You can probably achieve what you want without creating any actual objects by using the appearance panel (Window → Appearance).
Adding strokes and fills to an image doesn't really work so you need to add a "Convert to Shape → Rectangle" effect first, then you can add as many strokes, fills or effects to get what you want. See this for example (duplicated the plain image I used above for reference):

An example of what you can achieve with a single image with the appearance panel (more suitable for a wireframe, as you mentioned in comments):

Once you have your appearance the way you like it you can drag the object to the graphic styles panel and reuse it on all your other images with a single click.