Tag Archives: family photography

So Fun Getting Krazy with The Kamen Family!

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Getting Krazy with the Kamen family proved to be one of the most fun family sessions we have ever had here at Frameable Faces!  We love these guys.  You may recognize Courtney from her days as a high school senior spokesmodel for the class of 2014 if you follow our blog.  This time we had the whole fam here including their dog Shadow who was definitely the star of the shoot!  Haha!  This session had everything including jumping, family hugs, silly faces, Shadow “sitting on a throne” and various other shenanigans so let’s get to it…

For starters they chose to go with black clothes on the black background for colors which really looks cool.  Sometimes people wonder if that will work because they fear the clothing will blend into the background, but it looks great if you know how to light it properly.  The first shot is a classic hug between three siblings and a spouse.  Love it!

Getting Krazy

Next it was time to get Shadow involved and he’s quite a stud.  He holds an extremely important position and status within this family so it was critical to convey that in this next photo which is why we had him sitting on his throne for this one.  We think we captured the moment here…

Getting Krazy

Next we started to play around some and get some fun candid shots and that’s when the hilarious shenanigans started…  here’s a great one:

Getting Krazy

And here is our hilarious behind the scenes vine of the session…  so funny!

Lastly we’ll share this fun shot where Shadow jumped back in for another…  This was the photo we teased in our last year-end recap post.

Getting Krazy

So there you have it!  We had an absolute blast getting Krazy with the Kamen family!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights from their awesome session!

2014 Was A Wonderful and Frameable Year!

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2014 was a wonderful and “Frameable” year that we won’t soon forget and in many ways it was the best year yet for Frameable Faces!  As we charge into what should only be the best, happiest and healthiest 2015 possible for ALL of our peeps – we take a happy look back at the past year!

The Class of 2015 Spokesmodels

Okay so the fact that we assembled a new crew of spokesmodels wasn’t something unique to 2014 since we do that every year, but every class is indeed unique and this one was no exception!  A bigger class than usual, we really fell in love with this group and ended up with some great new friends out of it – not just friends of the studio but of our family.  We spent a good part of our winter and spring photographing these awesome seniors and I was playing with the panorama function on my iPhone camera the whole time.  Let’s reveal all of the behind-the-scenes panoramas from those sessions together here – these aren’t professional shots and they aren’t filtered or retouched but together they are kind of neat!

2014 201420142014201420142014201420142014201420142014That’s how we spent a good part of the first 4 months of the year, culminating with our spokesmodel party with our usual dinner (catered by Pine Lake Market) and Just Baked cupcakes and that’s where we create our composite which stays in the window of our studio until the next class!

2014

Summer – Relay For Life, more seniors, road trips…

Team Frameable Faces participated in the Relay For Life once again to try to help beat cancer and we had a fun and rewarding day raising a nice chunk of money this year.  We also continued photographing a whole bunch of seniors and we even took a couple of road trips including one where Ally took some breathtaking photos up at Sleeping Bear Dunes.  We worked hard this summer and at the same time had to plan and gear up for our son Tony’s Bar Mitzvah!  Our heads were spinning most of the time… but it was all good stuff.

Tony’s Bar Mitzvah!

What an awesome weekend this was!  Tony did a great job, the party was a blast, and our photographer – well she’s the best.  We hired our own event photographer Angela and it was really cool to be on the other side of the lens and in her capable and talented hands.  You can see a handful of highlights from our day here!

 

2014New Website, other highlights and cruising towards 2015!

Meanwhile plenty of other topics were on our minds and on our plates – the launch of our fantastic new website designed by our friends at EPK Design, continued Instagramming, Vining, Tweeting, Facebooking, YouTubing, Pinning, Google Plus-ing and blogging!  We photographed plenty of families including this recent one which we’ll give you just a peek of before their upcoming blog post…

2014

Reflecto had a bit of a rebirth as well after recovering from an injury and continued to focus on his favorite topic……himself.

So that’s our recap – we are thankful for all of you and for a great year and we are looking forward to what will be an amazing 2015!  We wish for all of you peace, health and happiness, and we will see you all soon!

All our best,

Doug and Ally

 

On Location With Old Friends In The Chicago ‘Burbs!

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We were recently in Chicago for a family event and while we were there we connected with my best friend from college in the suburbs for a family session on a brisk fall day in the park.  It’s fun to photograph old friends and to be able to get their kids and ours together for a visit during our road trip.  We go back over 25 years and it’s always a lot of fun when we get together.

Anyone who knows my buddy Barry knows he’s pretty passionate about his dogs and of course Half-Face and Omar were going to be included in the family portraits.  That’s where we’ll start – with all of the family!

Old Friends Great family and are those dogs beautiful or what?

Next we focused on getting some photos without the pups and if you have been a frequent follower of our work you know Ally is a big fan of the “family hug”!

Old Friends

The kids are getting to be so grown up!  To you they just look like great looking kids – for me it’s different because I’ve known them from the time they were born!

Here is a fun little behind the scenes vine from the session:

Next we focused in on getting some shots of just the kids as you can see from the vine.  Here are a couple of great ones…

Old Friends

So cute right?  Little sister loving on her older brother!  Having a boy and girl ourselves we just know this is exactly how they always get along!!!  Right?

And one more of the two of them just relaxing and hanging out together.

Old Friends

So there you have it – on location with old friends in the Chicago ‘burbs – it’s about as good as it gets for us!  We hope you enjoyed these highlights from the session!

United This Family Stands….and Smiles, and Hugs!

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This beautiful family came to the studio recently for a photo session and they were a pleasure to be with.  One of the kids was slightly under the weather, but I won’t even reveal which one because the kid was a total trooper and you would never know which one it was!  Meanwhile everyone got along and picked each other up, made each other laugh and generally had a good time, so yes we can definitely say that united this family stands….and smiles, and hugs!

We stayed with the black background for this session which always works well.  Our primary goal to start out with was to get a classic family shot to be displayed on canvas for the wall above the fireplace, so often we try to make the most important shot the first shot.  We had several to choose from but this one is the winner…

United This Family

What a stunning family right?  Next we spent some time on just the kids, individually as well as some group shots and that’s where we captured one of Ally’s favorite family poses – the family hug!  See what I did there?  You knew that was coming from the blog title….  ha!

United This Family

So cute!  Just great kids and we had fun with them.  Here is our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning with the family hug in action!

Next let’s take a look at this combination of just the mommy with her babies!

United This Family

And lastly let’s celebrate where this family all started – with the happy couple responsible for all this love!

United This Family

 

So there it is – our wonderful united family!  They are totally worthy of being the subjects of the first blog post on our brand new website!  We hope you enjoyed the photos!

 

A Frameable Fun Fall Session With A Family Of Three!

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We have been buried in seniors from the class of 2015 lately which we love, but a frameable fun fall session with a family of three was a nice change of pace especially at the height of fall colors!  What a fun couple with what Ally would refer to as a squishy yummy little boy named Josh.  Josh gave us great smiles and we had much fun!

We went to one of our go-to spots in a neighborhood close by and the conditions were just right!  There are trees and bridges and just a lot to work with there.  We started with the bridge:

Frameable Fun Fall Session

How cute is the little man?  Cute enough that we moved on to working on some solo shots to give him the spotlight and Ally captured this sweet photo of Josh just being a happy little boy sitting in the leaves…

Frameable Fun Fall Session

Next we looked to get a few more family shots under a tree filled with and surrounded by pretty yellow and orange leaves – it was a great spot which gave us some great results!

Frameable Fun Fall Session

Love the interaction here of the three of them just being a family.  And we have a little of this on our fun behind the scenes vine of the morning!  You’ll see here that when we went back to the house afterwards to try to get a few more with the dogs that Ally got a little surprise…  haha!

As mentioned in the vine this part of the session with the dogs was a bit more challenging but we did get one last family shot on the deck that we’ll share here!

Frameable Fun Fall Session

And there you have it!  Highlights from a Frameable fun fall session with a family of three that we hope you enjoyed!

Sharing A Few Photos From A Special Day – Our Son’s Bar Mitzvah!

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Many of you asked to see the pictures from our son’s Bar Mitzvah when they are available, so we are sharing a few photos from our special day!  When photographers need pictures the question inevitably comes up “So who is photographing YOUR event?  You aren’t doing it right?”  Haha – that would be interesting – setting up each shot and then….setting the timer and getting back in the picture right?  Of course not.

Well as you may know for some time we were not really in the event photography business.  It’s not Ally’s specialty personally and we couldn’t work on weekend nights or we would never see our kids.  Enter our wonderful event photographer Angela.  She has done a fantastic job for Frameable Faces on events and at this point we couldn’t think of anyone better to trust with the task of photographing Tony’s Bar Mitzvah.  She did an amazing job as we knew she would.  We are so proud to showcase not only our son and our happiness on the occasion of his Bar Mitzvah, but also Angela’s work as we have watched her grow over the years since the very first day she simply walked into our studio, still a student, and asked if we might be looking for another photographer.

First we started at Adat Shalom Synagogue during the week for pictures of the service on the day of our rehearsal:

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

“Tailgating With Tony”

Our party was at Oakland Yard Athletics in Waterford which is an amazing place to have a party and we also want to give shout outs in particular to Just Baked for their amazing cupcakes, Nick at Pine Lake Market for the amazing job catering, Co. 512 for the Adidas wear, Top That Table for the awesome decorations, and Josh and Cassie from Tronix Entertainment for getting the party started and keeping it going!  Meanwhile back to the pictures and the awesome job Angela did capturing the scene and the mood!  She was everywhere…

Our Son's Bar MitzvahThat mechanical bulldog is hilarious…  Tony and his friends were able to play various sports throughout pretty much the whole party.

Our Son's Bar MitzvahNext it was time for Tony to make his official entrance for the montage and candle lighting.

Our Son's Bar MitzvahOur Son's Bar MitzvahOur Son's Bar MitzvahOur Son's Bar MitzvahTime To Hora!

The hora is a traditional dance at Jewish occasions and it’s always a blast!  Angela captured a bunch of great photos of the hora!

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

We love this view of the entire party where you can see a full dance floor doing the “wobble” while others were hitting golf balls, playing other sports, or just hanging out.

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

Lastly we love this photo of our happy family – especially the kids dancing together (and not fighting)!

Our Son's Bar Mitzvah

So there you have it!  Highlights from one of the best nights of our lives.  We are happy to share them with you and we hope you enjoyed them!

Doug’s Rant – Happy Birthday Instagram!

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

Happy Birthday Instagram

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

The Frameable Faces Instagram “philosophy”

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

Happy Birthday Instagram

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

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

Happy Birthday Instagram

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

Here is how we break down by the numbers:

119 – Weeks on Instagram

2.34 – Average number of Instagrams per week

278 – Total posts

120 – Behind the scenes Instagrams of senior sessions

24 – Selfies

12 – Pics of our peeps on random visits

4 – Instagrams of Reflecto

14 – Instagrams about our home the Orchard Mall

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

10 – Throwback Thursday seniors

50 – Various other stuff

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

Happy Birthday Instagram

Ayla Is A Sweet Little Angel!

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Ayla is a sweet little angel indeed and we were thrilled to have her here at the studio!  She is a beautiful smiley little bundle of joy and she brought a ton of style and personality to her session even at only 4 months old!  We have been so busy photographing high school seniors which we love, but having this adorable little yummy smush was a nice change of pace to be sure, and we love her family.

We started off with Ayla in her baptism gown on the red couch.  It is worth noting that Ayla’s grandmother made this gown for her!  How amazing is that?  Such love – so special and so pretty!

little angel

She is so cute!  Next we moved to another fun outfit on one of our chairs for a few photos.  Here are a couple…   First let’s start with the damask backdrop.  We like to call this look the “O” mouth!  🙂

little angel

Such a fun look of wonder on her face!  Then we moved to the brown background:

little angel

Her daddy loves this photo.  Love her smile!  Habibti!

Meanwhile here is a little fun behind the scenes vine of Miss Ayla during her session!

Lastly we will leave you with this precious moment between Ayla and her mommy…

little angel

That’s what it’s all about isn’t it?  As good as it gets.  We loved this session and we hope you enjoyed these sneak peeks of sweet little angel Ayla!

Just A Totally Stunning Family!

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Just a totally stunning family is the only way to describe these folks.  We were so happy to hear from them since it had been a while since we photographed them for their Debut parties for both daughters a few years ago.  They are just beautiful people – fun loving, nice, and well, stunning!

We were on the road in Chicago when we got the call that they wanted to come in for a family photo session on a day when they were dressing up to go to a gala reunion event.  The event was 4 days away and we had a slot available so it worked out nicely.  When this family does something they do it in style, and in style was how they arrived at the studio for sure!  One of the primary goals of the shoot was to get a family portrait to replace an older one above their fireplace and this one is a clear candidate for that:

totally stunning family

But while we were at it we grabbed some photos of the couple, some of the kids, some of just “the girls” and just “the boys”.  They were changing into outfits with each one more beautiful than the last and the colors just pop against the red background.  What a fantastic session!  Check out the “family hug”!

totally stunning family

Now get ready for some crazy trickery – look at the total reverse we pulled off midway through this vine!  Red on white, white on Red!  Ha!!!

Such A Cute Smiley Shmushy Boy!

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Such a cute smiley shmushy boy was here with his parents recently!  That’s really the only way I can describe him.  Okay I guess you could use sweet and squishy too – any way you put it he was awesome and his parents were really nice too.  We had a lot of fun – lots of laughing and lots of Spanish too!  Ally just wanted to eat him right up.

Smiley Shmushy Boy

See what I mean?  Love this kid!  You can really get a feel for someone’s personality even at this young of an age – he is just a good natured smiley happy little boy, and why shouldn’t he be?  That’s how his parents are.  Peek-a-boo games are fun with the little ones to get them going sometimes and this session was no different with calls of “Donde esta Leo?” from his mom!  If you follow this blog you know I often like to include behind the scenes vines from the session.  This session was notable for producing one of my all time favorites!  Leo was totally in motion while his mom was holding him, and then it was like the little man was completely entranced when he saw that he was on camera – look: