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I’ve pretty much lived in Arizona my whole life. Being from the Southwest, I really enjoy this side of the border Mexican food. I say that because real Mexican food is actually quite different from what we consider Mexican food. But what you can get here is very different from what you eat in other parts of the country-most are really tamed down and extremely Americanized. I mean do you really think Velveeta cheese and store bought precooked meat are authentic? Authentic Mexican food is really about fresh ingredients and food prepared with love (meaning a long time to cook ;) ). My chicken enchilada recipe won’t take hours but for the most part it is made from fresher ingredients.

Ingredients:
10 burrito-sized tortillas (I do use store bought-the kind that are made daily if possible)
2 16 oz cans enchilada sauce (I prefer green, you can use red. and I’m guessing on the can size :O )
2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts (or 3 smaller ones)
1/4 c water or chicken broth/stock (broth/stock adds more flavor)
1/2 c finely chopped yellow onion (sweeter, you can use whatever you have)
1 clove pressed garlic
1 c shredded cheese (shred it yourself-it’s cheaper and tastes better, we use cheddar you can use your favorite but not Velveeta)
1 6 oz can of sliced black olives (optional)
sour cream

Directions:
1. Put chicken breasts and water/broth in a crockpot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 2-4 (I usually throw them in frozen, even if it’s against the directions but it works for me). They are done when they fall apart as you try to take them out.
2. When chicken is done, preheat oven to 350*. Lightly grease a shallow baking dish-13×9 is a good size.
3. Using two forks (or your hands if you can take the heat) shred the chicken. Place in a bowl and mix in 1 can of enchilada sauce, onions, and garlic (and some olives if you like them).
4. One tortilla at a time, put a large spoonful of mixture spread down the middle longways. Don’t overdue it-it has to make enough for all of the tortillas.
5. Time to roll the tortillas! Fold both ends up about 1 inch. Bring one long side over the filling and tuck under the mixture. Roll it up the rest of the way.
6. Place them in one layer (can overlap some) in the baking dish. Pour the second can of enchilada sauce evenly over the rolled up tortillas. Sprinkle shredded cheese over the top.
7. Bake 15-20 minutes until they are turning golden and the cheese is all melted. Top with sour cream and olives if you want.

Serving suggestions: beans (black, pinto, or refried), guacamole, chips and salsa, Spanish rice-super easy to make (check for the recipe next week)
*you can definitely make your own tortillas and enchilada sauce but for the price and time saved I choose to buy these-just get the best tasting sauce and the freshest tortillas*

Surprise Portrait Photography Chicken Enchiladas

Surprise Portrait Photography Chicken Enchiladas

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Kayla Renckly Photography Boudoir Pin-up Newborn Maternity Engagement Portrait

Another installment of Wednesday Wisdom where I will try to answer FAQ, share articles and inspiration. Today’s FAQ is about crop ratio or why an image is cropped the way it is.

Often customers wonder how I choose to crop their photos or how their photos will look at each size. Most cameras (including mine) produce photos that are a 2:3 ratio (equivalent to a 4×6 or 20×30). This means that when you want an image of a different ratio (ex. 4:5 or 8×10), some of the image must be cropped away. As a photographer, I try to take into account for this and leave extra room within an image to allow for an appealing crop that doesn’t lose important parts of the image. Even then not all images will look good at all crop sizes. To help compensate for these differences, I proof my images at a 5×7 size so that it is a pleasing crop somewhere between the more rectangular 2:3 (think 8×12) and the nearly square 4:5 (think 8×10). When you order your prints at a different crop ratio than your proof shows you need to remember there will be a difference between your proof and your final print. I will use my artistic judgement when I crop at these ratios to ensure that all important elements are included and that the image is still appealing. If I feel that a certain crop will not work for an image, I will let you know so that we can make a decision together for the best choice of the display of your portraits.

Here is a visual to help you see the differences a crop will make on one image.
El Mirage Portrait Photographer Fine Art

Please keep this in mind when you order prints from our session.

If this doesn’t answer all your questions on the topic please feel free to contact me and I will do my best to help. If you have any ideas for future posts please let me know!
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We love all kinds of food in my family, but so many of our favorites can’t be eaten by my youngest the way it can be ordered at a restaurant. So we find ways to modify recipes at home that we love for him to eat. One of my husband’s absolute favorite foods is chicken parmesan-if we go to an Italian restaurant I can pretty much guarantee that’s what he’ll order. Here is my recipe and how I’ve modified his version:

Ingredients:
2 large or 3 smaller boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 c shredded mozzarella (can substitute other meltable cheeses)

-for the breading-
6 slices of bread (I save the heels and freeze them to make bread crumbs)
1/4-1/2 c oatmeal (optional)
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1/8-1/4 tsp black pepper
1/3 c grated or shredded parmesan cheese (more if you want it stronger)

-for the sauce-
1 14 oz can tomato sauce
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried basil
1 clove pressed garlic

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 425*. Put the bread, oatmeal (it creates a slightly crisper breading), and the spices in a food processor until it becomes a fine bread crumb mixture. Add the cheese and mix together.
2. I cut the chicken breasts in half through the long side so that I have 2 squarer pieces. You will need wax paper, plastic wrap, or parchment paper (what I used), a flat surface you won’t damage (I use a cutting board), and something heavy and not breakable like a rolling pin for the next step. Place one chicken piece at a time into the parchment paper or other material and fold over to cover both sides of the chicken piece. Pound the chicken piece until it is about 1/2″ thick.
3. Moisten the chicken pieces one at a time (you can use egg, milk, or water like I did) and coat both sides in bread crumb mixture. Place in a shallow baking dish and bake 8-10 minutes or until they look slightly browned.
4. Mix the spices and garlic into the tomato sauce. Spoon over the chicken pieces. Sprinkle the mozzarella evenly over the sauce. Bake another 5 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.

To make this dairy and egg free:
After creating the bread crumb mixture, I used water to moisten the chicken piece and I breaded his piece before adding the parmesan cheese. I also left off the mozzarella cheese.

chicken parmesan recipe portrait photography

chicken parmesan recipe portrait photography

chicken parmesan recipe portrait photography

chicken parmesan recipe portrait photography

chicken parmesan recipe portrait photography

chicken parmesan recipe portrait photography

chicken parmesan recipe portrait photography

Ok you are right, that’s not mozzarella cheese. I was almost finished making it when I realized that I didn’t have any so I substituted cheddar-not quite the same but it worked.
chicken parmesan recipe portrait photography
Delicious with steamed broccoli!

If you have any ideas for future posts please let me know!
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Hard drives fail, they get stolen, they get broken. When you least expect it. Even if you are prepared. And what you are left with is a gut wrenching make you want to throw up what did I lose and will never get back feeling.

It happened to me yesterday. And it was awful timing, if there is such a thing as good timing for these things. Recently we rebuilt my dinosaur of a computer and the hard drive we bought was DOA, it would not format. I finally got around to sending it in and the replacement arrived Tuesday. My husband (in house IT :) ) installed it that night and I was going to spend Wednesday transferring files onto it so my External Hard Drive could go back to being the back up. As I went to move files, a horrible thing happened-nothing. It froze, it crashed. I tried again-it tried to transfer but the same thing happened.

I have an on-line back up so I checked there to see if everything was backed up before the crash. Everything up until November 18th, about the time I thought I noticed it act funny but then it seemed fine. Luckily those items are mostly not important although I don’t remember what all I lost so I could be wrong. Also luckily, my external hard drive is under warranty and will be sent back asap, hopefully all I have to pay is the shipping cost and will receive a new one, but everything on there is pretty much lost.

I thought I was prepared, but I was wrong. I’m lucky that after listening to other horror stories of hard drives crashing that I invested in an online back-up but I still failed. I never bothered to make physical backups on CD/DVD just in case-what if that had failed too? I will be spending a lot of time downloading all my files and burning CDs before I send the drive back just in case I need to try to have someone recover files.

So this is my PSA-Backup all your files! In at least two (2) locations (one on-site and one off-site). It doesn’t matter whether it’s just your personal pictures, resume, school work, tax returns, etc or you are a business person with client information as well. You can lose them all in an instant. What if the unthinkable happened and your computer is stolen? What if even worse happens and your house burns down? You won’t get those files back. You can’t recreate those memories or all the hours that went into creating whatever was on there. Can you imagine losing the first pictures of your babies? Or the thesis you’ve been working on for months? You NEED to have an off-site backup as well. Exchange CDs with a friend-you keep theirs and they keep yours. Get a safety deposit box. A fire-proof safe may not be temperature resistant enough for electronic devices and optical storage (CD/DVD, thumb drives, etc). Online storage is a great option as well. Most will backup your data as often as you like-continuously, daily, when your computer is idle, etc. If your hard drive fails you sign in to your account and either download everything you need or for a fee they can send it to you. There are several companies out there that provide a great service, just do your research. I won’t publicly announce who I use just in case some meanie out there wanted to try to do something bad to my backup.

No matter what you choose, do your research to decide what best fits your needs and please backup your data in two (2) places!

Here are a few articles about the subject:
What hard drive/disk failure is
Rate of failure
Signs of immenent failure

And a photo I would be devastated to lose
newborn photography
This is my oldest as a baby, 3 weeks old. The photo I took that inspired me to start this journey.

As a photographer, it is my responsibility to educate my clients-whether it is on the best type of outfit for their session, the best way to preserve their images, or even copyright laws. I will try to make a point to post a weekly piece of wisdom or even just inspiration from now on so look for future updates! This first article is very important and is a very common FAQ.

Why Are Professional Photographs Watermarked?

by Cristy Nielsen & Yolanda Rowe

As parents, we do everything we can to protect our children. We teach them to look both ways before crossing the street and many other ways to be safe. Photographers have the same responsibility to their work. Each photograph is important–not just because they are our livelihood but because they are portraits of special people: our clients. To protect our work and our clients, we watermark every image that appears online. We hope to discourage unethical people who steal from photographers by copying and using images for their purposes without authorization or compensating the copyright owner and subjects.

­For example, let’s say your photographer posts preview images on a social networking site such as Facebook or Myspace. These photos are intended to show the client a preview of what their session images will look like. If they are not watermarked they cannot be identified back to the photographer who created the image and they could be stolen by a third party and used without permission. This has happened on numerous occasions by companies who will use photographs for their marketing campaigns and then photographers or their clients have found their images and photos on the sides of buses, on billboards, etc. Imagine finding a photo of you or your child on a flyer or website for some random company when you didn’t give permission for it to be used in that way and you will begin to understand why photographers watermark to protect their work.

Federal law is very clear on the copyright of images. The creator of the image (the photographer) is the owner of those rights. A client pays the photographer to take those images, but it does not give them ownership (rights) to what is created. Even if the client purchases a file or print it does not give the client copyright to the image. They are given a license to do certain things. This is called a Usage License and it is illegal to scan or copy it and use it in any way other than which it was intended: displaying the print itself. Even purchasing prints does not give the client copyright to the image and it is illegal to alter, scan, or copy it and use it in a way other than its intent. Copyright is held by the image creator for 70 years by law and infringement is punishable by up to $150,000 in fines PER image.

While it may seem like no big deal to make additional copies of an image, or crop out watermarks in web versions of photos, truly it is a big deal. A photographer works very hard on their images, and this is their livelihood, source of income and how they feed their family. When you copy and scan or alter watermarks out of images you are taking part of the income that they depend on to stay in business and serve their clients in the first place. Watermarking is a necessary evil to protect photographers, to protect their work and their job security. As Yolanda Rowe says “Copyright is like your vehicle. You can give someone the keys to drive it (granting permission to a client) but it doesn’t make them the owner of the vehicle.”

For more information on copyright please visit http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

*Used with permission from Author Christy Nielsen, The Nielsens*

Here’s an example of how I watermark my images:
newborn portrait photography
I place my watermark on a critical part of the photo to make it difficult to crop out and use for other purposes, but I try to not to make it so obtrusive that you can’t see your picture.

If this doesn’t answer all your questions on the topic please feel free to contact me and I will do my best to help. If you have any ideas for future posts please let me know!

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