Tag Archives: Detroit

Doug’s Amateur 2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas!

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I am NOT a professional photographer.  Let’s get that straight – and I will not be any time soon.  I have always loved photography, always had a camera and have always had a nice amateur eye.  So being in the photography business with my amazing professional photographer wife Ally has given me a chance to be involved in it, and to play around with the behind the scenes photos when I’m creating content to promote what we do.

iPhoneography…

Meanwhile the cameras on iPhones and smartphones in general have become better and better – the quality is quite amazing for everyday amateur use and the tools and filters let you have a lot of fun.  We’ve always said that the more people appreciate everyday photography the more they will appreciate professional photography, and we embrace the technology and use it to highlight the photos we take for our clients.

To that end I’ve become fond of the Panorama option on the iPhone, and I made sure to grab a pano of each spokesmodel session for the class of 2017.  I thought maybe these could make a fun blog post and so here we go…..!  These are unfiltered by the way with the exception of Ally brightening one or two of them.

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas!

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Lily

With Lily we went to Heritage Park in Farmington Hills and I got Ally here in action with Lily under this pretty trellis.

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Haven

Haven rocked it in the studio on this purple background with the light wood floor – I got up high for this angle…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Nick

Bending an alleyway in Birmingham as Nick mimics Ally’s pose…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Lacey

Our Lacey at Belle Isle where if you look really closely you can see the Detroit skyline in the distance to the right …

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Ilyssa

Ilyssa with the blue on the blue door in Pontiac on a cold and overcast day…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Marie

Marie lounges on the “throne” in the studio on the red background and the dark wood floor…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Ben

Ben chilling on a footbridge – another bend in reality…

2017 Spokesmodel Panoramas

Aria and Maya

Aria and Maya go back to back in downtown Detroit with the awesome murals of “The Belt“.

Kinda neat huh?  We hope you enjoyed these class of 2017 spokesmodel panoramas!  Let us know what you think!

Maya Mia! Maya Is A Fabulous Spokesmodel!

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Maya Mia!  See what we did there?  Another fabulous spokesmodel and especially one that is keeping the developing tradition of amazing seniors from Birmingham Groves!  We love all of our seniors from all of the schools (obviously our North Farmington Raiders for example since we are Raiders ourselves) but it is worth mentioning the love we have for our Groves peeps as a whole – there’s just something about those Falcons!  Maya is our latest Falcon and you’ve already seen Maya a couple times on the blog since we posted a behind the scenes fisheye shot from her double spokesmodel session with Aria and she already appeared in the broadcasts that we posted with Aria’s highlights.  We will post those broadcast replays again here for those who have landed here for the first time.  But first let’s look at a couple photos of Miss Maya shall we?

Maya Mia!

We started out in the studio with the blue/grey fabric backdrop before we headed downtown to Detroit – here’s one of those:

Maya Mia

Love the color coordination here and Maya looks gorgeous!

We also have to say that Maya is a total character once you get to know her a little – she definitely had us cracking up.  Her mom Julie is pretty awesome too…  To prove we’re not kidding here’s a little example of “spokesmodel parkour” with Maya – hilarious….

Maya Mia

“Spokesmodel Parkour” lol

As you may have seen on Aria’s post we didn’t spend a ton of time in the studio and at this point we headed down to Detroit.  For Maya’s highlights we are going to focus on the Belt Alleyway – such a cool spot!  There is a lot to work with there starting with this little alleyway within the alleyway!

Maya Mia

So cool.

Now let’s get to our fun behind the scenes action – first with our 6 second Vine for your looping pleasure!

Next we have the “encore” presentations of our Periscope broadcasts from our Katch.me page.  You can download the Periscope app and follow us so you can come along for the ride on future photo sessions and lots of other fun stuff at @frameablefaces at this link!  First the broadcast from the studio:

Next we have the broadcast from the Detroit location!

Now let’s get to a couple more photos of our wonderful spokesmodel!

Maya Mia

Those eyes!!!

Okay we’ll leave you with this last one with one of the cool murals that are all over the place down there…

Maya Mia

Maya Mia!  Right?  Beautiful girl!  Okay so there you have it!  We are pretty excited to have Maya representing our studio as we keep rolling right along gearing up for the class of 2017 season!

Ahhhhhhhh It’s Aria! Our Latest Spokesmodel!

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Ahhhhhhhh It’s Aria!  The surrealness of the class of 2017 continues as we present another upcoming senior we’ve known for almost her entire life!  Aria and our Lacey have been friends since they were toddlers and Aria’s parents are friends of ours (you’ll see Rachel in the broadcast replays later).  Aria is our latest spokesmodel from this awesome crew which has us so fired up!  She has appeared on this blog before in photos from her younger sister Sedona’s bat mitzvah and now it’s her turn in the spotlight as a spokesmodel.  Aria is one of the nicest people you will meet – smart and beautiful, she’s the whole package and we were excited for this day which led us to downtown Detroit again where we’ve been hanging out a lot lately.  If you watched the live broadcasts from this session then you know that this was also a double spokesmodel session with Maya whose photos we will be posting soon – you’ll meet Maya in the replays below as well!

Ahhhhhhhh It’s Aria!

But for now we are going to focus on Miss Aria for a bit….  We started off in the studio on the fiery red fabric background for this full length serious pose…

Ahhhhhhhh It's Aria

She’s a stunner!

Aside from the black and blowy which we’re doing with all of our female spokesmodels we didn’t spend a ton of time in the studio for this session.  The rest of the shots are in Detroit where we found some great murals and locales, but before we get to those let’s have a little fun with the behind the scenes of our day and then we’ll look at more results.  First we have our Vine of Aria for your 6 second looping pleasure:

Next we have the replays of the live Periscope broadcasts of the day from our Katch.me page which are always a lot of fun.  If you haven’t downloaded this amazing app yet you can do so and come along with us on future sessions at @frameablefaces at this link.

First we have the studio broadcast:

And next we have the Detroit City broadcast!

To the D

At this point we headed downtown to The Belt alleyway where there are amazing murals in the alley as well as the adjacent parking garage and we got some great shots!  Here are a couple – first in the garage:

Ahhhhhhhh it's AriaI like the match of the earth tones of the mural and the earth tones of Aria’s clothes…

Next we have a photo from The Belt alley…

Ahhhhhhhh it's Aria

So pretty!  Love the timely breeze giving the slightest lift to her hair there…

At this point we relocated to the Wayne County Building for this photo that we’ll leave you with:

Ahhhhhhhh it's Aria

Cute smile which says it all about Aria – she’s a happy sweet girl and we love her!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our time with her!

Our Very Own Spokesmodel – Lacey Lights It Up!

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Lacey lights up the blog with these highlights from her spokesmodel session, and why not?  She’s been lighting up our lives for almost 17 years – heck she was the original inspiration for the existence of what eventually became Frameable Faces when her arrival inspired Ally to pick up a camera!  We’ll try to contain our glee for sharing these photos and keep it somewhat professional, but it could be tough…. lol.

Our Very Own Spokesmodel

It is a bit surreal to say the least to be coming up on Lacey’s senior year and to have her (and even a few of her friends) spokesmodeling for the studio.  She is used to being in front of Ally’s camera as you can imagine but this was different and we approached it like we would any other senior and she delivered with the best of them.  We spent most of the session in Detroit – the city is seeing a massive comeback the likes of which we haven’t seen anything like in our lifetime so we’re spending a little time down there.  We’ll be offering Detroit sessions for an added fee this year to account for the time and travel.  Detroit is in demand and we’ve enjoyed hanging out down there a lot lately – for sessions and just for fun.

Lacey Lights

That’s our baby!  Let’s give a shout out here as well to Mandy at Mandy Rose Salon in West Bloomfield for Lacey’s makeup!

Keep in mind that there are some amazing photo ops in Detroit, but at the end of the day it still comes back to the senior.  The stunning photo above could have been any brick wall – it’s the lighting, the talent of the photographer, and the GIRL that makes the photo…

Now having said that, this next photo isn’t one you could find just anywhere and there are plenty of great spots in the city, more of which we’ll explore with other spokesmodels.

Lacey Lights

Pretty cool huh?

Before we move on to a couple more photos let’s take a look at our behind the scenes footage of our day – first with our fun 6 second looping Vine:

Next we have the replays of our live Periscope broadcasts from the day on our YouTube channel.  If you still haven’t downloaded the Apple store app of 2015 you can do so here, follow us at @frameablefaces and come along on our senior photo shoots for the rest of the class of 2017 along with lots of other shows that we broadcast!

First at the Russel Industrial Center:

Next at Belle Isle:

And lastly at the Dequindre Cut:

Lacey Lights It Up!

At this point as you saw in the broadcasts above we headed over to Belle Isle and explored a little and that’s where we captured this one:

Lacey Lights

Oh hello Lacey!  Hehe…

Lastly we headed over to the Dequindre Cut and this was one of the last shots of the evening with a little off camera flash as the light started to fade…

Lacey Lights

Love it.  And LOVE her.  And there you have it – Lacey lights us up whenever we think of her and she lit it up that day!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights of her session!  We’re pretty proud of the photos and of our girl.

A Frameable Day Starting in Detroit & Ending in Birmingham!

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We had a fun and Frameable day two days ago that started in downtown Detroit and finished up at Social Kitchen and Bar in Birmingham!  It was such a great day that we just had to pop onto the blog and talk about it!

Class of 2017 spokesmodel season in full swing

We headed out with two new spokesmodels from the class of 2017 to get some photos in Detroit and it was an epic day with Aria and Maya along with their moms and Aria’s little sister Sedona, complete with burgers for lunch in Corktown at the Mercury Bar.  We spent some time photographing the girls at The Belt Alley which was our first time doing a session there.  We will have plenty more to come from the session but here’s a little behind the scenes fisheye shot made with my iPhone and an Ollo Clip.

Frameable Day

Frameable Day

After we finished our day we had dinner plans with some friends at Social Kitchen and Bar in Birmingham.  We had been meaning to get there for some time since we had heard nothing but great things about it and the owners are clients of ours with a current class of 2016 senior – Cooper.  Let’s just say all the great things we heard were true.  The food and the drinks were amazing – Ally got the sea bass and I got the short rib French dip sandwich.  I also had a Social Mule to drink which was amazing….  and speaking of drinks, the bartenders were former seniors of ours!!!  Mark and David from the class of 2012!  We hadn’t seen them in a while and David’s name had just come up in conversation recently…  Crazy!

Here are a couple of photos from their sessions which were both done in Birmingham:

First Mark – this was the original fence shot we did…  Hard to believe these two sessions took place over 4 years ago already…

Frameable Day

Next David – a night time shot using off-camera flash with the rain starting to fall…

Frameable Day

And here we are with them the other night!!!

Frameable Day

With former Senior Friends Mark and David at Social in Birmingham!

So much fun!  Great weather, great city, great spokesmodels, great food, and a great little reunion!  A truly FRAMEABLE DAY!!!

A SNOWY Family Session With Jason, Taryn And Gia!

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Those of you who have walked by our studio for the last few years have seen a big canvas of the family we are featuring today, and you may have stopped and said “Hey that’s Jason Carr” or “Hey that’s Taryn Asher” or hey that’s “Jason Carr and Taryn Asher” or “Hey why do these people look familiar?”.  Haha!  It’s a really nice and unique family photo outdoors in late fall with an evergreen tree as a backdrop.  We don’t have too many photos like that, so it serves multiple purposes – a unique and fantastic photo, familiar (and frameable of course) faces to the community that make people stop and smile, and it makes us happy because they are just down to earth cool people.

A SNOWY Family Session…

So when Taryn called and said it was time to get back in for another session with their daughter Gia we got excited – we planned the session and decided on Quarton Lake in Birmingham.  What we didn’t plan on was snow!!!  I told Taryn that the forecast was making me a little nervous because there was supposed to be a snow storm coming, and I didn’t expect her to answer that she loved the idea of a snow session!  So yes indeed – it snowed – hard.  The only real significant snow we’ve had so far this year, and needless to say we now have even more unique photos (hint hint)!  We’ve photographed high school seniors in the snow but this family snow session was a first, and the results are spectacular!  Let’s take a look!

Snowy Family Session

How great is that?  Meanwhile Gia is growing up so fast – she is so smart and cute!

Here’s a closer look:

Snowy Family Session

Before we look at a couple more let’s look at our fun behind the scenes video footage – first of our 6 second looping vine:

Next take a look at the extended replay of our live Periscope broadcast from the session!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you can do so and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link, and also follow both Taryn and Jason on Facebook because they live stream there and they are fun!

Okay let’s get back to a couple more photos…

Snowy Family Session

This is the pose they used for their holiday card – love the background here too…

And here is one more pose with the tree that we love:

Snowy Family Session

And that will do it for now!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights from our day!  Be sure to catch Jason and Taryn on Fox 2 Detroit – we aren’t just friends – we’re fans!

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A Senior Session Takeover Of Detroit With Ian!

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We are loving Detroit.  This is the most exciting time for Detroit in our lifetime by a mile.  There is so much going on down there and it’s no accident that we have now done two senior sessions in “The D” this year.  The first one was at the Dequindre Cut, and the second one we present to you here.

Senior Session Takeover of Detroit

Ian came to us with very specific ideas about the type of shoot he wanted.  He wanted to takeover the city and he wanted certain landmarks and a certain style.  These can be the most exciting and rewarding sessions to be sure, because everyone is excited, everyone is planning and preparing and in the end this session was a series of firsts for us.  Ian went straight suit and tie – a formal look with Belle Isle and art deco stalwarts The Guardian and Fisher buildings (both built in 1928 three years before the Empire State Building in New York City) as our backdrops.  Lots of personality and great taste with this guy!

Meanwhile Ian’s mom Susan came with us and she guest hosted some of the Periscope broadcast we did on location which you’ll see below.  So let’s get to the photos shall we?  We started out at Belle Isle which has improved a ton since it was turned into a state park – very clean and a pleasure for hanging out.

Senior Session Takeover

This close up of Ian is at the James Scott Memorial Fountain which was completed in 1925 and it really is a wonder.  It’s really cool to see it running!

Next we were able to capture this cool photo with part of the Detroit skyline in the background!

Senior Session Takeover

Now let’s look at our behind the scenes footage from our day in the D with Ian.  First our fun 6 second looping Vine:

And now the Periscope broadcasts both from Belle Isle and The Guardian Building:

On To The Guardian…

Next we headed over to the Guardian Building.  We were in communication with the building management all week to get the proper documentation for permission to shoot in the lobby and had a scary moment when we arrived and the lady at the front desk said they don’t allow photographing that day, but I knew I had the approval and our contact came down to the lobby to give us the green light.  The lighting certainly posed a challenge and we came prepared with our off camera flash but it still wasn’t easy!  We got some great shots and we’ll share two of them here…

Senior Session Takeover

Just incredible design in there and the colors are awesome!  Now for one more in black and white before we say goodbye…

Senior Session TakeoverLOVE that one.  A fitting end to an amazing day in the D with Ian!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day with him!

 

An EPIC Detroit Session With Emma At The Dequindre Cut!

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We’ve been saying for a long time that we love Detroit.  And we’ve been saying for a long time that we love Emma.  So the idea of photographing Emma in Detroit seemed like a winner, and when Emma and her mom Teresa suggested heading down to the Dequindre Cut we got excited.  We had read about it and seen a few photos from various Detroit blogs, but I’m here to tell you that it’s really cool having been there now first hand.

Epic Girl…

Emma is one of our spokesmodels for the class of 2016 so you may remember her spokesmodel session with us earlier in the year.  She’s an incredible dancer and a smart and wonderful young lady – we’ve been proud to have her representing us.  We spent this entire morning in Detroit, complete with a stop after at the Bucharest Grill for the best chicken shawarma in town, but I digress… let’s get to the photos!!!

Epic Detroit Session

We’ll start at the Dequindre Cut and we’ll stay there since we never left!  So much to work with… Epic Detroit Session

Love the color coordination here – Emma becomes part of the mural!

As I mentioned the Dequindre Cut is so cool and we were so excited to be down there shooting, so we captured much of our time there with behind the scenes photos and broadcasts on Periscope!  Let’s take a look – first our fun behind the scenes Vine to give you an idea:

Now here is the three part replay of the live broadcasts we did that morning with Emma’s mom Teresa acting as guest host at times!  She was a real trooper on a hot day after just having shoulder surgery!  It goes for about 37 minutes if you’re inclined to watch, or even if you just want to watch some of it!  Download the Periscope app and follow us here, and in the meantime sit back and enjoy…

Okay let’s get back to a few more photos shall we?

Epic Detroit Session

Love it!

Commissioned graffiti and murals all over the place with people jogging, walking, biking…

Epic Detroit Session

More color matching with Emma’s blue going together with the blue behind her!

We’ll leave you with one more of Emma truly reppin’ the D with the Detroit vs. Everybody shirt!

Epic Detroit Session

So there it is – an EPIC Detroit session indeed with one of our all time faves!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our morning in the D!!!

 

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.

Love For Boston and All Of Our Cities

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This post is not about professional photography or social media, or running a small business, but I feel it’s appropriate.  We capture images here – that’s what we do day in and day out, and most of what we do is a celebration of life and relationships.  After the horrific images that came from the Boston Marathon a couple days ago I got to thinking about that city, the resilience it is showing and how important our cities are.  I haven’t been to Boston but I still have some thoughts that I just wanted to put out there – thoughts on our cities in general with Boston as a backdrop.  We are all thinking about Boston now like we all thought about New York, D.C. and flight 93 after 9/11, and like we all thought about New Orleans after Katrina and any of the other tragedies that have touched us all.  As Americans we wrap our arms around a city that has been hurt and we feel for those who were injured and grieve for those who died.

Boston Marathon

Love for Boston

We have never been to Boston as I said so we can’t rave about it first hand, but we are aware of what an awesome city it is.  It is definitely on our list of places to visit someday.  It has been noted and emphasized that many people – first responders and ordinary citizens alike rushed in to help after the bombs went off by the finish line on Monday.  Locals were helping out-of-towners who may have been trying to connect with family members amid the confusion.  Boston, just as other cities have, has given us yet another great example to follow…

Love for other cities

I hope by saying this I’m not minimizing the tragedy since that’s not my intent, but I think we should take this opportunity to remind ourselves that we should love all our cities, and subsequently (as cheesy as it may sound), each other.  We should reinforce the sense of community that our cities give us – a mass of humanity all functioning together in a huge and complex living breathing machine.  A gigantic display of life and relationships.  This might be obvious but when you visit a city take the time to enjoy what is unique about that city – if you go to Philly for example eat a cheesesteak sandwich (even if it’s a veggie version) and check out the history – the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall…  Take photos of the skyline.  Soak it in.  Take the time to strike up conversations with strangers and let them know you are visiting their city and how much you love it.

Love for your own city

Over our Spring Break a couple weeks ago we did not go out of town.  We stayed home and worked that week, but we did take one day to do a Detroit “staycation” day where we ate breakfast at Toast in Ferndale, went to the Detroit Historical Museum, drove around Belle Isle, took in an iMax movie in Dearborn, ate dinner at Slow’s BBQ in Corktown, and finished up with dessert back in Ferndale at Treat Dreams.  A celebration of Detroit food and history.  We love Detroit.

It’s easy to love our snow peaked mountains, our national parks and our beaches with their natural beauty, but in times like these let’s be thankful for our mighty cities too.  Let’s work together to make them great.  Here are a few (amateur) snapshots from some past visits to other cities…

Philadelphia - Independence Hall

Independence Hall in Philadelphia – 1989

Washington D.C.

I always thought this shot I took in 1986 of the Washington Monument was cool…

Doug and Ally at the Chicago "Bean"

Snapping our reflection in Cloud Gate – the Chicago “Bean”

Family snapshot from the Empire State Building

Family snapshot from the top of the Empire State Building – New York City 2010

Boston is wounded, but Boston is tough and Boston will get through this senseless act.  Boston, the rest of the country is sending their thoughts and wishes your way.  I know we certainly are, and we will be adding pictures of your resilient and beautiful city to our collection someday when we come to eat your food, learn your history, and meet your people.