Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Here in Peoria this past week, we missed all the big fun that our friends in the South and East Coast got to experience with the big snow, ice and rain storm! Everything went south of Peoria, so we lucked out and for a change didn’t have to deal with any of that mess!!! I’m sure it’s going to be a few days for everything to get back to normal for everyone out East and hopefully it will be sooner rather then later!!!

Last week Jan and I made a quick trip out to Golden, Co. for our annual MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) training and it was a long way for such a quick trip! We drove out there on Sunday and we were back in Peoria on Wednesday night, so it was a couple of thousand miles for a four day trip! We did have our MSHA training on Tuesday and for something that could be a very boring day, the Colorado School of Mines made it a very interesting and fun experience. By getting our annual certification with MSHA, we can now go into mines and quarries that require that certification. I think we’re both happy to have it done for another year!!!

Besides sharing a great photo of Jan and I with our MSHA certificates, we’ve also got a few photos from our trip out West at Christmas. It’s always great to get out to the desert and shooting nature photos of some of the things that interest us! In this weeks photos we’ve got a few photos from Arizona and some of the vegetation and even a butterfly as well!

Here’s the photo of Jan and I with our MSHA certificates and our smiles! http://kevinmay.com/kmckj25Jan16.jpg

Here’s a couple of our nature photos from Arizona! http://kevinmay.com/kmcaz25Jan16.jpg

Thanks as always for checking out our work and we hope that you’re going to have a very wonderful week!!!!

Kev and Jan

Click on image to see a larger version

Tuesday morning greetings from Golden, Colorado!

Jan and I are out in Golden, Co. today for our annual MSHA mining training at the Colorado School of Mines! It’s one of those things that we’ve got to do so that we are legal to go in and shoot photos and videos at the various mines and quarries that we end up working at for our different gigs. This is the first time that we’ve taken our training at the Colorado School of Mines, so it should be interesting!

We’ve got a couple of photos from a few weeks ago when we were down in Bisbee in Southern Arizona and it’s one of our favorite little towns. Bisbee is an old mining town that has turned into a very eclectic little area with a ton of local artists and lots of little shops. There’s one main drag that runs from one end of town to the other and you can spend hours walking around checking everything out. We had a great time checking things out and then also snapping a few photos along the way. One of our favorite spots is the courthouse for Cochise County which was built in 1931 and the architecture is all in the Art Deco style of that era. Jan’s photo is of one of the front doors at the courthouse. Very cool indeed!

Here’s a couple of our photos from Bisbee, Az. http://kevinmay.com/kmcbis17Jan16.jpg

Ok, it’s time for us to get to class, so we’ve got to get going! We hope that you have a great week as always and thanks for checking out our work!!!

Kev and Jan

Click on image to see a larger version

Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

We got back home this past Monday from our Christmas holiday break out West and it’s great to get away for a bit of time! We didn’t have any shoots this past week, but that’s ok because there was a bunch of year end things that had to get done for the business. It happens every year and sometimes these things don’t get done until February and that’s not good. Some of the things are clerical and others are computer related, but they all need to get done before you start with a new year or things can get very disorganized and that’s not good! We’ve got another quick road trip coming up next week to get our annual certification for MSHA. That’s the certification that we need when we go to most mining operations in the US, so we’re heading out to the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Co. for our training! It should be fun!!! 🙂

I’ve got a couple of photos from our little Western adventure a few weeks ago and these were taken in the Chinle, Arizona area. We had to take a bit of a detour on the way out West because of the winter storms that hit the Midwest right after Christmas. Our little detour took us through Chinle and we never want to pass up a chance to shoot some nature photos. On our detour, we made it over to Canyon de Chelly National Monument outside of Chinle. My photo is from the road to Chinle and Jan’s photo of Spider Rock at Canyon de Chelly.

We’re going to get rocking this week and get some more stuff done before we head out of town once again! We hope that you’re going to have a great week and thanks as always for checking out our work!!!

Kev and Jan

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Monday morning Oklahoma greetings to one and all!

Jan and I are headed back home for a week out West and it was a very nice way to end last year and get ready for 2016!

At the beginning of this year I made two big announcements and needless to say, both have worked out great! The first one was that Jan was joining me full time and the second that we were now shooting video. Jan has been a huge asset this past year and I couldn’t be happier. She has done it all from being a roadie to shooting stills when I’m shooting video or as a second shooter to being a photo stylist. Even on the smallest of shoots when we might be shooting people, Jan has been making sure that everything looks great from the clothes, to the hair and those little things have made a huge improvement in the photos. Having a second set of eyes looking at what we are doing is making a big difference in how things are looking!

The second announcement was that we were officially shooting video in 2015 and I’m still amazed at how much of the business that it’s become. We’ve come a long way this year and have learned so much about all of the gear and what needs to happen to put a video together. We finished up the end of the year with a ton of video editing projects and I’ve had to learn some new editing software along the way and getting a lot more comfortable with the programs that we are using.

One of the most asked questions that I get asked is how much video work are we doing and what is the percentage of that work. Here’s a breakdown for 2015 and it even amazes me: 45% of our shoots were stills only, 33% was video and 22% was a shoot that involved us shootings stills and video for the same project. So you can see that video has become over half of what we are doing and that surge propelled us to our second best year in 25 years of business. To put that in perspective, 2013 was my worst year in business and it was ugly! Two years later in 2015, we have had the second best year ever and that’s an incredible turnaround. At this point, the skies the limit!

Here’s a look back at the Top Ten photos that Jan and I shot this past year. We’ve tried to give a nice overview of some of the different projects that we’ve worked on and also some of the personal images that we’ve shot for ourselves.

Ok, it’s time to get busy. We’ve already got shoots and editing lined up to start this year and we are ready to go!!! Join us in 2016 for a shoot!!! We love to help clients with their projects and are loving what we are doing!

We hope that you both have a wonderful 2016!!!

Kev and Jan

Click on link to see the Top Ten Photos

http://kevinmay.com/TopTen2015pdf.pdf