Success on the dog treats

Bruiser and his parents (my brother and his girlfriend) came to see us this weekend, and I must say, that little guy loved his dog treats I made him! (See recipe on Friday's post) Here are some images of my little doggie nephew Bruiser, the morkie puppy.

Love his little face!

He decided he liked pulling ing my camera's lanyard hahaha :P

Here he is eating some of his treat that I made for him.

Bruiser and his parents :)

Bruiser and me his Aunt! 

Love this little guy! 

www.erinlynphotography.com

Treats for my Nephew

I'm an Aunt!! Well, I'm an aunt to a furry Morkie dog named Bruiser! My brother and his girlfriend have bought a dog together and are traveling home from Pittsburgh this weekend to have us meet the little fluffy guy! I'm so excited! In light of my excitement I decided to make Bruiser some homemade dog treats! I'll let you all know on Monday what the pup thought, but here is the recipe!

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup skim milk

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

2. Mix all of the ingredients together and place them in balls or you can make cut outs  on a greased cookie sheet.

3. Bake treats for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

4. Let cool then serve them to your furry friend! 

Enjoy my dog lovers!!

www.erinlynphotography.com

DIY Black heads remover {Pintrest try}

I have been seeing a lot of post on pintrest lately about homemade black head scrubs and strips. I thought I'd test out a scrub today. I did the pin, 1tsp of honey, 1/2 tsp of salt, and 1/2 tsp of baking soda. I then did as the pinner had said, I mixed all the ingredients together and spread the mixture on my face. I then left it on for 5 minutes where I began to feel a tingling sensation. I washed off the scrub and saw..... nothing new :( I'll continue to try more of the remedies and see if I can find one that works. Here is my results. 

Before

During 

After

After my face was red a little irritated. So honestly my before looks better than my after... I will keep trying to find some excellent at home beauty remedies, stay tuned. 

www.erinlynphotography.com

Wine Wednesday

Today being Wednesday and all, I thought I'd share some of my studio shots I took of my favorite wine company, Thorn Hill Vineyards. The wine is made in California, but the delightful wine can be found and bought here in Lancaster Pa! Here are some of my studio shots!

Hope you all have a bottle of wine to crack into this Wine Wednesday!

www.erinlynphotography.com

Bouncing light {Reflectors}

Have I mentioned how important light is when you are a photographer? Well, if I haven't let me tell you light is the MOST important aspect to all photography. In essence when we photograph a scene of any sort, what we are doing is capturing the light in that single moment. The basics of photography is knowing how to control how much light enters your camera through your set shutter speed and your aperture. That amount of light you let in using both of those setting creates the light exposure image on your sensor thus making a photograph. Easy, you all know this. The other major thing about photography and knowing your light is knowing how and when to use the greatest light source of all... the sun! It can be your best friend and worse enemy depending on the time of day. The golden hours are our best friend times :) {Sun up and a little after and sunset with a little before} This is when the sun is low to the earth creating a soft direct warm light on your subject. At high sun {11am-2pm} the sun is over head creating a light that sends shadows down your subject. So, what happens when you're shooting an event and it's during those awful sun times? Well you got to create light and block out nasty sun shadows. Either take your subject to some even shade or create light on your subject to diffuse the shadows.

So, I was at a wedding this past weekend like I told you all early and the property was so lovely I couldn't bare to keep them just under a set of trees so I created light. If you all haven't figured it out by now, I'm a DIY person. I buy things I can't create {like a camera, flash, ect} but, my light source I can create. I have a nice square reflector that I've made and just carry it around in my camera bag and grab that sucker out when needed. It's a two sided art board. One side is the white art board, the other side is foil. The white side when bounced off the sun and shone on your subject creates a soft light. The foil side when bouncing light from the sun onto a subject creates a more intensely bright light. The foil side is easier to see on your subject as you tilt the reflector around to get the light bounced over the shadow areas. Here is my reflector.

I just hold the reflector in one hand and shoot with the other moving the reflector around as needed to shine that light on my subject. So, here is how it works, I have for you photos from when before and after I saw I needed to add some light.

Can you see the difference? The top one I bounced the light from the window onto her face and torso. The bottom one the Sun was at a slight angle from her left side {from how she is sitting} and I held the reflector out and down to get the light to bounce on her face and her white dress to light up the whole image even more. 

Just simple easy tricks and they can really improve the shot in just a matter of seconds. Another way to get light on your subject is to use a flash. Yes, use a flash even in the middle of the day. Use the sun as your hair light and allow your flash to be your main light. I'll talk about flashes another day and explain how to direct them and such. Just a tip, capturing and bouncing the light is like playing pool, you got to know how the angles work. :)

www.erinlynphotography.com

New Beginnings

Over the weekend I sadly said good bye to a job I held for the last three and a half years. It was a sad day for me because I loved my job as a Lifetouch photographer for JC Penny Portrait Studio. I loved the clients and atmosphere. But, I had to let it go, I'm now pursuing my business of Erin Lyn Photography as a full time job. My lovely coworker was so sweet and got me balloons for my last day and we went out to a local wine store and celebrated my new beginning! She's seriously the best!

This is an "instacollage" I made of my last day at the studio and my night with Jen! She is seriously awesome!

Also, this weekend started my wedding season! We had such a gorgeous day here in Lancaster/York PA on Saturday! The photos are looking great!!!! 

The location was stunning and so are the bride and groom! Love this! It was the perfect wedding to start off the season! 

Then on Sunday, I got to switch gears and do an Easter photo shoot for a little adorable three month old! 

Happy Easter! She is so stinking cute!!

So, all in all, it was a good weekend full of photography! I would never have it any other way!! Cheers to new beginnings! 

www.erinlynphotography.com

How we did our stop kiss on the dirt bike {You'll want to see this}

The first blog post I ever wrote I talked about my finance's and my engagement photos going viral and how we have found our images all over dirt biking websites! It has been such a blast to see my photos all over the place, it's every photographers dream! I had showed you all a few of our photos and explained how hard our stop kiss was to create. Here is the photo of us!

Close up just to see what it is.

So note, this photo is not photoshopped, it took us 7 minutes and about 6 tries to get this right, I have a video for you all today. It shows one fail try and then the successful one. I won't torture you for 7 minutes. :) 

Billy & Erin stop kiss video

My happy dance is pretty legit hahaha! I was so frustrated, then we finally figured out I was on the wrong side of the bike and needed to move. Once we did that, TADA, we got the shot! You can even hear us smack lips its so funny! So, after we took the video, we pulled the kiss clip and we were set! We did it! My man is just that awesome!! Check out our other engagement photos at www.erinlynphotography.com 

Homemade Nail Polish

Easy homemade nail polish for when you need that perfect color to match your eyes or just need a new color to brace your gorgeous fingers!

What you need:

Clear nail polish

Eye shadow  

1. Take one of your eye shadow palettes and scrap some of the pigment onto a dish.

2. Take clear nail polish and drop a few drips of the nail polish onto the eye shadow pigments. 

3. Stir nail polish and pigment together with a cue tip end with out the cotton on the end.

4. Take your nail brush and paint your nails once the pigment and the polish have been mixed together. Paint quickly as this mixture dries rather quickly. Do not worry about destroying your nail brush, just clean off the brush with nail polish remover once you are done with the brush.

Tada! New nail polish to match your eye shadow or just to get a new color for your lovely nails! 

www.erinlynphotography.com

Motivation {Fitness Goals}

For those of us battling with weight, having fitness goals is helpful in making the long journey seem more of a success then a failure. Loosing weight does not happen over night, it takes time and constant diligence. Here are just a few tips to help keep you motivated and on track with your fitness/health goals

1. Wishing does not make it happen, the whole concept of "actions speak louder than words" applies greatly to loosing weight and becoming healthy.

2. Self control with your food is a huge factor. Just because you ran 3 miles today does not mean that you get to eat that piece of cake. Choose your food wisely. Set meal plans and pack lunches for work and make sure it is all food that will help your body not weaken it. Having a meal routine will help you stick to your goal. Also, do not eat snacks or food while watching TV, this becomes a habit and your mind will associate food with watching TV thus you will then snack more and more whenever you are relaxing on the couch. (Note 1 M&M = you walking the length of a football field to burn it off, chose wisely) This is something I struggle with since I have a sweet tooth. Look back on some of my past post and see what alternatives you can create to satisfy that sweet craving. Fruit is always a go to. Fruit is sweet and has natural sugars, partake in fruit when you're craving something sweet. :)

3. Have a steady workout routine. Make sure you plan out time to excise, and do your routine each week. I go to the gym every morning and have a routine that I do for each day of the week. If for some reason you miss a day, just keep going with your routine the next day. Do not stop and say you will pick it up next week because you "messed" up your days, keep motivated and continue what you can.

4. Take progress photos, measurements and weights. Every month or every few months take some progress photos to see your success. You'll really see a difference when you compare photos several months apart. This will make you very excited!!

5. Check out pintrest for motivation. There are lots of motivational sayings, photos, and stories from others doing the same thing you are.

6. Keep pushing yourself! Do not give up or take the easy route. If your daily routine is walking for 10 minutes, after a week try jogging for 10 minutes, then a week later run for 10 minutes. Push yourself to do bigger and better things! As for me, I boost up my time in cardio and my restraint each week as well as raise the number of weights I lift. I get so excited when I can bump up to lift 10 pounds heavier than I did the week before.

7. Drink lots of water! Drink like you're a fish and breathe in water rather than oxygen. The first few weeks you'll be running to the bathroom a lot, but after that your body will get used to it!

8. Prepare your food, and chew your food. Prepare fresh foods that are healthy for you. Then cut it into small pieces and chew your food carefully. This tricks your body that you are full on a smaller amount of food.

9. Talk about your success with a friend, let them know when you're feeling good, or when you are down and need encouragement. My buddy is my future hubby, he hates when I complain about a bad day, but loves to hear about my good ones! He's also there to help me remember that I don't want to eat that bowl of ice cream, because he doesn't want to hear me cry about it later. As harsh as it is to hear sometimes, I thank him for being so honest with me and helping me with my goals. A gym buddy is also helpful if you need just a little push to make sure you will go to the gym and workout.

10. Have a vision in your head of how you imagine yourself looking when you have reached your goal. Before you eat that snack or miss that day at the gym, remind yourself of the goal you have and want to be. Then decide if you still want to eat that high calorie treat or skip the gym.


Stick to it and don't give up!!! www.erinlynphotography.com

DIY Lip Scrub

DIY Lip Scrub

Now that winter is gone, it's time to get those lips back to their nice soft selves! This easy lip scrub works and taste good if you do eat a little :P

What you need:

1Table spoon of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of coco powder

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Place all of the ingredients in a bowl.

2. Stir all the ingredients together 

3. Rub on lips for about 30 seconds.

I look like a kid who ate a chocolate cake and forgot to clean their mouth off :)

4. Rinse off lips with warm water.

5. Apply balm or vaseline to lips to soften them.

Why this works? 

The sugar scrubs off all the dead skin on your lips leaving them nice and soft. The oil softens and restores lips.  

This can also be made with honey and sugar, oil and sugar and brown sugar. 

Enjoy your soft lips!

www.erinlynphotography.com 

Random Facts {Just for fun}

Random Facts:

1. The wedding band is placed on the left  hand's ring finger, because it is the only finger with a vein that goes all the way to the heart.

2. No matter how hard you try, you can never remember how your dream started.

3. in 1982 a study predicted exactly how technology would have on todays society.

4. Sarcasm strengthens the right hemisphere of the brain which controls our creativity.

5. Your thumb = the length of your nose.

6. Kissing strengthens your memory, the more the better.

7. Psychology says, friendship is not who you spend the most time with, but who you have the best time with.

8. The average person spends 25 years waiting for something, i.e. microwave food, text message, phone call.

9. To burn off one M&M candy you need to walk the full length of a football field.

10. McDonalds salads are more fattening then their burgers


That's 2 minutes of your life you will never get back :)

www.erinlynphotography.com

Inversion {1/2 inch of hair growth in one week}

A few weeks ago I talked about the dramatic hair cut I had to have and how I have been desperately trying to grow it back. Well I was getting pretty close when my mom convinced me that my hair looked ragged and I need to even it out on the ends... Well I listened and lost about 2 inches of hair in the process. In my anger I researched everything to make it come back! I found something and I tried it out! Inversion. It's an ancient method that his been around for a very long time not just for hair growth, but for lots of other things too. Basically you hang upside down and your hair will grow. :) Just kidding there is more to it than that.

For 7 days you heat up an oil of your choice, massage the oil into your scalp while hanging upside down for 4 minutes. Then leave the oil in your hair for about 2 hours, then rinse with water. Seems simple, but please take caution, this is not the safest of methods. Check out this LINK for more info and safety measures.

What I did.

I took olive oil and heated it up in a small bowl in the microwave for about 1 minute. Then I poured the oil onto my scalp and hung with my head down for 4 minutes massaging my scalp with the oil. I started off first in this position.

As the week continued I ended up hanging off my couch upside down. After the oil was rubbed into my scalp for the 4 minutes, I left the oil in for either 2 hours, or over night. The next day or 2 hours later I would wash out the oil with water. By day 2 my hair was getting oily, so when I rinsed out the oil, I'd also scrub my scalp with some baking soda to clean my hair and the oil. Baking soda is a light alternative to shampoo. You do not want to shampoo at all during inversion. The process will not work if you do! After my hair was washed, I wore it up  so no one would see if my hair got greasy later on in the day. 

After 7 days of this, I came out with 1/2 an inch. Not a lot, but it's something for me. I will continue this every month and monitor my progress. Inversion only works as long as you space out the inversion times. Do not do this straight for 2 weeks. Your body will get used to the blood flow going to your head more and it won't work. do this once a month at most. 

My result

Before and After

It is hard to see a 1/2 inch, so be sure to measure before and after! Not everyone will have results. Some will grow an inch others, none at all. Every little bit helps though.

www.erinlynphotography.com 

Best movie snack ever!

I'm a reader, I love books and more so I love series. I also love to read books series that become movies. When do I read all these books with my busy life? I read at the gym, while I'm running on an elliptical. It takes my mind off the pain of the workout. I'v read hundreds of books doing this and one series I read was the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. I loved them! I won't give any secrets away, but I cried my eyes out in the gym while reading the last few chapters of the third book. So, being a reader of the series with the movie now out, I had to drag Billy to go see it with me! Long story short, we both really liked it! Its a good movie, but of course, the book is always better!

For our movie date I decided that we needed a fun treat, something sweet and salty to satisfy. With it being a movie date, it had to be popcorn. Salty snack, check! So, how to make it sweet? I ended up making some carmel sauce and chopping up "fun size" snickers and placing them into my popcorn mix, creating, "snickers popcorn." SO GOOD!!!!



1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees
2. Make a bag of popcorn then pour the popped corn into a baking pan.

3. Make your carmel sauce. 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup Corn syrup. Boil and stir until light brown. 

4. Pour carmel sauce onto the popcorn.

5. Bake your carmel covered popcorn for 45 minutes. 

6. While popcorn is baking chop up some snickers. I used 6 "fun size" snickers. 

7.Once your carmel popcorn is baked, remove from oven and stir in the snickers. Chocolate will spread around your popcorn and the snickers chunks will collect popcorn making a delightful snack!

8. Place popcorn mix in a bag and go enjoy your movie!

Billy and I loved this snack! 

www.erinlynphotogrpahy.com 

The Magic Gray Card

As a photographer we all have our moments in light room or another Raw file program that we can spend hours in color correcting our photos until they are perfect and ready for our clients to see. It can be tiresome and frustrating, but guess what, I have a fun secret for you to make that color correcting a thing of the past. All you need is an 18% gray card. The digital gray card is super helpful when photographing in hard lighting situations, such as tungsten or florescent light scenes. All you have to do is place your gray card under the light situation you are photographing under and snap a photo.

Ugh look how yellow and awful that looks! 

Then in your color correcting program or in photoshop, select the gray card photo as well as however many other photos you took under that same lighting situation and place your eye dropper on the gray card and just click. Then all of your photos will instantly color correct! That simple!

On this photoshop screen I have all the yellow photos highlighted.

Then at the top of the screen just click on the eye dropper.

Then all of your photos will instantly color correct making your job done!

Perfect color after fine tuning with the gray card edit! 

This is a super helpful item to have in your camera bag! It makes your life easier and is well worth the money to keep your screen time with your computer to a minimum! This gray card can also be cleaned when you dirty it up too, the card is water proof! Which is very nice, because in order for this edit to work, you need to make sure your eye dropper was on a clean spot on your gray card to make it 100% color correct! 

www.erinlynphotography.com 

Healthy Chicken Fajitas

For dinner I will be having three dirt bike racers (four including me) and it is race season! So, these boys need to watch what they eat to keep their bodies going strong! And me, I race too, so it's a plus for them that I'm cooking for my benefit as well as theirs. :) The boys like Chicken fajitas, but instead of greasing up a pan and frying the ingredients, I decided to bake it instead! The chicken came out so moist and tender, they were thrilled with the new rendition!

What you need:

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into strips

Red bell pepper sliced

Green bell pepper sliced

1 onion sliced and chopped

{add other ingredients that you enjoy to this}

2 tsp olive oil

2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp salt

Serves 4

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Place your chicken strips and veggies in a greased baking pan. 

3.Take your olive oil, chili powder, garlic powder, died oregano, and salt and mix together in a small bowl. Then drizzle this sauce onto your chicken and veggies and mix so the sauce is all over your fajitas. 

4. Bake for 30-35 minutes uncovered.

5. Take out your fajita mix and serve!

Add salsa, sour cream, ranch, cheese ect to a tortilla along with your fajita mix and enjoy!

The dirt bikers in my family loved this! 

www.erinlynphotography.com 

More Fudge less Pudge Cookies

As many of you have probably picked up on, I like greek yogurt. So, here is a yummy chocolate cookie recipe with greek yogurt to replace using a large amount of that fatty butter! The cookies are so moist and gooey and, they aren't all that bad for you either!

What you need

2 cups flour

2/3 cup dark chocolate coco (regular coco is fine too)

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 tsp butter softened

1/2 cup greek yogurt (Plain or vanilla works for this)

2 eggs

1 cup chocolate semi sweet chips

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a medium bowl add all your dry ingredients together.

{2 cups flour, 2/3 cup coco,  1/4 tsp salt, 3/4 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp baking powder, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar}

3. In a large bowl mix your wet ingredients together and blend well.

{2 tsp vanilla, 4 tsp soft butter, 1/2 cup greek yogurt 2 eggs}

4.Once it is all mixed, add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients bowl.

5. Stir all ingredients then add 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips. 

6. Take your cookie batter and on a greased baking sheet scoop cookie dough into small balls and place them on the cookie sheet with an inch of space between each cookie dough ball. 

7. Bake your yummy cookies for 8-10 minutes. Then remove cookies and allow them to cool on a cooling rack. 

Once cooled, bite into these yummy cookies, guilt free! About 100 calories per a serving of 3 cookies. 

Enjoy!

www.erinlynphotography.com