Tag Archives: Small business owner

Just Too Much Cuteness To Handle With This Family…

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Gotta love a photo shoot with little munchkins!  This fam was a pure delight to photograph at their home – a great way to spend a Saturday morning with so much cuteness!  Everyone did a fantastic job and everyone looked great!  We had a great feeling about this one right away with Jan and Nicole during the consultation since they are a truly delightful couple.  Their youngest was with them for the initial meeting and she was perfectly behaved and the other two were much fun, even showing off some really impressive gymnastic prowess on the trampoline while we were at the house!

Too Much Cuteness…

This session took place entirely on location and the weather was perfect!  There was plenty of green to work with in the backyard so let’s get to it.  We’ll start with a shot of the whole family before we get to some individuals of the girls:

Much Cuteness

Okay how cute are they…?????  And the sass on the little one in that shot is priceless!

Before we look at a few more photos let’s check out some of the fun behind the scenes action of our morning!  First with our 6 second vine with some of the acrobatics I mentioned before!

Next we have the extended replay of the live Periscope broadcast from the session – these are always fun to do where we can share a little of the proceedings in front of a live chat audience who can watch the fun and participate!  If you want to be a part of our broadcasts download the app and follow us at @frameablefaces here or just watch on twitter here.

Okay let’s get to the individual photos of the three princesses!  From oldest to youngest:

Much Cuteness

Love these girls!

Much Cuteness

And the baby…Ally’s camera loved her!

Much Cuteness

We think you would have to agree that there was indeed much cuteness happening on that day and we hope you enjoyed the highlights from the session!

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
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!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
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?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Emily Embraces Her Inner Awesome On Her Senior Session!

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It is time to share a spectacular senior session where Emily embraces her inner (and outer) awesome!  The younger sister of one of our former seniors Alayna, we were excited to get the call that she was coming to the studio!  Emily recently returned from Oregon for her senior year and her mom Krista, Alayna, and her BFF all came along – we’ll call them “Emily’s Entourage” haha!  Meanwhile what a great girl – and that’s why I chose “inner awesome” just because we really like these girls – just nice sweet people!  Our conditions for a location session in Birmingham were exceptional and the session followed suit!  So let’s get to the photos!

Emily Embraces Her Inner Awesome…

It’s the inner awesome that allows the true beauty to come out and be captured by Ally’s camera and you will see plenty of that starting with this first photo of Emily by Quarton Lake!

Emily Embraces

Great coordinated wardrobe too – those boots!

Next let’s take a look at some of the behind the scenes fun from the shoot!  First we have our 6 second looping Vine where you’ll see us grabbing the yearbook headshot before heading outside…

Next we have the replays of the live Periscope broadcasts from the day!  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet you can do so here and be a part of our broadcasts or you can watch them on twitter here.  Either way you can find us at @FrameableFaces!

And here is part two!

Okay now let’s get back to a few more of what we’re here for – the photos!

Emily Embraces

Love the close up!  Now for one in the water – these are always fun!

Emily Embraces

We’ll leave you with this next one which is uniquely Emily’s – we had another double tree like this one that we had used several times at this park, but this one works even better than the other one!  The blue top really makes Emily’s eyes pop here too!

Emily Embraces

And there you have it!  Emily embraced her inner awesome that day indeed and we hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day!

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
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!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
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?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

We Are Posting This ‘Cuz We Love Photographing Cousins!

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It is so nice when cousins are around the same age and enjoy hanging around with each other, and it makes photographing cousins a joy!  This was definitely the case with the crew we’re about to show you.  We have had half of them (the local half) in the studio before around Halloween time for photos, but the other half live out of town so we hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting them before.  They are a beautiful bunch and they belong to one of our mall neighbors – they are Nancy’s grandchildren from across the hall at Nancy’s Linens!  And talk about prepared kids….they were coordinated nicely with the clothes and they had plenty to say about what photos and poses they had planned for their photo session!  There was even a written out list involved!

Siblings together…

We did this session on location at the house of the “local crew” and we did a few rounds of individual photos, sibling group shots and group shots of the whole squad!  The conditions were just perfect that morning for a photo session.  Let’s start with the siblings…

Photographing Cousins

Sibling crew 1 looks awesome!

Now for sibling crew 2:

Photographing Cousins

So cute!

Photographing Cousins

Now let’s get to a couple of the whole crew…  These kids made the job pretty easy.

Photographing Cousins

The goal here was to have some fun and not get too formal – just to get some photos of kids being kids and cousins being cousins and the swing set was a perfect prop to get everyone into place!  We love this last one we’ll leave you with with the youngest of the group on the oldest’s shoulders….  Everyone looks fantastic!

Photographing Cousins

And there you have it!  We had a blast with these guys and we hope you enjoyed the highlights of our day with them!

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
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!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
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?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Caroline In The City For Her Awesome Senior Session In The D!

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Okay that title was just too easy!  When your senior is Caroline and you head to Detroit City for her senior session, then a TV show with the same name provides convenient inspiration.  Detroit sessions are proving to be epic and this one was no exception complete with a trip to Polish Village in Hamtramck for dinner afterwards with Caroline and her parents!  But before we get to that let’s talk about Caroline for a sec…  Another friend of our Lacey’s, we’ve known her for a few years now so this was a lot of fun (Lacey even came along).  She’s a North Farmington Raider just like us, a total sweetheart, and she looked amazing for her session!

Awesomeness in the studio…

Before we headed downtown we started out in the studio to get a few photos here including a few on the red couch with the red paper background like this one:

Caroline

Beautiful!  And love the color coordination with the flowers…

Now before we head to Detroit for a few more shots let’s take a look at some of the behind the scenes action from our day!  First we have the Periscope replay from the studio during the above setup with the red couch.  If you haven’t followed us yet on Periscope you can see the broadcasts on twitter or join the broadcasts in the app on your smart phone at this link.

Next we have our 6 second Vine from Belle Isle and Eastern Market in Detroit for your looping pleasure:

Caroline In The City

Our first stop was Belle Isle which is a fantastic location especially since it became a state park.  This spot provides a nice vista to get a little of the Detroit skyline in the background…

Caroline

Here’s the broadcast we did from Belle Isle by the fountain:

Next we headed over to Eastern Market where there are a ton of amazing murals on the walls – many of them commissioned and quite stunning, and that’s where we captured this close up:

Caroline

Caroline was definitely in the zone at this point and we were having a blast!  Love the colors and her top definitely brings out her eyes here…

Here’s our last broadcast from the day in the Eastern Market area – so cool…

We ended up in the new section of the Dequindre Cut which we had never been to – I thought it would be cool to get a panorama of my own of the scene with my iPhone…

Caroline

And here is one of the photos from this scene that we LOVE.  Caroline looks fantastic!

CarolineSo there you have it!  Caroline in the city and bringing her A-game for an awesome senior session in the D!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day!

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
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!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
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?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Mad About Marie And Her Wonderful Senior Session!

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We’ve been mad about Marie for a long time now.  From the time she joined her older twin sisters on their session for a few photos a couple years ago to her spokesmodel session earlier this year and now culminating with her own senior session in Birmingham, we’ve been fans from day one!  We planned a total city photo shoot in Birmingham with her and she really nailed it – not that we were surprised.  She’s a real pro and so yeah, we’re mad about Marie!!!

Session in the City

We started at the top (of a parking structure) and worked our way down, and we had great conditions even getting a few well timed breezes before the storms came in.  We’ll start on the parking structure here:

Mad About Marie

Love the little hair lift from the breeze!

At this point we headed over to Quarton Lake because we liked the light we had and we knew a storm might roll on in…  It was a good move – this photo is perfect!

Mad About Marie

Let’s pause here for a minute for some behind the scenes action from the shoot shall we?  First we have our 6 second vine for your looping pleasure…

Next we have the replay of the live Periscope broadcast from the session.  If you haven’t downloaded Periscope yet and / or watched our channel on twitter you can do so on Periscope here or on Twitter here.

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

Mad About Marie

At this point we headed back to downtown Birmingham to get our last set of shots – here we have a pop of color with some beautiful flowers to complement our girl…

Mad About Marie

Beautiful!!!

We heard some thunder and the skies were looking ominous as we captured this last photo that we’ll leave you with.  Marie is a pro – you’d never know we were rushing to finish before the storm hit!

Mad About Marie

And there you have it!  You can see why we are mad about Marie and we hope you enjoyed the highlights from our day!

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
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!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Snapchat: http://snapchat.com/add/frameablefaces
Facebook: http://facebook.com/frameablefaces
Twitter: https://twitter.com/frameablefaces
YouTube: https://youtube.com/frameablefaces
Instagram: https://instagram.com/frameablefaces
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/frameablefaces
***************************************­*******
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?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

Ryan Leads The Way For The Guys For The Class Of 2017!

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Ryan’s session is the first official senior guy session for the class of 2017 and he definitely led the way in style!  We have known Ryan for a long time but not well – one of those things where we’ve known his family and more specifically his mom Jodie going back to high school days.  We photographed him before when we did family photos for them, but this was the first time we really hung out with Ryan for an extended time and we really had a lot of fun with him!

Focused dude…

One of the things that impressed us about Ryan (and you’ll see this if you watch the Periscope replay) is when asked by a couple of viewers of our live broadcast what subject he likes the most and what he wants to study he didn’t hesitate – just matter of factly answered “Econ” and “Business”.  I didn’t really have a clue at that age, so kudos to Ryan!  As for the session, he came solo and had two different dress shirts for the formal shots to go with the casual stuff.  Totally prepared – clean cut and ready to rock (not just with the photos but the kid likes classic rock too – which instantly makes him cool).  So let’s get ready to rock here, starting with our studio photos…

We started with the formal look with the grey fabric backdrop – this is a combo we like a lot!

Ryan Leads

GQ!  What a stud.

Next we moved to a little bit more of a casual look with a sweater for this one…

Ryan Leads

Looking good with the black background!

Before we head to the location photos let’s look at the behind the scenes action shall we?  First with our fun 6 second looping Vine where Ally is having a little fun with Ryan – haha!

Even his Snapchat story was pretty epic which you can check out on Slinger at this link!

Next we have the replay of our live Periscope broadcasts from our YouTube channel for your extended viewing pleasure!  Download Periscope and follow us at @FrameableFaces and/or watch the broadcasts on Twitter!

Ryan Leads Us…To The Location!

Heritage Park is a great location for outdoor sessions and we got some great stuff with Ryan.  This was a later session where we planned to get some off camera flash going and the results are fantastic…

First we have a nice close up with the barn in the background…

Ryan Leads

And lastly an off camera flash photo…

Ryan Leads

Cool!

And there you have it – Ryan leads the way for the guys and we are really off and running with this senior class!  We hope you enjoyed the highlights of our time with Ryan!

Mikaela Leads The Way For The Class of ’17 In More Ways Than One!

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There is always something special about our first official senior photo session of a new class – we love photographing seniors and the first session signals so many things for us – new friendships, a new summer, and tons of fun!  Mikaela was no exception on all three fronts – great girl (and great mom Jill), great summer day, and lots of fun!

A Session of Firsts…

Not only was the session fun but it represented some true firsts for us.  Not only the first senior of the season, but our first session on the ice, and our first time photographing in Royal Oak!  But before we get to the ice and the outdoor fun let’s start in the studio briefly where we began the session:

Mikaela

Stunningly beautiful on the black background!

Mikaela Leads The Way…

Before we head out to the location sneak peeks let’s take a look at some of our fun behind the scenes action!  First our 6 second vine for your looping pleasure!

Next we have the three part replay from our live Periscope broadcasts from the day.  Mild disclaimer here – the second snippet when we are on the ice starts with me shaking my head… I didn’t start the broadcast that way but for some reason a piece of it was missing on the replay…  Haha – ahhh technology!  If you haven’t followed us yet on Periscope you can download the app and follow us at @frameablefaces at this link.  Enjoy!

For now you can watch the replay on the YouTube channel HERE.

Okay now back to more awesome photos…

First we have a close up against a natural backdrop – like I said we had a perfect day!

Mikaela

….and a perfect model.

Next we have a photo from the ice.  This was a fun challenge – ice is actually kinda slippery you know….  It was a little treacherous – I was out there with the off camera flash and Ally – well let’s say she’s been known to wipe out once or twice in her day…  Okay so have I….  But we pulled it off and got some great results including this one:

Mikaela

Last but not least we have one more photo up close and personal with our wonderful first senior with a little city texture:

Mikaela

Those eyes!!!  And there it is – we hope you enjoyed the highlights of our epic day with Mikaela – a fantastic way to kick off the new class!

Doug’s Rant: Twitter Stickers, Photos on Social, Apps Chase Apps

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Yes it’s been a while since I’ve posted a rant!  Let’s do this….

Twitter Stickers

Twitter Stickers

You may have seen Twitter’s recent announcement about the new “stickers” feature which allows you to add emojis and other things to your photos.  Fortune points out the obvious play on Twitter’s part to keep up with Snapchat with a headline that gives the new feature a positive spin.  Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal is completely and inexplicably oblivious to the chasing of snapchat with a slightly-less-than-flattering headline about Twitter….  Note in particular the second paragraph in the WSJ article about the other “communication” apps with stickers.  C’mon….  Really?  ZERO mention of Snapchat there?  That’s amazing.  I’m not totally sure how I feel about stickers yet since I haven’t used them but I have plenty of thoughts and you can look at this from a few different perspectives which we’ll get to.

A Couple Thoughts On Social Photography…

Meanwhile as photographers the ongoing debate of whether iPhone pics and the ease of entry is “ruining” the industry is an interesting one to us.  This article on Popular Photography while not overtly addressing the big picture in that regard seems to come from that mindset, claiming that using Twitter stickers is a way to “completely ruin your photos”.  I always find these types of opinions a little troubling.  We’ve always embraced the idea that the more people appreciate everyday photography the more they will appreciate professional photography.  We’ve always looked at Snapchat and Instagram as opportunities to have fun just like everyone else and we actually use them to highlight aspects of what we do at Frameable Faces.  To call attention to stickers being a way to ruin pictures is silly to me.  If you take a picture you don’t want to ruin with a sticker, then DON’T ADD A STICKER…… duh.  Right?  Maybe the fun you can have with stickers can help you build community to draw people in to see the stuff that is meant to stand on its own without the stickers.  We actually covered this topic today on our photography show “The Photo Shop” on @ParachuteTV1 on Periscope if you’re interested in taking a look.

Social Media Apps chasing Other Social Media Apps…

So while the photography studio owner in me doesn’t have a problem with stickers, the social media guy in me might.  Here’s what bugs me a little about them – keep in mind that I have not used them yet.  This is an overall statement about social media platforms that I think applies here, even though I may be admitting soon that stickers are the greatest thing to happen to twitter (although I doubt it).  I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong…

Here’s my issue.  Each time a unique social media platform adds a feature to chase and become like another platform, it blurs the lines between platforms that make them cool.  I like the different uses for each platform.  I like the different etiquette and the different cultures of the different apps.  Here are three other examples I thought were somewhere between silly and annoying when they rolled out and still do:

  • Facebook hashtags  Good try Facebook but you are NOT twitter.  Hashtags totally flopped on Facebook – they just really don’t belong there in my opinion.
  • Instagram video  I believe Instagram did this as a reaction to Vine at the time.  I can’t stand videos on Instagram.  There was nothing “insta” about pausing while scrolling though the pics in the feed to watch a 15 second video and now the videos can be up to 60 seconds – good grief.   I know not everyone agrees with me on this but it is my rant…
  • Periscope sketch  Rolling out the ability to sketch on the screen while you’re broadcasting was, well…sketchy.  I can only conclude that this was a way to chase Snapchat (?) even though the two are completely apples and oranges.  Sonia Figueroa is the only scoper I’ve seen who consistently makes me smile when she draws hearts on the screen to “give them back” to her viewers (she’s one of my faves), but at a time when everyone was waiting for other more practical features this was a bit of an annoyance.

So there it is…  had to do it.  Thoughts?  Are you using Twitter stickers?  Can you think of other app fails from apps chasing apps?  Please comment, share your thoughts, and share this post!

 

 

The Doug and Ally Morning Show on Periscope!

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Hey Now!

That’s usually how we start our morning show with those Larry Sanders Show / Howard Stern inspired words, and off we go….

The Doug and Ally Morning Show!

We have been broadcasting live on Periscope since April 2015 and somewhere along the way the “Doug&Ally Morning Show” became a thing.  It wasn’t planned.  It was early on an October morning, we weren’t doing much here at the studio and we thought it would be interesting to jump on Periscope and see who was up!  We don’t officially open until 10:00 AM anyway.  Turns out a lot of people were happy to see us on and someone made the comment that it’s like a morning show…  We thought that sounded fun so we kept doing it and here we are 8 months later going strong with the morning show “officially” Tuesday through Fridays from sometime around 8:45 or 9ish until 10 or 10:30ish.  It starts when it starts and it ends when it ends….

A Life Of Its Own…

Meanwhile many things have happened along the way that have become regular occurrences / features on the show…  One of the most well known guests is an amazing caricaturist from the UK named Rich Nairn (@RichNairn on twitter and Periscope) who has been known to join the show and tweet doodles based on what’s happening.  He sketches them in black and white but he made a color one which has become the official artwork for the show and will be available on T-Shirts (and maybe coffee mugs) very soon!

Morning ShowThe phrase “You shut up, you shut up, and you shut up” has been an inside joke in Ally’s family which originated with her dad and it has become a common phrase on the show…  haha!  Notice the Periscope hearts going up the side to the right!  Here are a couple more of his from the show….

One morning we were discussing some pretty chaotic events at home in the hours before we came to work.  Ally woke up in the middle of the night with a spider crawling on her face, and I stepped in cat poop that one of the cats brought up from the basement litter box as a “trailer”….  Next thing we know Rich is commenting “tweet tweet” which usually means he’s posted a doodle and……

Morning show

Here’s one more that we’ve featured before on the blog but it’s worth repeating.  We had a photo session with a newborn baby and at one point during the session we wanted to get some naked baby photos which are precious…..when the following happened – watch the following vine:

So we were talking about this session and then Rich tweeted….

Morning show

He really is amazing – he cranks these out in minutes….  Check out his fantastic work at his website The Artful Doodler!

Fun With The Feed!

I noticed that the thumbnails that show up in the Periscope news feed are sometimes amusing because they capture candid expressions of the person broadcasting and they refresh every few seconds, and so “Fun With The Feed” was born – with it’s own logo, jingle and everything!  No one knows when one of these might happen (nor do they know if they’ll be the next victim…).

Morning Show

Here are a couple of our favorites…

Morning Show

@Amrit Singh has an awesome beard so we thought we’d help him show off all angles of it.  Meanwhile the guy is awesome and has been doing some amazing humanitarian work in the UK helping with the refugee crisis.  We met him in San Francisco in January at the Periscope Community Summit (now called Summit Live).

We also got our friend @Jaxsology with some awesome expressions – she is a really talented singer and a total comedian – one of our favorite scopers to be sure…

Morning show

Ally and I do our cheesy intro ONCE per show followed by a tour of the studio where we talk about what we do and one of our Peri-friends Nelma – @BeachBabyC actually called in and narrated the tour on speaker phone one morning!  Nelma has dubbed our living room “The Parlor” which is a great name for our little meeting area with our clients!  We have call-ins to the show every now and then including a certain ridiculous telemarketing company who calls ALL THE TIME to try to give us great insurance rates on our 2013 Acura…   Um, we’ve never had an Acura. After asking them a dozen times to be placed on their do not call list we decided to turn the tables…  Take a look:

Many of our friends have their own special entrance when they show up on the show including Erick “@making_money23” Gary – all hell breaks loose when he shows up.  There is no real rhyme or reason to who gets an intro or why – they just kinda happen…

So join us!  There are plenty of features like “the coffee test” and spontaneous shenanigans that happen on the show and you can be a part of it just by tuning in and commenting!  We have a ton of fun and we love our international community who joins us literally from all corners of the world (Russia, Malaysia, Israel, UAE, Brazil, Serbia, Japan, Australia, UK, Spain, France, Morocco, Venezuela, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, Germany, The Netherlands, Nigeria, just to name some) every Tuesday through Friday morning (and sometimes Saturday) for the Doug&Ally Morning Show!!!

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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
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!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
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?
**********************************************
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 Dubious Debut in Sales

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I’ve been in sales of some sort for a long time.  Almost 25 years actually.  I took a long and winding road to get to Frameable Faces Photography where I’ve spent the last seven years with Ally and this is by far the most fun “job” I’ve ever had.  It doesn’t feel like work at all most of the time.  For years working in a corporate environment I always dreamed of the day when my clients would actually come to me and be happy to do business with me.  No cold calling, no massive RFPs, no representing a shabby product that I barely believed in, no politics and stupid bosses who couldn’t even keep their time zones straight or were having affairs with the incompetent staff responsible for supporting my accounts (true story), no territory issues…. the list goes on and on.

Dubious Debut

Okay Doug – calm down – it’s over.  That was way in the past.  You’re good now.

The fact is as much as I hated that environment for many years I was able to navigate it and I was pretty “successful” for a long time.  I sat in “high level” meetings with CEOs of Fortune 50 companies, and “low level” meetings with cashiers at dry cleaner shops, and everything in between.  I closed big deals, trained, hired, and fired people.  Yeah – I was a real “big deal”.  Yuck.  When I joined Ally I took the good I learned, left behind the bad I wanted no part of, and I’ve used it all to build a community here at our studio.  It’s our own and I love it.  I love marketing our business.  I love social media.  I LOVE live streaming on Periscope.  Fulfilled and alive, I feel like a “big deal” again – for the right reasons.

Dubious Debut

But it didn’t start that way.  No one steps into the business world fully polished and accomplished the very first time.

Dubious Debut

Dubious Debut

My first sales job was over the summer in Ann Arbor while I was still in college at The University of Michigan selling latex medical gloves to medical practices.  My dad spent decades in sales so he got me all set up – took me to TJ Maxx (!) and bought me a couple of short sleeve dress shirts and a couple ties, got me some business cards printed up, gave me a few sales tips and turned me loose.  I meticulously made up three boxes of samples for small, medium, and large gloves with each glove in a baggie with a color coded sticker on each bag.  My first stop (and first sales call ever) was at a Veterinarian’s office near the corner of Packard and Platt.  They were pleasant and I left them a couple samples and was told I could call to follow up.  I left and went to my next stop feeling proud of myself.  When I got to the next stop I noticed I didn’t have any of my samples.  Annoyed I turned around and went back to the vet’s office to grab them.  They claimed they hadn’t seen them.  I knew that was impossible since it was my only stop and I was convinced they kept them for themselves (I was still young).  Man was I mad.  I pulled away steaming and trying to figure out what to do about it when I pulled up to the intersection.

Keep in mind that back in those days the car I was driving (a brown Pontiac Phoenix inherited from my Grandpa Louie may he rest in peace) had this thing under the door handle called a key hole that you actually had to put your car key into and turn to unlock your car.  So it became clear that with my briefcase in one hand and the samples in the other I obviously put the samples on top of the car as I fished around for my keys when I initially left the vet’s office.  I found this out because when I pulled up to the intersection of Packard and Platt it was completely covered with latex gloves……

A dubious debut indeed.  Everyone has to start somewhere.

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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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