Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

We’re still rocking and rolling with shoots and editing last week and again this week, so we can’t complain!

About six years ago I was traveling through Snyder, Texas and came across this old abandoned gas station. I was thinking about stopping and shooting a few photos and after driving down the road a few miles and debating with myself to stop or not, I turned around and went back to the old station and took a few photos. A couple of years ago, I was in the area of Snyder, Texas again and I had a new lens that I wanted to try out on that same old gas station. When I got to the place where the gas station was, it was long gone and a new store was there in its place. I learned a very valuable lesson that day that when you see something like that, you better get some shots because you don’t know if it will be there the next time you stop by! Here’s one of the photos that I snapped on my first visit to that old gas station, so I was glad I made the time when I did! https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmay/4123830356

Jan and I were heading down along Rt. 24 just South of Bartonville, Il. a week ago and saw a crane (with a wrecking-ball) next to the old Allied Miles plant along the road. It’s been abandoned for as long as I can remember and I’ve always thought about getting some photos, but never have had the time when I’ve driven by. Seeing that crane made me think that we’d better get over there sooner rather than later and shoot some photos before the place was torn down. We made some time last week on a perfect morning and were able to get a few photos and videos and I’m glad that we did because I don’t know how long it’s going to be there!

Here’s a couple of our photos of the old Allied Mills plant in Bartonville, Il.

It’s time to get busy, so thanks for checking out our work and we hope that you have a great week to come!

Kev and Jan

Click on the image to see a larger version

Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Jan and I had another rocking week this past week and that’s always very nice. We had a nice mix of shoots from stills to video along with some video editing as well. We also started shooting on our first pro bono charity video project and we will have a few more shoots in the coming weeks and then we’ll put it together and can share it at some point once it airs on TV and social media.

It’s great to travel overseas and see different countries, but we have so many great places here in the US that you really would never have to travel abroad if you didn’t want to. We have so many different regions of the US from the big cities on the East Coast to the Gulf Coast to the Rocky Mountains to the Desert Southwest to the Pacific Northwest and all points and places in between. There is something for everyone, so get in the car or on a plane and check it out!

We are sharing a few photos from our East Coast trip a month ago and this week’s photos are from Charleston, SC. What a wonderful city and so much to see and to do! Lots of great food and beverages as well!!! 🙂 We were only there for a couple of days on this trip and so we tried to hit some of the places that we hadn’t seen when we were there for the first time in 2012. It won’t be our last trip to Charleston and I know that we’ll be back again at some point down the road!!!

Here’s a few of our snaps from a couple of great days in Charleston!

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

Kev and Jan

Click on the image to see a lager version

Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!

This past week I wrapped up another year of being my own boss and I still can’t believe it! It was in April of 1990 when I decided to take the plunge and take on the challenge of being self employed and I haven’t looked back! At the time it was a very scary thing to do to be giving up the security of having a full time job and a steady paycheck to take a chance on making your own business. I was very blessed that things started out good with the business and clients hired me and got me going so that I could make it. I’m still amazed that after all these years we are still rocking and rolling. There have been so many changes with how as a photographer we made the switch from shooting film to digital and now to have added shooting video to the mix! What a photographer did and how it was done when I started has forever changed to what we are doing now, but you have to embrace the change and move forward or you’ll be left behind!

Jan and I have another couple of photos to share from the Savannah, Ga. area from a few weeks ago. Tybee Island is just down the road from Savannah and it’s a great place to have some great food and a few cold beers too! One of our favorite things to photograph are lighthouses and we’ve seen a few in our travels. Tybee Island has a great one and you can see it for miles. Here’s a couple of our shots of the Tybee Island Lighthouse.

A big thanks and a shout out to all the clients who have supported me all these 26 years and I’m incredibly thankful to be doing something that I truly enjoy doing! I couldn’t have done it without you!!! 🙂

We hope that you have a great week and year 27 starts today, so we better get busy!!!

Thanks again!

Kev and Jan

Click on the image to see a larger version

Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

I’m guessing that everyone is probably back to work today from spring break and ready to get at it! We had a busy week this past week, but not so crazy busy that we couldn’t get caught up on some things! It’s never good to be so busy that day to day things aren’t getting done and you end up spending the weekend trying to get caught up only to be right back in the frying pan on Monday morning once again! This past week was great because we had some shoots and video editing sessions and also had time to get some much needed paperwork done and didn’t have to work the weekend! Yea!

This week we are sharing a really fun tv commercial that we did for Cupi’s Motor Mall in Pekin, Il. About a month ago we featured some still photos on the Monday morning promo from that same shoot of the new Polaris Slingshot. Today we’ll be featuring the new video from that same shoot.

Shooting the still photos was relatively easy because we were looking for cool angles and we’re not trying to show motion in the shots. The biggest challenge for the tv commercials was that we were shooting in Central Illinois in late February and needless to say shooting outside with these vehicles wasn’t possible with the weather. We were wanting to give these spots a lot of energy, so shooting in the showroom really made that challenge a 1000 times harder. I knew that we would have to create the energy that we needed in the editing of the spot and once we got all the footage shot in the showroom, we were able to get everything into the computer and create the energy that we needed!

Here’s one of the first sizzle spots that we created for Cupi’s Motor Mall and the new Slingshot.

Thanks as always for checking out our work and we hope that you have a great week to come!

Kev and Jan  

Click on the image to see the TV Commercial