Tag Archives: Orchard Mall

A Sunday In New York City With Mac and Nina!

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We recently took an amazing whirlwind trip to New York City where we saw cousins, a bunch of old friends, a bunch of new Periscope friends, and U2 with an appearance by Lady Gaga at Madison Square Garden!  We saw some amazing sights ate some amazing food and did the town in the way that only New York allows you to do it.

Big City But With Little Simple Pleasures…

As magnificent as the city is though the greatest pleasures of a trip like that can still come down to spending some time with little ones like Mac and Nina which is something you don’t need a big city to do.  Mac has been on our blog before with his parents who are close friends of ours, but at that time Nina wasn’t around yet, so here Mac makes his return and Nina makes her debut!  We spent some time in the courtyard of their apartment building in the city for these simple and oh so cute photos and we think you’ll enjoy them!

Mac and Nina

Let’s start with Nina who is such a smiley little smush!  She is so cute and has such a fun disposition!

Mac and Nina Adorable right?

Let’s check in with Mac now who is a big boy compared to the last time he appeared here.

Mac and Nina

What a little stud.  Let’s take a look at one more of the little man who took a break from riding his scooter around to pose for these shots.  He’s pretty good on that scooter.

Mac and Nina

We’ll close this one out with one more photo of Nina…

Mac and Nina

So there it is!  A wonderful Sunday in New York City with Mac and Nina!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from our time with them!

Strike Up The Band For Christian’s Epic Senior Session!

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Strike up the band because we’re about to share an EPIC senior session with Christian!  Christian is a North Farmington Raider just like us so we are always excited to photograph one of “our own”.  What a great family too!  We did some great planning for this one with Christian’s mom, his younger sister helped get him ready the day of the shoot, and his dad came along as well.  Christian’s dad is a veteran so we were honored to have him with us.

Strike up the band (and a match)…

We started the session in the studio where Christian’s family brought in the instruments and a clothing rack so we could get started, and we thought we’d add a little fire to the proceedings right off the bat.  While we used a lighter and not an actual match, match sounded better.  Haha!  Take a look:

Strike Up The Band

Yes that’s real fire – no photoshopped flames here…  don’t believe us?  Take a look at our fun behind the scenes vine of our evening with Christian and see for yourself!!!  🙂

For those who want to see a little more behind the scenes we broadcast a bit of the session on Periscope and here is the replay which includes comments from the viewers.  Download the app and follow us at @frameablefaces!

Epic happens…

Okay so let’s get back to the session and our whirlwind tour of Farmington Hills culminating at Holland Field which you saw in the broadcast.  First we stopped at Heritage Park for a couple shots including this one you saw us doing on the vine with the barn:

Strike Up The Band

Then we made a couple more quick stops including downtown Farmington to get the old Civic marquee in the background – our first time doing this shot and Christian rocked it!

Strike Up The Band

Love the way that one turned out!  And now we’ll leave you with the bleacher shot in full band gear with the use of a little off camera flash and the FJ Westcott Ice Light (or the light saber as we call it)!

Strike Up The Band

Overall an epic night with a great senior and a great family!  We are so glad we got to know Christian and his sister and parents!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our night with him!

 

 

Who Can Rock The Pretty And The Gritty? Corey Can!

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We have plenty of seniors who love the pretty photos, and we have plenty of seniors who love the gritty photos, and we have plenty of seniors who can rock both.  Corey is one of the seniors who can rock both.  But she didn’t just rock this session….. she CRUSHED it.  Wow – we are in love with this session…

Going way back…

It’s especially surreal for us when we know our senior as long as we’ve known Corey – we remember her from the bus stop as a little girl in our old neighborhood, and to see her grow into this beautiful young lady is just so cool!  We photographed her brother two years ago and had a lot of fun and anticipation was high for this session.  Corey delivered.

Let’s start with one “pretty” shot before we move on to the “gritty”…

Corey Can

Great backlight on Corey’s hair, and those eyes!!!

Corey Can…

Now we’ll head to a couple of the “gritty” shots like this one on the fire escape.  Corey was totally in control at this point!

Corey Can

Awesome.

Okay let’s now go behind the scenes with our fun vine of the day:

And for a little more behind the scenes footage here is the replay of the 5 minute live Periscope broadcast we did of the session!  You can download the app for your iPhone or Android and follow us there for all kinds of live programming at @frameablefaces!

Now let’s get back to a couple more photos.  Corey spied this little metal door for this next photo which we hadn’t used before – now it’s “Corey’s Door”!

Corey Can

We will leave you with one more – this one combines the pretty and gritty somewhat with the industrial cement wall but with the pretty black dress.  Stunning!

Corey Can

And so there it is – Corey crushed it.  There’s your answer to who can rock the pretty and the gritty – Corey can!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our awesome morning with her!

 

 

 

Sarah’s Super Spectacular Senior Session!

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Sarah’s super spectacular senior session was well, spectacular!  We liked Sarah from the moment we met her and she jumped right in even tuning into a couple of our Periscope broadcasts in anticipation of her senior session, and her session did not disappoint!  Gorgeous girl and a lot of fun which you’ll get a glimpse of in a bit…

Perfect Day…

We couldn’t have ordered a better day and Sarah’s mom joined us for a fun time – first at the studio and then in Birmingham at Quarton Lake which has been a popular spot for us once again this year so far.  First let’s look at a pose from the studio before we head outside:

Spectacular Senior

Love the simple look – white background, black stool, simple.

Let’s also now see our fun behind the scenes vine before we head to our location, and here is where you get a peek at Sarah’s playful side – love this girl!

And for those who want to see a little more behind the scenes here are a couple clips from the live Periscope broadcasts we did during the session!

Lots of fun – be sure to download the Periscope app and follow us at @frameablefaces!  Okay so now let’s head to our location photos with Sarah!

Spectacular Senior…

We went to Birmingham for the location part of the session and we got some photos in a natural setting and some in the city.  We’ll focus on the city photos for this post…

Spectacular Senior

This is one of those that we keep coming back to – we just love that round…barrel type thingy.  It’s one of our favorites!

Next we have a truly gritty shot that we are totally in love with!  Check it out!

Spectacular Senior

Sarah was really a star on this session – she can pull off the pretty and the gritty like a pro.

We’ll leave you with one more on one of our favorite walls for now which you saw Sarah posing for in the vine earlier…

Spectacular Senior

So there you have it – we think you would agree that Sarah is a spectacular senior!!!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day!

Really Great Session, Really Good Time, Really – With Riley!

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Really great sessions are the norm around here with high school seniors.  They’re the norm with everyone else too, but we really do love this time of year when we’re out photographing seniors all the time.  To take that a step further they are really great especially when we have a ton of fun with a “somewhat skeptical” senior.  Let me explain.  Without meaning to embarrass him or anything I don’t know if I can say that Riley was exactly dreaming about his senior session for years or anything like that.  Now that’s not to say he was overtly resistant to being in front of Ally’s camera – he was very pleasant and friendly from the first meeting, I just think he didn’t totally realize how much fun this hangout could be.  And just so you know that is not entirely uncommon!  I’m taking a little liberty here in saying I believe he did have a really good time!

Really Great Session…

Meanwhile Riley’s mom is certainly in the “appearance business” as owner of Aqua Salon two doors down from our studio so she had a new suit ready to go for Riley for the more formal shots and the guy was looking sharp!!!  We started in the studio for some of those photos and Riley did a great job:

Really Great Session

Now that’s a fine looking young man!  We are big fans of the grey backdrop for the formal photos – in this case our grey fabric (as opposed to paper which we also use often).

Let’s take a look at one more in the studio before we head out on location…

Really Great Session

Digging the look on the black.  And now we’ll bring you some behind the scenes of the day first with our fun quick vine as we usually do.

And for those who want to see a little more extended bit behind the scenes here’s a two minute clip from our Periscope live broadcast on our YouTube channel!  Follow us there at @frameablefaces!

Urban Grit and a little History…

Next it was time to head to Pontiac for some city shots.  We love the feel of these location sessions in back alleyways for the gritty urban look.

Really Great Session

The history reference just refers to the deep history conversation I had with Riley on the way home.  Those of you who know me and even from reading this blog have seen how we reference history all the time and you may recall our blog posts where we studied images of American Presidents.  Riley is interested in pursuing political science and he really knows his stuff – I was impressed.  We talked history all the way home.  So we’ll leave you with one more photo for now…

Really Great Session

So there it is – you can see now that Riley’s session was legit – a really great session and we had a good time with him!  Hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day!

Cyd’s Censational and Cpectacular Cenior Cession!

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First things first – we fell in love with Cyd and we think it’s cool that she’s Cydney with a “C”, and so while we do know how to spell the words in our title properly we thought we’d “ceize” the opportunity to craft a unique title for her!  One that’s memorable, because her session was memorable and so is she!

Cpectacular Cenior

We are always impressed when a senior calls the studio themselves to coordinate and make the appointment, and when Cyd came in with her mom for the consultation and informed us that they are related to two of our favorite twin seniors from last year we knew we were in for a special session.  We did a quick few shots in the studio but Cyd was all about that nature, ’bout that nature, ’bout that nature – less studio.  Haha – so we ordered up a perfect sunny 77 degree day and headed to Quarton Lake in Birmingham.

Cpectacular Cenior

What a photo right?  She’s a total natural.

Cpectacular Cenior

Cyd has a great sense of style too – this is a great session for our seniors to get some ideas from for outfits and each photo today will feature a change of clothes.  You’ll also see from our fun behind the scenes vine a quick peek at the studio portion of Cyd’s session:

Meanwhile we did a live Periscope broadcast from the session and we have a couple of minutes of it to share with you from our YouTube channel (for some weird reason when we downloaded the replay a chunk of it cut out in the middle but it’s still fun).  Follow us on Periscope at @frameablefaces for more Frameable Faces TV!

Okay let’s get back to the photos shall we?

Cpectacular Cenior

Love that photo – the in-the-water shot is one of our favorites.

Okay one more with the waterfall in the background.  One of the cool things about this shot was the brand new trellis that was there!  We were at this spot a week before and it wasn’t there, so for us it’s going to be “Cyd’s Trellis” from now on (because that’s how we roll when a senior does something new – we name it after them).

Cpectacular Cenior

And so there it is.  Cyd’s censational and cpectacular cenior cession!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights!

Getting The Siblings Together On A Special Day

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Getting the siblings together on a special day is always a great plan for a photo session and that’s just what this family did.  The youngest brother was graduating high school on this particular day and one of the older sisters was in town to celebrate, so along with their mom we gathered at Cranbrook to mark the occasion with a photo session.

We rarely get to take photos at Cranbrook because it’s typically prohibited unless you are an approved vendor, but students of Cranbrook are obviously allowed to take photos on the grounds and we met these four there where Jonah had his cap and gown from the day’s ceremony earlier.  While we did do a few shots of Jonah in his cap and gown, for this post we are going to focus on the siblings together along with one beautiful shot of all four!

Siblings Together

Let’s start in reverse order from the session with a couple of shots in casual and comfortable dress…

Siblings Together

Good looking kids!

Next let’s get in a little closer with this close crop.  A nice little breeze on the hair makes for a lovely photo!

Siblings Together

Before we move on to a clothing change here is our fun behind the scenes vine of our day…

Dressing it up a little…

We actually started out on this session with everyone dressed up a little in all white.  This is the signature family shot from the session of all four of them.  We love the way this one turned out.

Siblings Together

Lastly here is one more playful photo of the three siblings in a garden – a well composed photo of the three having fun with flowers in the foreground!  We just think this is a delightful one to end on!

Siblings Together

So there you have it – a special day indeed of getting the siblings together, and we hope you enjoyed the highlights!

Senior Photo Awesomeness Abounded With Arielle!

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Yes senior photo awesomeness abounded with Arielle!  Her session was epic and we didn’t want it to end!  We are so hyped for the class of 2016 and what better way to officially kick off this class than with a North Farmington Raider, and a sweet, beautiful, smart and funny one at that!  Not to mention we’ve known Arielle for some time and she’s a friend of our daughter’s so we were looking forward to this session and knew it would be special.

Chilly but still near perfect morning…

As of this writing the session was supposed to happen the day before yesterday but we were rained out which has happened several times lately.  Yesterday the weather was cooperative and it was overcast with diffused light which is very easy to work with.  It could have been about 5 degrees warmer when we arrived at Quarton Lake in Birmingham but it was still fine.  Oh, and yes this session was yesterday.  This is extremely rare but Ally is actually caught up on sessions at the moment (kind of the calm before the senior storm) so the benefit of getting in early and having a fantastic session is that Ally dug right into the files and pulled out 4 right away for sneak peeks!  So let’s get to it…!

Awesomeness Abounded

So pretty!  Arielle just looks so happy and relaxed in the photo above.

Awesomeness Abounded With Arielle…

Here’s another one from the location part of the session with the water in the background:

Awesomeness Abounded

I know right?

Now let’s take a look at our behind the scenes vine from the day:

We also broadcasted a portion of the session live on Periscope so if you want to watch the replay of the broadcast you can see that below!

Back to the Studio

At this point it was time to head back to the studio to do Arielle’s yearbook headshot and a few photos on the black background.  And, you guessed it, more awesomeness abounded with Arielle!  Ha!  First she rocked our signature “black and blowy” pose:

Awesomeness Abounded

We’ll stay with one more highlight for now on the black background with a just a simple pretty smile.

Awesomeness Abounded

So there it is – the first official senior session of the class of 2016, and yes awesomeness abounded – with Arielle leading the way!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day with her!

The Third Time Was A Charm AND On Point(e) for Rachel!

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The third time was indeed a charm and it was “on point” – literally – for Rachel!  If at first you don’t succeed try try again and the same goes for if you get rained out.  We were rained out twice for Rachel’s senior photos so when the weather cooperated in perfect fashion the third time we were quite pleased.

As for being “on point”, Rachel is an accomplished ballerina so she brought her pointe shoes with her and hence we had a session that was both “on point” and on pointe!  Rachel is a really sweet and soft spoken girl, she was a joy to be with, and so was her mom who joined us on the session!  Most of the focus was on location for Rachel’s session so that’s what we will highlight here.  Let’s start with a nice casual photo of a relaxed Rachel:

Third Time

Love that shot and we had just the slightest breeze giving Rachel’s hair a little lift – beautiful!

Third Time And On Pointe…

Now let’s take a look at a couple photos that combined dance with our beautiful setting, starting with Rachel on pointe on a tree stump!

Third Time

Such a unique photo and definitely a first for us!  Love it!

Let’s now take a look at our fun behind the scenes vine of our day with Rachel:

Next let’s look at a take on a “sleeping swan” pose.

Third Time

So pretty!

Okay now we’ll move over to the waterfalls as a backdrop for Rachel in a pretty dress to conclude our highlights!

Third Time

So now you see what we mean when we say Rachel’s session was not only on pointe but on point too!  The third time was definitely a charm for this girl and we’re certainly glad it was.  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from her session!

 

 

Balloons, Cake, Family And A Yummy One Year Old!

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Balloons, cake, family and a yummy one year old sums this session up, and I would even take that further and say that that sums life up!  Right?  That’s what it’s all about – moments like these.  This family was a delight and they actually came in with multiple family members and generations.  Everyone had a ball being together and celebrating this milestone with the youngest member of the crew!

A portrait photographer’s dream…

We started with some photos of the proud parents and our little guest of honor in traditional dress which is indeed a portrait photographer’s dream!  The feast of colors are just a joy to photograph.  Let’s take a look at one from this part of the session:

Yummy One Year Old

Just beautiful!  We love these.

Next let’s take a look at another family portrait that was a little more casual with our little guy up on daddy’s shoulders – always a fun playful shot!

Yummy One Year Old

Next let’s take a fun look at our behind the scenes vine from the day!  You’ll see a “smashing” preview of what’s to come!  Haha!

Yummy One Year Old and Yummy Cake!

Yes our little star was ready for his cake at this point and he had a smashing good time alright – his parents brought in a huge “H” balloon which as you can guess is the first letter of his name, and he made a fun mess!  Check it out:

Yummy One Year Old

Look closely at this next photo – you can see that he has a full handful of cake…  haha!

Yummy One Year Old

So fun right?  We enjoyed it as we always do when we have a yummy one year old at the studio.  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day!