Tag Archives: Doug Cohen

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!

How To Make Cool Instagram Collages

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

How to make cool instagram collages

Get Your App

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

Think Ahead

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

How to make cool instagram collages

1.  Launch the app

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

How to make cool instagram collages

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

How to make cool instagram collages

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

How to make cool instagram collages

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

How to make cool instagram collages

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

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

How to make cool instagram collages

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

How to make cool instagram collages

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

How to make cool instagram collages

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

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

How to make cool instagram collages

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

Fascinating Photos of American Presidents – Part Two

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I really enjoyed writing my post Fascinating Photos of American Presidents and was thrilled that so many people enjoyed it, so I decided to follow it up with a part two!  Here is another round of fascinating photos of our Commanders-In-Chief!

President Calvin Coolidge

President Photos

Speaking of chiefs, from what I can gather this was likely a proud moment personally for Calvin Coolidge when members of the Sioux tribe honored him in 1927 for his friendly policies towards Native Americans including granting them U.S. Citizenship with the Indian Citizen Act of 1924.  Chauncey Yellow Robe, a descendant of Sitting Bull was the one who suggested Coolidge be inducted into the tribe.  At the Sioux ceremony in North Dakota in 1927, President Coolidge is seen here in a grand ceremonial feathered headdress given to him by Sioux Chief Henry Standing Bear.  It still wasn’t all roses for Native Americans during Coolidge’s presidency as not all oppressive policies were reversed, but it seems President Coolidge felt a moral obligation to do what he could.

 

President Richard Nixon

President Photos

I have always been fascinated with this scene of President Nixon leaving the White House after his resignation following the Watergate scandal.  I studied the Vietnam War in college and I’ve watched the Frost/Nixon interviews so I am familiar with aspects of his presidency but I haven’t read a Nixon biography yet and I was too young to remember him as President personally.  Most captions and articles I see refer to Nixon’s fondness for making the “victory sign” with his fingers in a “V” (I guess I thought those were peace signs).  Meanwhile I would expect Richard Nixon to put on a brave and presidential face in the face of such adversity, but I can’t help but think he gives the over-the-top performance of looking downright giddy and, well, victorious if those are victory signs.  Maybe the fact that it was over was a weight off of his shoulders and he truly did feel good for the first time in a while, or maybe I’m just overanalyzing.  For those who remember this what did you think at the time?  Not that there were multiple 24 hour news channels to play it over and over and over…

 

President James Garfield

President Photos

I’m partial to photos of Presidents just being dads and this is another gem I came across.  Most photos of President Garfield show him with a serious expression but I swear I detect a proud smiling in his eyes here.  This photo was taken about a decade before he became president in the early 1870’s.  He may not be flat out smiling here but how can cute little Mollie Garfield not make you grin?  Proud dad!  I love it.

 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

President Photos

Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

President Eisenhower was an avid golfer and here he is enjoying a wonderful (if not so private) moment giving a lesson to his grandson David.  This photo was taken in Fraser, Colorado in August of 1955.  Look at the corps of photographers!  6 of them plus however many there were shooting from our vantage point in this photo!  I wonder how this was set up – were they all invited to come along for this photo op?  Were they all from different news agencies?  How far did they have to travel to get this very important photo?  You know the first family lives under a microscope today but this clearly is not a completely new phenomenon as this photo would imply.

 

President Woodrow Wilson

President Photos

Library Of Congress

President Taft started the tradition of Presidents throwing out the first ball at major league baseball games and Woodrow Wilson was up next.  Here we see a vibrant and happy President Wilson throwing out the first pitch from his seat in 1916.  In later years Presidents would start taking to the pitcher’s mound to throw the pitch in some cases with a baseball mitt and all.

 

President George W. Bush

President Photos

I will always give President Bush credit and appreciate him for the leadership he displayed here.  Three days after 9/11 President Bush went to ground zero in New York City where the World Trade Center had just been destroyed along with thousands of lives by terrorists.  Fires were still burning there and America was shaken.  It was a very scary time.  For me it was comforting to see President Bush there in plainclothes and a bullhorn announcing to the workers there (who were having trouble hearing him) and indeed the entire world that “the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”

 

President Chester Arthur

President Photos

That coat!  I want it.  It is so cool looking and I bet it was warm!  As I sit here writing this we’ve been hit by a snowpacolypse in Metro Detroit with well over a foot of snow and -14 temperatures and for some, 5 straight days of no school, so a good warm coat in this blog post is timely.  Chester Arthur was seriously into his appearance and his style, and I am not just saying that as a personal observation based on this photo.  This has actually been well documented and he was often called “Elegant Arthur” for the clothes he wore.

 

President Andrew Johnson

President Photos

LC-DIG-ppmsca-05704

I can’t help but think Andrew Johnson looks a little like Tommy Lee Jones here.  This photo was taken in 1860 five years before Andrew Johnson became president as a result of Abe Lincoln’s assassination while he was serving as a senator from Tennessee.  President Johnson was born into poverty so he does get credit for traveling such an unlikely path all the way to the White House against what would seem to be pretty steep odds even if he wasn’t the most successful president in office.  In his defense Abe Lincoln would be a fairly tough act to follow while trying to patch up a country that had just been ripped apart by a devastating war between the states…

 

President Bill Clinton

President Photos

C’mon you know this is cool.  I deliberately picked photos of two recent presidents that put them in a favorable light – at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of one being at a very heavy and somber moment and the other at a very light and fun moment.  Bipartisanship has been ugly in recent years, but to me you can’t take away these moments for both President Bush and President Clinton regardless of your political tendencies.  This blog is not a place to get political even if we’re talking about Presidents.  It’s totally cool for a newly elected president to go on late night television and jam with the band on saxophone.  I’ll always think that was cool that he did that.  If you don’t agree I say you’re just wrong, or just not that cool yourself.

 

President Andrew Jackson

President Photos

LC-USZ62-109873

President Jackson was a complex man with a mix of villain as well as hero to many that isn’t easily reconciled or agreed upon, but his impact on the country can’t be denied.  American Lion may be the most fascinating bio of a President that I’ve read yet.  He was a classic tough guy but “Old Hickory” wasn’t exactly the picture of health for much of his adult life, and when photography became available towards the very end of his life several photographs were made of him and he doesn’t look good.  You can find them online pretty easily but I am not sure if I had seen this one or not.  It is hard to tell because the original is in such bad shape.  Whether this photo has been restored to other versions that I have seen before I am not totally sure.  I pulled this directly from the Library of Congress and I included it partly because the horrible state of a such an important photo is interesting in and of itself.  I would like to know that part of the story – why wasn’t better care taken not to ruin it?

 

President Franklin Pierce

President Photos

LC-USZ62-9059

I feel like this is a lesser known photo of President Pierce.  This is another one of those early photos that is not in very good shape and I believe it was taken before he became president (not positive about that).  While there isn’t much about this photo that distinguishes it beyond that, I have a soft spot for President Pierce because of the awful tragedy he suffered.  He had three sons who all died in childhood, the third – Benjamin, died right before Mr. and Mrs. Pierce’s eyes in a train accident at the age of 11 between the time of the election and the inauguration.  He and his wife Jane never really recovered.  How could they?  I can’t imagine….

 

President Grover Cleveland

President Photos

LC-USZ62-7618

I love this full length photo of Grover Cleveland.  I will be getting around to studying him soon and there is a book in particular I have my eye on called The President Is A Sick Man.  Much is made of President Taft’s size but President Cleveland looks like a big and imposing man to me.  At 5’11” he was still tall for the late 19th century.  Everyone knows that he served two non-consecutive terms but do most people stop to think about that?  I would say this guy was a pretty dominant figure for his time and we don’t seem to hear that much about him.  My initial take is that he was quite a principled no-nonsense man who just put his head down and worked.

 

Presidents in the Oval Office, 1981

President Photos

I love the camaraderie of former presidents.  What a photo!  What a fraternity.  Proud and (I believe) genuinely happy in each others company – makes me want to put this on my wall.

Presidents in the Oval Office, 2009

President Photos

…and the more recent version.  Awesome!

Doug’s Rant – Show Yourself! Embrace YOU! December 20, 2013

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Yep – time to rant.

You cannot be actively social on social media with NO pictures of yourself.  Your photo doesn’t have to be your profile picture, but if you send me a friend request and I’m not totally sure who you are and you have no pictures for me to see of you then why would I accept your request?  It’s like knocking on my door with a bag over your head.  I’m not going to judge how you look – you look fine – I just want to see who you are.  If you are comfortable enough to reach out then I will likely accept you especially if I know you.  But if you are not a friend offline – close enough for me to recognize you instantly by name – then you have to show yourself to be my friend.  I can’t be friends with a sunset or a landscape or you based on all the other people you have pictures of in your profile instead of you.  If you want to be on Facebook to connect with your close circle, remain private to everyone else and not be found by the public then you can choose to have no pictures of yourself and that’s fine – really.  I’m talking specifically here about people who send me a friend request and expect to be social online.

Embrace You

Embrace You!

Okay – got that off my chest.

Now let’s talk a little.  Listen I don’t know exactly why you are reluctant to put yourself out there.  We have clients who think they “photograph terribly” and “have never taken a good picture” and on and on and on…  I see both sides of the coin here.  On one hand the camera doesn’t completely lie in the sense that yes – that picture is you so it’s for the most part what you do indeed look like, but on the other hand there are plenty of factors that can contribute to a good picture.  I could go into all those factors that a professional photographer brings to the table (there is obviously a huge difference and maybe that is what you need for your profile picture), but instead I want to focus on YOU first.  This may sound cheesy (okay significantly cheesy) but the fact is that everyone is unique and beautiful.  It is as true as the Earth is round.  You are the only one of you – perfectly unique and the perfect version of you.  Sure maybe I look at a picture of myself once in a while and think “ugh” for a second but you just gotta let that go – it’s that simple.  If you can do that, if you can accept yourself, then you won’t “photograph terribly” regardless of whether you are in front of a friend’s iPhone or a pro’s Canon 5D and anything in between.  If you are scrambling to figure out what your resolution will be for 2014 then first resolve right now to forgive yourself of any of your self-perceived flaws and shine!  Embrace you!  You absolutely deserve it.

Fascinating Photos of American Presidents

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Big news events get me thinking about the historical perspective because I am a big history buff, and this blog gives me a great outlet to ruminate a little (with a photographic angle of course).  I am particularly fascinated with the American Presidents!

Getting To Know Our American Presidents

We have been on a family mission to visit all the homes of our presidents (we’ve been to 11 so far) and I am reading at least one book on every president.  For better or worse these men led the country and at one time they were very important to all Americans.  This November 22nd marked the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s death.  I thought as a photography studio the best way to remember JFK on November 22nd on Facebook was to post a photo of him and the photo I picked was one of him clapping and enjoying a moment with his children in the White House.  That got me thinking about photos of the other presidents, and after searching around the web for some of my favorites I came up with a handful I am sharing and discussing here.  I was looking for some of them specifically and some I just came across that I had not seen before.  They are not based on political beliefs or any ranking.  I just think they are fascinating.

President John Kennedy

American Presidents

JFK captured our imaginations as a young vibrant president with his beautiful wife and adorable young children jumping and playing in the White House.  I love this simple photo of a father enjoying a moment with his kids.

President Martin Van Buren

Martin Van Buren - American Presidents

I mean no disrespect, but is it possible to look at this photo and not be struck by Mr. Van Buren’s hair?  This photo was produced after his term as president and I find it hard not to focus on his hair.  Styles come and go and there were of course eras of presidents with wigs or long beards but Martin Van Buren seems to have a style all his own.  The famous photographer Mathew Brady made this photo and back in the mid 1850’s people didn’t just sit for portraits like this every day, so I am sure President Van Buren prepared for this.

President Theodore Roosevelt

President Theodore Roosevelt - American Presidents

Teddy Roosevelt was truly a larger than life figure and this photo really captures that in my opinion.  He was a man who lived life to the fullest to be sure – a prolific author and historian, an explorer, a warrior, hunter, conservationist and just a flat out tough guy – I am not sure there has been another American quite like him.  We have visited his boyhood home in Manhattan and his adult home at Oyster Bay on Long Island and I highly recommend seeing both.

President Rutherford B Hayes

Rutherford and Lucy Hayes - American Presidents

Yes I am a fan of President Hayes.  He was a good man who much like Gerald Ford almost 100 years later came into power following an administration tainted with scandal (President Grant) and restored some dignity to the office.  He had several horses shot out from underneath him while fighting in the Civil War, and he was from Fremont, OH less than an hour and a half from our studio.  His home is one of my favorites and it is the closest – absolutely worth a day trip.  I am also an admirer of Lucy Hayes – a great first lady and I chose this portrait of the two of them together.

President Ronald Reagan

President Ronald Reagan - American Presidents

Something about this photo of President Reagan struck me – he just looks strong and very much a leader.  I have always believed that the figurehead role and appearance of a president is a very important trait, fair or not, and this picture just strikes me as confident and fearless.

President William Howard Taft

President William Howard Taft

I stumbled upon this photo online of President Taft.  I love it – the whole scene just captures a unique moment in time and it’s a photo of Mr. Taft looking very animated and very much in control as he delivers a speech.  The obvious perception and first thing people think of with him is that he was the president who weighed the most, but this photo cuts through that a little and shows that there is more to him than just “the fat president”.  We have visited the home he grew up in in Cincinnati and we were very impressed with it.

President Abraham Lincoln

President Lincoln at Antietam

This photo was taken on October 3rd, 1862 at the Antietam battlefield at Sharpsburg, MD which was fought 2 1/2 weeks earlier on September 17th.  5 days after the battle and 11 days before this photo President Lincoln called his cabinet together for a preliminary issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation.  It was this battle that provided the timing President Lincoln needed to make such a statement.  The Confederacy was hoping to win a great victory on Northern soil to convince Europe that they would be backing a winner, and when they didn’t get that decisive victory at Antietam, Lincoln pounced on the opportunity to announce that this was indeed not only a war to preserve the Union, but to end slavery which ended any hopes the Confederacy had of gaining much support from Europe.  At this time Lincoln was not happy with General George McClellan for not pursuing Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia after the battle, and as Abe towers over the diminutive general (6th man from the left and facing Lincoln) I feel like you can sense or at least imagine the tension.  Oh – and that’s Captain George Armstrong Custer standing off by himself to the far right.

President James Madison

James Madison - American Presidents

Okay so this is NOT a photo.  I included it because I feel that it is an incredible painting and I believe that it is an attempt to capture a true likeness of President Madison.  To my relatively untrained eye when it comes to painted portraits I prefer a likeness that isn’t  obviously stylized or cartoonish looking.  I had a little difficulty determining exactly what year this was done, but it clearly is an older Madison we are seeing here – the lines in his face visible on a man who has been through it all – first as a revolutionary who helped found a country and later as a President who led America through a somewhat indecisive second war with England that saw the burning of our capital by British troops.  No it is not a photo, but I believe that this is exactly what President Madison looked like at the time of this portrait.

President Harry Truman

President Harry Truman

You have to love this.  Before twitter and CNN news was not always reported in real time.  Granted newspapers still exist today but I’m not sure we would ever see something like this happen again, where a newspaper mistakenly calls a close election for the loser.  Then again in 2000 a clear winner didn’t emerge right away either and these days there is always such a race to scoop a story in real time on social media that scenarios where incorrect results are reported could easily happen.  I love this photo of a victorious President Truman on November 3rd, 1948 holding up the newspaper with the headline incorrectly reporting his defeat during a stop at a train station in St. Louis.

President Benjamin Harrison

President Benjamin Harrison inauguration

You may know that President William Henry Harrison served the shortest term in office, dying of pneumonia one month after being sworn in in 1841.  His inauguration was a cold and wet day but contrary to myth was not responsible for him getting sick despite the fact that he delivered a 2 hour inaugural speech without an overcoat or hat.   The Harrison family is undoubtedly one of the great political dynasties with William Henry Harrison’s father being a signer to the Declaration of Independence and his grandson Benjamin becoming president in 1889.  What I found fascinating about this photo though that I had not seen before was the fact that 48 years after his grandfather was sworn in on a day with bad weather, the rain came down again on another Harrison inauguration.  I don’t recall seeing a scene such as this one with all the umbrellas at one of these ceremonies in my lifetime…

President John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams

None of our first five presidents lived long enough to be photographed, but our 6th did.  John Quincy Adams was photographed at least twice around 1843 – 14 years after serving as president.  I love to be able to see a photo of a man who was around during the revolution while his father John Adams helped to found the country and was appointed minister to the Netherlands by George Washington himself at the age of 26 in 1793.  Then after serving as president, he re-entered politics and served in congress long enough to serve together with Abraham Lincoln for three months until he died in 1848.  What a life!

President Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding - American Presidents

I love this photo of President Harding.  This is the type of behind-the-scenes photo we post on instagram on a regular basis – a photo of someone being photographed.  I just found this one to be fun and President Harding seems to be enjoying a lighthearted moment with this canine.  I have studied President Harding and been to his home in Marion, OH and I believe he has been unfairly judged as one of our worst (and by some the worst) president.  In my opinion he wasn’t that bad.

I hope you enjoyed these photos of American Presidents along with my commentary – I may even be compelled to post a “part two”.  🙂

UPDATE – here is “part two”.  🙂

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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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Doug’s Rant – An Epic Post About Twitter – November 15, 2013

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I’ll be the first to admit I am not a total expert at twitter, but I know a thing or two.  I tweet under several different profiles and I’ve used twitter for almost 5 years.  I didn’t really get it at first, went away from it for a while, and then came back.  These days I feel like I’m starting to get more out of it than I ever have.

Twitter

Twitter Goes Public, And Why Twitter Is As Important As Ever – Haters Pay Attention:

My initial impetus for writing this was an article that HootSuite (my social media management tool of choice) tweeted entitled the “Top 5 Reasons You Weren’t Supposed to Buy Twitter Stock“.  ICYMI (that’s twitter for “in case you missed it”) Twitter went public and started trading on the NYSE on November 7th, 2013 at $26 per share.  As of this writing a week later it is trading at $43.98 – not a bad start…  Facebook’s IPO by comparison was widely viewed as somewhat of a disaster – not that Facebook is going away anytime soon or in any kind of real trouble, but the point is that for anyone who doesn’t think twitter is a major force they are flat out mistaken.

A Little Bit Of Fun Twitter History

Without going into all the typical boring history-class-type details, this fun and informative article by Ann Handley will give you a peek into the early stages of twitter and how people were somewhat unsure of what to do with this 140 character platform at first.  I think seeing how a platform and the culture of the platform has evolved helps you to use it more effectively.  Ann takes a peek at a bunch of the very first tweets of well known twitter profiles and she reveals how to find the first tweets of any profile you like.  Give it a try!  Here are a few local (Metro Detroit) first tweets for you including ours.  Our first tweet makes us cringe but what the heck….   There’s a learning curve for everyone as you’ll see with some of these.  As for Reflecto‘s first tweet just last year – that’s a true story…

Frameable Faces first tweetDoug Cohen's first tweetReflecto's first tweetOrchard Mall first tweetFirst tweet of the Detroit NewsGM's first tweetFord Motor Company's first tweetHillers Markets first tweetTapper's Jewelry first tweetYoga Shelter's first tweetDan Gilbert's first tweet

Advice From One Of My Gurus

As I said before I’m not sure I’m an expert on twitter, but I think Rosh Sillars is – really I think of him as one of my gurus on all things social media, plus he is a photographer and based in Metro Detroit so I can be sure that his viewpoint is relevant for us.  I just got his new podcast in my email the other day entitled “How Can Twitter Help Your Business?” and it’s worth a listen.  Funny thing is much of what can help your business on twitter isn’t about the specifics of twitter itself but rather your approach to connecting with people and this is true about all of social media.  Don’t forget the social part of social media!!!  Check it out.

A Rant For This Rant, Faves And Tips

Lastly let me share with you a few nuggets of my own before I send you on your way.  You don’t have to agree with all of them and I’m always open to a little healthy debate.

  • I’m not going to get into a whole list of “do’s and don’ts” for twitter here but I just have one big pet peeve “don’t” to rant about which I’ve covered before.  Don’t automate your Facebook posts to automatically post as tweets.  When I see a tweet that has an “fb.me” in it I actually get offended.  It comes off as lazy and often spammy.  It’s one thing to schedule tweets with a tool like Hootsuite to spread them out as long as you’ve actually tweeted them yourself and will be there to reply and engage if someone responds, but it’s another to just automate from somewhere else and not bother actually being on twitter.  My only “exception” to this rule at the moment is Vine – it’s owned by twitter and it’s an easy way to incorporate the 6 second looping videos right into your tweets because of the way they are embedded.  Besides when I send a Vine to post on twitter I’m still making the decision to do it manually so it’s not really automated, whereas a lot of Facebook-to-twitter automation that is out there is done with a setting that is just turned on in Facebook and left on indefinitely…  When I consult with a business or sign on to take over some community management for a brand one of the first things I do is turn that off.
  • Make use of twitter lists to manage your feed based on categories that work for you. This is a great way to set up your own personal topical news wires and manage the volume of tweets that build up as you follow more profiles.  Here are a few of the Frameable Faces lists if you would like to check them out and you will see what I mean – Local Detroit / Michigan, Photography, and Social Media Focused.  A few of my personal lists are Sports, History and Music.
  • There are several ways to connect with us on twitter and we hope you follow all of the Frameable Faces-related twitter profiles.  They are: @frameablefaces, @dougcohen10, @orchardmall, and @Reflect_o
  • Lastly, I think my award to most creative and unique profile on twitter goes to @arjunbasu who writes complete short stories in 140 characters.  I think they’re absolutely brilliant.

I hope you enjoyed this post – it’s not the ONLY twitter “handbook” you’ll ever need but hopefully this will get you started if you’re a newbie and I hope you picked up a little something if you’re a veteran.  Feel free to comment and share and most importantly, go forth and tweet!!!

Doug’s Top 10 Songs About Photography

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Is there really such a thing as an original idea?  Plug that question into Google and it seems that most would say no.  The idea to write this post just popped into my head – to write list of top 10 songs about photography.  So I jotted down a couple off the top of my head and then went through my iTunes to come up with my list.  Then I did a little research and it turns out there have been plenty of articles written on this topic.  Heck there’s even a Wikipedia entry on songs about photography!  That’s okay, I can still put my own spin on it, and Wikipedia actually missed two of my picks – one of which is a glaring omission to me and another much more obscure…

Music Fanaticism

Yes I’m a music fanatic and you might even say a music snob…  I started collecting records when I was 5, memorizing all the lyrics I could and having KISS concerts in my basement with my friend Chris.  I played the cello in my high school orchestra, was the guy who made all the mix tapes for all my friends in high school, and now I sing in a rock band.  I used to read through the All Music Guide books all the time and now I just hang out on their website.  Music and photography have a lot in common since they both can elicit very personal and emotional responses and connect us to our past in extremely powerful ways.  With this being the case it’s a wonder that there aren’t more songs about pictures and photography in general, but there are several great ones and here are 10 of my favorites:

The Top 10 Songs About Photography

Pyromania coverPhotograph – Def Leppard – 1983

Those opening three chords are unmistakable – just enough time to crank the volume up for the drums right?  He wants the girl (Marilyn Monroe?) but all he’s got is a photograph…

 

 

Jim Croce - You Don't Mess Around With JimPhotographs & Memories – Jim Croce – 1972

Such a poignant song that Jim Croce wrote not long before his untimely death where he sings about how he cannot believe a loved one is lost as he looks through photographs and thinks about the times they spent together.

 

 

R.E.M. - ReckoningCamera – R.E.M. – 1984

A beautiful song which is said to be about the band’s friend Carol Levy who died in a car accident.  From piecing it together it seems Michael Stipe has made reference to this (?) as the point where he got clean from drug addiction.  “If I’m to be your camera then who will be your face?”

 

The Cure - Pictures Of YouPictures Of You – The Cure – 1990

Robert Smith’s song about finding his wallet in the remains of a fire at his home with pictures of his wife Mary in it.  He even used one of the photos as the cover of the single.  A beautiful dreamy Cure song from an otherwise dreary, murky and fantastic Cure album.

 

Deep Purple - Machine HeadPictures Of Home – Deep Purple – 1972

Okay not about photography per se, but a classic with the word “pictures” in the title…  A song about being in a strange cold place and yearning for home – images and “pictures” in our mind can comfort us from time to time to be sure.

 

 

Echo And The Bunnymen - CrocodilesPictures On My Wall – Echo & The Bunnymen – 1979

This song has the distinction of being the very first Echo & The Bunnymen single and I love it.  An eerie sounding and foreboding tale but we’re not quite sure why…  “The pictures on my wall are about to swing and fall”.

 

 

A Flock Of SeagullsWishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You) – A Flock Of Seagulls – 1982

Unlike Joe Elliot of Def Leppard the lead Seagull sounds like he’d be okay with just a photograph – he wouldn’t spend his life just wishing if he had a photograph to remind him.  More or less a three-hit-wonder (I apologize to any diehards because I’m the first to admit I hate when one of my favorites are slapped with a tag like that), you have to love these guys as a classic slice of MTV 80’s nostalgia.

Wilco - Yankee Hotel FoxtrotKamera – Wilco – 2001 (released 2002)

This sounds like a confessional from Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy who seems to not be feeling too good about himself.  It seems like he needs a camera as opposed to a mirror to look at himself and remind him of the lies he’s been hiding and the echoes in his heart.  It’s a great song that the band recorded and released two different unique studio versions of and both are worth checking out.

Filter - Title Of RecordTake A Picture – Filter – 1999

Sometimes you just need to take a photo otherwise no one will believe or remember what happened later right?  This song is one of those lush anthemic sounding songs that swirls and lifts you up even if you’re not sure why…  and why shouldn’t a song about a guy getting naked and causing a scene on an airplane lift you up…..right?

 

Rush - Moving PicturesThe Camera Eye – Rush – 1981

The last song Rush recorded over 10 minutes long, it’s a two part song that attempts to contrast and highlight New York City and London respectively.  The title apparently refers to sections in the U.S.A. Trilogy written by John Dos Passos.  “The Camera Eye” sections are written in an autobiographical stream of consciousness style.  I suppose taking pictures can be just that – your stream of consciousness as you interpret the world through your lens.

Here are the links to the songs / albums in order on Amazon – where digital downloads were available I provided that option otherwise the CD is linked.  I can vouch for each entire album being amazing by the way (with the exception of Flock of Seaguls – I never owned an entire Flock of Seaguls album).


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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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Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Doug’s Rant – It’s Selfie Time! – August 30, 2013

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Let’s celebrate the selfie and give it its due now that it’s become an official addition to the English language!

Selfie word of the year

Whoa – now THAT’S a serious selfie! Amateur photo taken by Doug with his smartphone. 🙂

Yep, that’s right the selfie has a seat at the table and has been validated as a legitimate word as announced by the Oxford English Dictionary this week.  There has been plenty of dialogue and debate about the selfie.  Here is the official definition if you have been living in a cave are not sure what we are talking about…

Selfie: “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website” – Oxford University Press

Old School Photographer Lament

Some professional photographers lament the popularity of smartphone pics, instagram, selfies and the like.  Some of them worry that these amateur photos are passing for good photos when they’re not, and that this is bringing down the photography profession.

Our Position

We disagree.  We enjoy Instagram, snapchat, and even the occasional selfie.  We use them ourselves and we feel that the more people enjoy everyday photography the more they will appreciate and enjoy professional photos.  Rather than be threatened by it we choose to embrace it and have fun with it.  If a selfie doesn’t make you smile you might be a curmudgeon.  Lighten up!

Just Be Smart About It

As for the negative side of the selfie, you certainly have to use common sense just like anything you do online.  Don’t post pictures of yourself in ways that are inappropriate or that you might regret later and maybe you should consider not completely overdoing it because according to three business schools in Britain too many selfies may actually ruin your relationships!!!

What do you think?  Do you post selfies?  On Selfie Sundays only or all the time?

 

Book Review: Must • Girls • Love – by Sabrina Must

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I’m going to start with a little background to explain how I came to read this book and review it for our blog.  Monni Must is an acclaimed photographer based in Sylvan Lake only 10 minutes from our studio, but we actually met her in Nashville, TN 3 1/2 years ago at Imaging USA – a huge photography convention.  We knew who she was and we were still very much finding our way and growing our studio in terms of it being our full time family business so we were really pleased to find her to be such a down-to-earth, kind and supportive lady.  We felt a connection with her right away and every time she has been in the mall since she has stopped in for a quick chat and an encouraging word.  We may be “competition”, but we’ve never felt “competitive” with Monni.

Book Review Must Girls Love

Why A Book Review

We also knew that Monni had suffered a family tragedy when her oldest daughter Miya took her own life at the age of 28 in 2007, but for a time we didn’t know too many details.  As fate would have it our son became very close friends with the grandson of Monni’s next-door neighbor and we ended up spending time at their house and Monni’s as well.  I hadn’t known that Monni’s youngest daughter Sabrina had written a memoir focusing largely on Miya’s death, and our mutual friend put us in touch about writing a book review.  I had been thinking about a way to highlight Monni on this blog – focusing on another photographer in the area whom we admire – and my thought was to base it on the books she has published with Sabrina about Holocaust survivors called Living Witnesses.  I knew that the Living Witnesses project had a dual purpose – to preserve the stories of the survivors but also to serve as a coping mechanism for Monni and Sabrina to deal with their grieving (I had read that on the Living Witnesses website).  I didn’t know Sabrina personally but we messaged each other and talked a little about Must • Girls • Love which has been released on Kindle and this seemed like a good place to start to gain some understanding.  I hope to follow this up with a “part two” to highlight Living Witnesses.  This is my first book review and boy did I get more than I bargained for.

The Story

Through the use of excerpts from Miya’s journal leading up to her suicide as well as Sabrina’s own journal entries from that time period and after, we are led through a harrowing yet riveting account of those desperate months.  Sabrina explains how Miya was a girl who struggled somewhere between bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder most of her life, but makes it clear that this is not simply a tale of someone who was mentally ill and just went off the tracks.  The book details in Miya’s own words how the abusive nature and imminent failure of her brand new marriage gave her feelings of shame and failure that pushed her over the edge.  The family is left to try to make sense of it all even as Miya’s husband tries to maintain control over the aftermath basically rubbing salt in their wounds and prompting suspicions of what role he may have played in pushing Miya to her decision.  Sabrina goes on to detail her own very personal struggle, baring her soul about missing her sister and wrestling with her own demons along the way.

Thoughts on the book – I Am Changed

The phrase I used when I messaged Sabrina after completing the book was that it hit me like a ton of bricks – it had a huge impact on me unlike any book I’ve read since Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer.  I felt so much sadness and anger while reading it, and yet there is no doubt in my mind I am a better person for having read it.  As the father of a teenage daughter (and soon to be teenage son) it had the effect of helping me to count my blessings with my kids, my wife Ally, and the family I was brought up in as well.  I found myself being able to relate to many of the thoughts and feelings Sabrina had within her family dynamics with her sisters and her parents, and it was a good exercise.  Sabrina wrote in the book of the importance of “giving people the okay to open up, express their emotions, share their failures and learn from them” – and I feel the book accomplishes this.  Her style is masterful and her approach to storytelling in this book is astounding – weaving family history with journal entries in a way that keeps you buried in this book and unable to put it down.  The story is not told in a linear fashion but more in a way that is perfectly calculated to provide context for understanding the whole picture from one detail to the next.

I highly recommend this one and though I never met her I will never forget Miya – her story and Sabrina’s, and I applaud Sabrina for giving us this gift.

Here are the links:

Sabrina’s website

Must • Girls • Love – for Kindle on Amazon

 

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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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Doug’s Rant – More on Buying LOCAL! – August 2, 2013

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I have written plenty about buying local before but something happened today that made me want to revisit it…  This is a single-topic rant.

Buy Local

A silly story

We source most of our products and services from local businesses, and we always look local first, but once in a while there is a product we need that we get from a bigger company out of state.  I’m not going to name names but this particular vendor based 4 states away just sent us a paper statement with a zero balance.  With a return envelope.  In an envelope.  Is this silly or what?  Keep in mind that every statement we get from this company will always be a zero balance because we pay at the time we order.  Okay fine, so I called them to see if they can just email them to us in the future to avoid the waste and the cost and I was told they do not have the capability to not send those statements.

They literally just told me that they are not able to stop themselves from wasting money and resources.

They have a “system update coming at some point” that may allow them that capability but for now they will continue to spit out empty mountains of paper and mail them across the country for no good reason.  So the lesson here is wherever it’s practical – BUY LOCAL!!!  Generally speaking it seems the bigger the company the more red tape there is, the more politics, waste, and fat – sometimes big corporations just can’t seem to get out of their own way.  Granted this isn’t true of all big corporations, but small independents usually don’t have big automated systems – they typically have real people pouring their personal passion, blood, sweat and tears into their livelihood, and they will give you fewer counterintuitive answers like the one I got today.

Reality check – Local doesn’t get you everything…

Now listen, I understand you can’t buy everything local.  You can’t get a Joe Phone from JoeComm on the corner and get a signal from Joe’s towers…  you have to get service from a national or regional carrier.  I’m not going to say I never shop at Target or Costco – I do.  I don’t know any neighbors with their own oil company and refinery who can sell me gas.  But if there is a choice and you have the practical option of buying local (or eating at a locally owned restaurant) you should consider it where possible.

Keep the money here

Sure I have a stake in this subject since Frameable Faces is a local independent studio, so I am biased.  But keep in mind that as a rule, by buying local you are keeping more money in your local community which helps your local economy, and we Detroiters / Metro Detroiters know a thing or two about the importance of that – especially now with our city in bankruptcy.

You don’t have to agree with me, but at least you know where I stand!  🙂