Ketchup

So, it has been a minute since I have blogged. A lot has been going on! Some good and some not so good. If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that a couple weeks ago a very close friend of mine passed away after a long battle with cancer. Sad. Although it broke my heart to know she won't be here physically anymore, I am also very happy that she is no longer in any pain. Since I met her at my job in the mail room  at college, Mike and I literally took a one day tour of Wisconsin. (yes...I worked in the mail room while going to college, for the record...next to photography, working in the mail room was by far the best job I have EVER had for a few reasons...1) the people I worked with were awesome and 2) I got to drive all over campus in a big red van. And when I say all over campus...I mean on the side walks and all!)

River Falls is 5 1/2 hours away from our house. 

It was totally worth the 11 hours we spent in the car.

Moving on to the good...it is graduation party season, horse show season and most importantly wedding season! In the past couple weeks we have been to a graduation party in IL for my cousin Missy, an actual graduation ceremony for my cousin Tom, we have been to 3 horse shows AND I have second shot another wedding with the lovely Kayla of Kayla Richards Photography. 

So, for your viewing pleasure...here are a few from the horse shows:

And a preview of the wedding from this past weekend:

I am also planning our wedding (ok...Mike is helping too...but I am the keeper of everything wedding haha). Which is going well...I will have some more posts on that coming up! I am so excited to start making everything for our wedding! I will however share with you a photo of our rings:

I was so excited that we finally found Mike's band :D

I also found this cool Sketchbook project while I was searching for wedding stuff. You sign up, they send you a sketchbook, you draw in it, send it back and it GOES ON TOUR!!! Sweet. So literally TONS of people get to look through these books while they are on tour. How freakin' sweet is that?! I am not much of an actual drawer...but I doodle. A LOT. I am also pumped that this tour comes to Chicago next May. I can't wait to go and see it! 

So, when you see me carrying around this little book...you now know what its for :)

Thanks for stopping by :D 

I will be posting about this past weekend's wedding soon!

xoxo

Maggie :)

email me :) / visit my website :)

Photographer Tip: Back Button Focus

So, one of the many things that we learned about at the MJ 2 Day was Back Button Focus. 

I knew about this before from reading an earlier blog post of Melissa's. I tried it out on my camera but was confused at what I was exactly supposed to do. So, I un-did it and went about shooting the "other" way, by holding down the shutter button half way to get my lens to focus. Well, during the workshop we discussed back button focusing further and Melissa showed us how it works. So I put my camera back to back button focus. 

Oh. My. Gosh.

Back Button Focus has 

changed. 

my. 

LIFE!

It is wonderful, and I really don't know why I didn't keep using it. But anyway, NOW I will keep using it :)

For a little 411 for everyone so they get the just of what back button focusing is about:

it is a function on SLR cameras that allows you to separate the shutter from the focus.

Which, is pretty cool because that means you can just keep shooting and focusing at the SAME TIME! or, if you want you can also use this to lock the focus to one spot. This can come in handy at receptions where you want to get shots of people that are all about the same distance away from you. To use back button focusing once you have set it up press the * button on the back of your camera!

ok...on to the instructions :)

FYI: I have a Canon Rebel XTI, if you need instructions for a Canon 5D Mark II or Nikon cameras click here

1. turn on your camera and hit the menu button

2. move over to the orange tools 2 menu

3. scroll down to Custom Functions and click on it

4. change the custom function to 04, click on that and it will bring you down to another menu

5. on the secondary menu change it from 0 (default) to 1

6. Exit out of the menu

7. Change your AF mode to AI SERVO, leave it here from now on!

The only other thing that I changed was the AF point selection, I leave it on manual so that I can change it on the go. 

Now start shooting! :D Remember to use the * button on the back of your camera to focus from now on!  It takes a little bit of getting used to, but after a little while you will get the hang of it!!!

Happy Shooting :D

Maggie

email me :) / visit my website!