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

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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

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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

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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

Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

It’s Easter week and I have a feeling that there’s going to be a lot of people off of work and school taking advantage of the spring break! I was out at the airport on Saturday picking up some of my photo gear that didn’t make it back with me on a late Thursday night flight from Canada because of weather issues and I saw a bunch of families all packed up and excited and ready to head out on vacation, so I’m sure there’s going to be a bunch of people traveling this week!

A few weeks ago Jan and I were down along the South East coast and these past few weeks we’ve been sharing some of the photos from that trip! This week’s photos are from the Garden City of Savannah, Georgia. As always, we had a great time walking around checking out the city and shooting photos. The photo that I’m sharing is from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and Jan’s photo is from the Telfair Academy building at the Telfair Museums.

If your Easter week includes some travel, have a safe journey! For the rest of us we’ll be holding down the fort while you’re gone! Have a great week and thanks for checking out our work!

Kev and Jan

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

A week ago we were down South on the East coast and we were able to get out for some nature photography and that’s always fun! We made a stop for the first time to Hunting Island, South Carolina along the Atlantic Ocean to check that area out. One of the things that I really liked is that it’s a bit remote and so there weren’t a lot of people there that day. It’s one of those places that you are making the trip to see because it’s not like you can drive along the coast and stop in and check it out! They have a lighthouse there on Hunting Island and Jan and I love to shoot the different lighthouses around the country and that’s why we made the drive. After shooting some shots of the lighthouse, we made our way down to the beach and one of the interesting things that we saw was an area on the beach where a bunch of very large trees had all washed up. It wasn’t like there were a couple of trees, it was more like there were 50 or 60 trees. They must have washed up onto the shore from a past hurricane or a pretty good storm. We were there for a couple of hours and I think we’ll have to go back again at some point down the road and spend a little more time exploring the area!

Here’s a couple of our shots from the beach at Hunting Island.

Thanks for checking out our photos as always and we hope that you’re going to have a great week to come!

Kev and Jan

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Click on the image to see a larger version

Monday morning greetings to one and all!!

We got to have some fun last week shooting some stills and video of the new Slingshot vehicle at Cupi’s Motor Mall down in Pekin, Illinois. For those of you that have never seen one of these, the Slingshot is classified as a motorcycle, but you sit in it like you would a car. It’s an open air vehicle, so it would be great on a sunny and warm day! The design of the Slingshot is very angular and in some ways it reminds me of a Lamborghini exotic car. They told us that it’s wicked fast from 0-60 mph, so it sounds like an adrenaline rush to say the least!

We’ve put together a rough TV spot for Cupi’s that we should be able to share in the coming month and we really had fun shooting it and editing that together! Here’s a few of the still shots that we got and you can see just how much fun the Slingshot is!

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

Kev and Jan

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

It’s the 29th of February and apparently 2016 is a leap year and today is a leap day! Wow! Talk about some excitement!!! Do we have the day off from school and work? I guess not because we have a shoot this afternoon, so I better get some gear packed up!

We had a busy week this past week with shoots in North Dakota and in the Quad Cities (Illinois for those not familiar with the state) for a couple of days to end the week. All and all it was a very good week and there was a lot of editing time on the computer this weekend trying to get caught up with all of these projects! When it rains it pours, so you just have to take advantage of the time to get caught up like we did this weekend!

We’ve got a quick snap this week of the beautiful wind turbines that dot the landscape here in the Midwest! I always enjoy seeing these giants spinning in the wind off in the distance of a farm field making the electricity that we all use and need!!!

Leap Day is here, so let’s all get to work!!! Have a great week as always and thanks for checking out our work!!!

Kev and Jan

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Monday morning North Dakota greetings to one and all!

We’re up in North Dakota today for a quick shoot and we’ll be back home tonight! I think that we are in for a stretch of road trips coming up in the next couple of months with a number of inquiries from clients, so it will be interesting to see what happens!

We’ve got another video project to share with you that just started running on tv this past week! bringyourmeetinghome.com is a new campaign from the Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau to have companies have their meetings and conventions in the Peoria area. One of the amazing things that I learned during this project is that the hospitality industry in the Peoria area employs over 5000 jobs! I was really shocked by this number just because unless you’re in that business, you don’t realize all the people that are employed by the guests that come to town!

This video that we’ve put together is the intro video that features four local Peoria people employed in the hospitality business. In the coming weeks we will be working on a video for each of these four people. Here’s the video that Jan and I made for bringyourmeetinghome.com

Jan and I both hope that you’re going to have a great week and thanks for checking out our work!

Kev and Jan

Click on the image to see the video on YouTube