Monthly Archives: March 2015

A video postcard from Utah

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

It’s Easter week, so there’s a lot of people that are taking the week off for vacations with their families. Hopefully if you’re traveling this week you’ll have a safe trip and a little bit of fun as well! I can remember as a kid we would travel down to Biloxi, Mississippi and Ft. Walton Beach, Florida for the Easter break from school. It was always nice because the weather was a heck of a lot nicer along the Gulf coast then it was back in Rockford, Illinois at this time of the year.

On to our video postcard from Utah. While Jan and I were out West back in February, we spent a number of days shooting nature photography in the Moab, Utah area. We spent time shooting photos at a number of areas including Arches and Canyonlands National Parks and Dead Horse State Park. Along with shooting lots of still photography, we also ended up shooting some video as well! There’s a lot more that goes into shooting video versus stills and when you’re out in nature hiking, this brings some new challenges as well! In the past, for shooting still photography, we’ve got backpacks for the cameras and tripods, so not too much to haul around. Well for shooting video, there’s a lot more stuff gear wise that you’ve got to take with, so hiking is a bit more of a workout! All and all, it was a great experience and I’m glad that we did it! We’ll be doing more of this on future trips and are looking forward to what we can create!

Well here you go, here’s our video postcard from Utah and be sure to watch it in High Definition as well!

If you’re on Easter vacation this week, make it a good one! Thanks as always for checking out our work as well!!!

Kev and Jan

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Nighttime is the right time!

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Monday morning Des Moines greetings to one and all!

We are headed back from a quick trip to Colorado for some advanced video training. It was a real banzai run these past few days. We got in the Explorer late Thursday afternoon arriving in Colorado on Friday afternoon. Saturday was spent getting more advanced techniques with the video camera and also some computer software lessons! Sunday morning we started back home and made it as far as Des Moines, Iowa and we’ll be back to P-Town ready to rock once again this afternoon! All and all, it was a great trip out West even if it was so incredibly brief, but lots of great information that will really help on future video projects!!!

This past week we got rocking and rolling for 2015 with the first architecture shoot of the year. In Peoria with the snow and the lack of vegetation in the winter months, it makes no sense to be out there shooting photos of buildings when you can see things that you don’t want to see. When it comes to daytime photography of architecture in Central Illinois, we are still a good month or so away before things start to green up enough to make good photos. In the case of a night time shot in Peoria, we have hit the time of year when we can get started. Our friends at Unity Point Hospital in Peoria were needing some nighttime shots of both hospitals (Methodist and Proctor) and we had some perfect weather last Monday to be out shooting at night! Everything came together and we had a great sunset that topped off the shot!

Here’s our photo of Unity Point Proctor Hospital at night!

Well it’s time to get to work, so we hope that you both have a very wonderful week!!!

Kev and Jan

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kmcup22mar15

Shark Tank and Echo Valley Meats

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Well there was big fun in Peoria this past Friday night! Dave Alwan from Echo Valley Meats was on the ABC television show Shark Tank for the second time in the past couple of years. The first time that Dave presented his idea to the Sharks they rejected it, but the response for Echo Valley Meats was huge. The phones and internet started ringing with orders and this caught the attention of the producers of the show. They asked Dave to come back and pitch his idea one more time. Dave had all of his ducks in a row this time and had three of the sharks making him an offer and he chose the offer from Mark Cuban (NBA Dallas Mavericks owner) and now they are partners and that’s great!

On Friday night when the show was going to air on tv, Echo Valley Meats had a big viewing party with over 100 guests. When the show came on, they projected the video on the wall for everyone to see. Dave came in and made his pitch to the sharks and when he announced on the show that he was teaming up with Mark Cuban, the whole room erupted with cheers and applause!!! Smiles and congratulations were in order and the party was on! The other thing that I thought was really cool is they had set up a computer and a big screen that was showing all the analytics on the Echo Valley Meats web site and the traffic that it was getting during and after the show! The amazing thing is that with-in 13 hours of the show airing on Friday night, the EVM web site had an additional one million hits to the site! It really shows you the power of a hit TV show like Shark Tank!

Here’s a few of the images from a great evening with Echo Valley Meats and their big news!!!

We hope that you have a great week as always and thanks for checking out our work!

Kev and Jan

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kmcevm16mar15

Postcards from Canada

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

Wow, we actually had the temperature in Peoria getting over 32 degrees this weekend and that sure was nice!!! It seems like it’s been about a month of below average temperatures for us and to have that at the end of the winter season makes things a little tougher!!! The good thing is that they are calling for the temps to be in the 50’s this week and that’s going to seem like a heatwave!!!!

When I was in Canada a week ago on my shoot, I was fortunate to have an off day on Saturday before flying back home last Sunday. I was also very fortunate that even though the temperatures were cold, there was plenty of abundant sunshine and that always makes me happy! Having lots of sunshine also makes for great photos too!!! 🙂

I was in Fredericton, New Brunswick and wanted to drive over to the coast to St. John, New Brunswick and check that out and shoot some photos. It was about a 70 mile drive to St. John and it was super easy to get there. I did snap a few photos in St. John, but didn’t see too much at this time of the year with all of the snow. I was about to head back to Fredericton and I saw a sign for a lighthouse up the road about 20 miles in St. Martins and thought that might be good. When I got there, the lighthouse was pretty much buried in snow and it wasn’t going to make for a lot of good photography, but I did find a number of other things to shoot in the area, so my drive was rewarded!!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from an off day driving around and doing a little sightseeing in Fredericton, St. John and St. Martins!

Well here’s to a much warmer week in Central Illinois and I hope that your week is a good one!!! Thanks as always for checking out the work!!!! 🙂

Kev and Jan

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kmccanada1mar15

The Great White North

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

I just got back last night from a gig up in Canada and we had a great shoot! We were up there shooting pictures of a Cat motor-grader that was clearing snow from the roads and it couldn’t have been more perfect of a shoot. Oh sure, it could have been a heck of a lot warmer, but other than that, we had perfect shooting conditions! As most of you know, I love having blue sky days when I’m shooting over a cloudy or overcast day. There are photographers that prefer those overcast days, but not this guy! Of course the trade off for those perfect shooting days is a lot of cold temperatures and you just have to bite the bullet with conditions like that! The sun was great in terms of warmth and making things a lot nicer, but every once and awhile that wind would kick up and things were down right cold! The first thing right out of the box I was having to get some of my photo gear together and I had to take my gloves off for a couple of minutes. The next thing I know, my fingers were starting to get numb from the extreme cold. Once I got my gloves back on and the sun hit them, it warmed things up and I was fine, no frostbite for this kid! The other big challenge of this shoot was trying to get to spots off the road and in those spots the snow was four feet deep! We even had a snowmobile to get us to some more spots off the road and that worked great until I had to get off the snowmobile and I’d drop down to my waist in the snow! We even had a minor crash with the snowmobile (at a very low speed) and I was ejected into the snow and we got the sled stuck and it was a bear to get it turned back on its side so we could use it again! All and all it ended up being a great shoot!!!!

Here’s a couple of my snaps from last week in Canada! Our motor-grader operator John Beauliue couldn’t have been nicer and also was incredibly skilled with what we asked him to do! Here’s a couple of shots of John and him in action with the Cat Motor-grader!

Thanks as always for checking out the work and it’s all very much appreciated!!!

Kev and Jan

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kmccat2mar15