should a little more.  😉
  • By the way I’m a big fan of Snapchat as well which you may have noticed is the app interface on my photo at the top of this rant.  This is another visual and social mobile app but one that I’m not sure lends itself to use as a brand profile so I use it to have fun with my family and friends just as me.  A social media platform I don’t create Frameable Faces content for.

The 6 Best Photography Blogs on the Web

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I spend a lot of time blogging and reading blogs and I want to highlight the photography The 6 Best Photography Blogsblogs which I enjoy and/or learn the most from so you can bookmark them whether you are a professional photographer, a hobbyist, or just an enjoyist.  Yes I think it’s fun to make up the occasional word now and then…. after all, I still want to make sure you have good organic reasons to visit our blog.

Without further adieu and in no particular order…

  1. Photofocus.  This is Scott Bourne’s online magazine (they don’t consider themselves a blog per se which means they focus on creating content and do not allow comments on the site).  Ally and I were first exposed to Scott when we saw him speak in Nashville at Imaging USA (a huge photography convention) a couple years ago.  What impressed us about Scott was that unlike most of the speakers there he didn’t have anything to sell in his presentation.  He just imparts knowledge and there is a lot of good information at Photofocus from new product reviews, info on the industry, stunning images (he has done some amazing wildlife work), and tips and inspiration.  Highly recommended.
  2. Rosh Sillars.  Rosh is based here in Michigan and his blog has become a go to for me for great information on the photography business.  Lots of great info on social media for studios with practical tips and ideas.
  3. Hair Of The Dog.  The Hair Of The Dog Blog is pretty much guaranteed to make you smile.  Centered on pet photography, the “Session Spotlights” are awesome – such fun images of pets – dogs flying through the air with their tongues out – even the occasional mouse.  We love to photograph pets here at Frameable Faces and we get a lot of inspiration from this site.
  4. The Collective.  This blog is run by Andy Bondurant and focuses on photography, business, and life in general.  His wife Kia is a photographer as well and she contributes to the blog along with many other voices from around the industry.  I’ve guest posted on this blog before and I’ve learned a lot here.  Andy and I even debated on a topic with a point/counterpoint before and I think I even almost got him to see my side (haha).  The Collective pretty much became my Instagram manual once I upgraded to a Droid.
  5. PetaPixel.  I love this site.  Described as “a blog about photography geared towards tech-savvy photo-enthusiasts” there is much to enjoy here.  You will find a lot of incredible images here as well as plenty of industry news and photography tips.
  6. MCP Actions.  This blog is run by Jodi Friedman who is based locally in Metro Detroit.  The primary focus here is Photoshop actions and workshops and if you use Photoshop and/or Lightroom you need to bookmark this site now.  The blog is not limited to photo editing however, with plenty of other topics covered and I have had the honor of guest posting here twice.  The first time included the debate between Andy Bondurant and me in the comments which I referred to above!

So there you have it – my top 6.  We are always looking for recommendations for other blogs – please share with us!  What are your favorites?

What Pulp Fiction Can Teach Us About Internet “Trolls”

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I am all about practicing proper etiquette online.  I am also all about being truthful.  Somewhere in between I find it can get a little blurry.

Internet Trolls, Social MediaTrolls

There has been much written about “trolls” – the Wikipedia definition of a troll is as follows:

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

I have yet to see any trolls on this blog (hope I didn’t just jinx it), but I find the above description to be a little subjective.  “Extraneous or off-topic messages” intended to provoke are obviously inappropriate, but I wonder about  the “inflammatory” messages.  Is posting a different opinion automatically a bad thing as long as you aren’t being mean or blatantly offensive?  Certainly people could view that as inflammatory, but can’t debate be healthy as opposed to everyone just agreeing and patting each other on the back?  Besides, intent is hard to measure and someone could get upset and have an emotional response even though no offense was intended or expected…  People blog, post, and tweet expecting and hoping for responses, so shouldn’t they be prepared for different viewpoints?  It reminds me of a scene in Pulp Fiction where Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega are having dinner at Jack Rabbit Slim’s (you can actually read the entire script here– pretty cool):

                                  VINCENT
                       Actually, there's something I've
                       wanted to ask you about, but you
                       seem like a nice person, and I
                       didn't want to offend you.

                                  MIA
                       Oooohhhh, this doesn't sound like
                       mindless, boring, getting-to-know-
                       you chit-chat.  This sounds like
                       you actually have something to say.

                                  VINCENT
                       Only if you promise not to get
                       offended.

                                  MIA
                       You can't promise something like
                       that.  I have no idea what you're
                       gonna ask.  You could ask me what
                       you're gonna ask me, and my natural
                       response could be to be offended.
                       Then, through no fault of my own, I
                       woulda broken my promise.

Who is really the troll?

As far as I’m concerned just follow a few rules and use discretion and you should generally be okay.  I’ve gotten better at this as I’ve gotten older – I’ve grown up (a little) and owning a business that is really a people business has given me new and varied perspectives.  Besides, representing a brand online forces you to exercise restraint and diplomacy.

1) Be nice to people

2) Choose your words carefully knowing that a typed message can be interpreted differently than when you say it out loud.

3) Be careful talking about religion or politics and maybe think twice about bringing it up at all in a public forum – strangers will likely attack you.

4) Remember 1,2, and 3 but – don’t be scared to share your thoughts.  If someone attacks you for a thoughtful comment that doesn’t fall exactly into line with the opinion of the blogger and his/her minions then who is really the troll?  A blogger who bullies people into fear of reprisals if they disagree is a blogger you may not want to follow.

What about you?  Have you been attacked by a troll?  Have you been accused of being one?

The Frameable Faces Blog “Quest for Guests”!

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The Frameable Faces "Quest For Guests"!

 

One of the themes we’ve tried to instill in our studio is that of community.  We see Frameable Faces not just as the studio you can visit at the Orchard Mall, but as all of us – especially our clients who really are the Frameable Faces (or #Frameables as we like to tweet them).  As our blog evolves and grows we thought it would be a splendid idea to get more of you involved and so the “Quest for Guests” idea was born!  We would like to open this up just to Frameables (our clients) for starters and see where it goes, but the idea is to have someone write a guest post for our blog.  There are a couple of basic parameters involved:

1.  The article does not have to be about Frameable Faces nor does it need to be photography related – it can be but it doesn’t have to be.

2.  The article should provide some value whether it’s informative, or simply entertaining.  We prefer not to go overly heavy or serious.  If you have your own blog or business we definitely want to highlight that!  But here’s the key – don’t make the post a commercial or sales pitch for your business.  Write an article that will help people – demonstrate your expertise with some helpful tips.  If you have a blog of your own which is simply your outlet for your thoughts then give us a couple of your thoughts or even a good story.  If you are a fan of our blog, don’t have a business of your own or a blog but feel you have something to add to the conversation feel free to do that too!

3.  The article should ideally be 500-800 words and include at least one related image (if you are struggling with the image part let us know and we can help you).  Also include a short 2-3 sentence bio, a bio image (125×125 pixels is a good guide but we can help you with that too), a good title for your post, and links you want us to include (website, fb, twitter etc.).

4.  Send your article in an email to doug@frameablefaces.com.  We’ll scan it for typos etc. and let you know if there are any minor changes before we post it.  Keep in mind that dependent on the number of posts we receive and/or the subject matter we can’t guarantee that your post will be published.  We hope you understand.

We are excited to see where this goes and we hope the Frameables will get to know each other a little better!  We hope you will enjoy reading a guest post and that you will comment and join in!