It’s Christmas time

Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Well it’s that time of the year when things are winding down as they usually do. With Christmas being next Sunday and New Years in two weeks, we are all thinking about those holidays and not so much about work. It’s a time of the year to spend with family and friends and think about life’s blessings. It’s also a good time of the year to reflect on things that have happened in 2016 and look forward to 2017.

Here’s one of our photos of Peoria and as I always like to say, we’ve got a good looking city!

If you’re traveling this coming weekend for Christmas, make it a safe one and enjoy the holiday!

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

Kev and Jan

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The last road trip of 2016

Monday morning Alabama greetings to one and all!

Jan and I are out here on the road for the last road trip gig of 2016! It’s been quite a year and we’ve been on the road a fair amount for us! Trust me, I know a bunch of road warriors that are out on the road for work many multiple times more than we are and it amazes me how much these friends are out there! I’ve always had a bit of a love hate relationship with being on the road and for the most part we really enjoy it! There are times when you are just traveling and traveling and that can really get to you after a while if you do it too much. Once you reach that point, you’re ready to be home and sleeping in your own bed and eating your own food! Fortunately for us, we haven’t really hit that max time where it’s become too much and that’s a good thing! A week or two on the road and then back home for a few weeks to a month can be a very wonderful thing!

We’ve got a couple of photos from our Western road trip back in October to share and I think that this is our last one from that road trip! We were out in Salt Lake City for a day before flying home and Jan and I were able to visit the state capital building and shoot a few photos! Not having ever been inside, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I have to tell you that my jaw was wide open once we walked inside! What an incredibly beautiful building and the stone work was not to be believed! They sure don’t make buildings like this anymore!

Here’s a few of our snaps from the Utah State capitol building in Salt Lake City!

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

Kev and Jan

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North Rim

Monday morning Alabama greetings to one and all!

Well it sure was a quick turn around for us this weekend! We flew back from Salt Lake City on Saturday evening and did a little laundry and repacked clothes and photo gear and then on Sunday drove down to Auburn, Alabama for our shoot this week! Sometimes our schedule is like that and you go from one place to the next on a very short turn around, but that’s also what makes life more interesting!

We had a great Western road trip and were able to see a number of different places in the Utah and Arizona areas. Lots and lots and lots of nature photos have been shot this past week and we’ll be sharing some of those in the coming weeks!

One of our stops was the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and it’s one of those areas that you set as a destination because it’s not on the way to anywhere! For those that have been to the Grand Canyon, there is a slower pace to a visit to the North Rim versus the South Rim. The number of tourists at the South Rim can be very overwhelming and unless you get on some of the trails, you can be elbow to elbow at some of the viewing areas. The North Rim is a lot less congested and it makes a visit a lot more serene and relaxing!

Here’s a couple of our snaps from our visit to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Thanks as always for taking the time to check out our photos and we hope that you have a great week to come!

Kev and Jan

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Let it snow!

Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Well we got the first snowstorm for the coming winter season yesterday and it was a little more than the local weather people had bargained for with their forecasts. In Peoria they had talked about maybe an inch or so of snow in the morning and then the snow would turn into rain for the rest of the day and all the snow would melt. Needless to say the rains never came, but the snow sure did! When it was all said and done, I’m thinking that we got 4″ or 5″ of snow on Sunday. I guess that winter is here!!!

One of our stops back in October was the ghost town of Minerva in Central Nevada. It’s one of those places that you have to plan your visit, because it’s not on the way to anywhere. Minerva is about 60 miles Southeast of Ely, Nv. and the buildings there are the remnants of an old Tungsten mine that shut down in 1940.

Jan’s photo this week is from the ghost town of Minerva and my photo is from a wind farm just North of Minerva.

Thanks as always for taking the time to check out our work and we hope that you have a great week to come!

Kev and Jan

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Jumping back into the fire!

Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

I have a feeling that a bunch of us were traveling for the Thanksgiving weekend and if you were, hopefully it was safe and uneventful. I made it back from spending the holiday with my folks and as always it was great to be out in New Mexico and enjoying the great weather! It’s not that it’s been horribly cold by any stretch in Central Illinois this past month, but it sure is hard to beat mid 60’s and sunny!!!

We are jumping right back into the fire these next couple of weeks and already have a ton of work to get done! In past years things have always been a little busy right after Thanksgiving and then by about the middle of December things would start to slow down and we’d wind out the end of the year. This year that looks like that’s not going to happen! We still have a road trip to make in a few weeks and I have a feeling that we’ll be busy right up to Christmas. We kicked things into high gear yesterday and we’ll keep rocking till we get everything done in the coming weeks!

Here’s one of my photos from the Dripping Springs Natural Area in Las Cruces.

It’s time for us to get busy, so you have a great week to come!

Kev and Jan

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Page, Az.

Monday morning greetings to one and all!

We are rocking and rolling into Thanksgiving and amazingly it’s about 10 days away and to me that’s so hard to believe. I keep talking about time flying by so fast and I guess that when you are busy, it seems to go faster and faster. At the rate we are going, we’ll hit Thanksgiving and then the next thing you know Christmas and New Years will be right there just as fast! It’s crazy I tell you.

I’ve got a couple of more images to share from our trip out West a month ago and today we have a couple of images from the Page, Az. area. Jan’s got an image from Horseshoe Bend and mine is from Lake Powell. The thing that’s amazing to me is that I’ve been by Horseshoe Bend a number of times and never knew that it was there! Just South of Page about 10 miles is Horseshoe Bend and it’s really very easy to check out. There’s a parking lot just off of Rt. 89 and you have a nice little half mile walk to the area where you can view this spectacular scene. For all these years it was so close and yet so far. I guess there’s always surprises around every corner if you just look for them!

Here’s our photos from the Page, Az. area, enjoy!

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

Kev and Jan

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It’s about time!

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It’s good to be home

Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Well it sure is nice to be home at least for a little while! We were on the road for about 10 days out West shooting nature photography and flew home for about 12 hours to do laundry and repack photo and video gear. We got in the Explorer a week ago on Sunday and did a week long shoot in Alabama and then we got back home on Saturday night and I spent all day yesterday working on a video from the shoot that needs to be done in the next couple of days! Wow, talk about jumping right back into the fire! It’s all good though and it was nice to be sleeping in my own bed the last couple of nights!

Speaking of being out West and shooting nature photography, we are sharing a couple of photos from Monument Valleyin Arizona. As always, it never disappoints and we had a very nice day shooting! About the only thing that would have made it more perfect would have been a few clouds to add a little interest to the sky, but other than that we had abundant sunshine all day long and that’s always great!

Jan’s photo is of the Rain God Mesa and mine is of the Totem Pole area. For those that aren’t hikers, you might not know what the significance of the stacked rocks are in my photo. They are called Cairns and are used to mark hiking trails out in nature. I liked how the Cairns mimicked the Totem Pole formation in the background.

All right, we’ve got to get going because it’s going to be a busy week! Thanks as always for checking out our work and we hope that you have a great week to come!

Kev and Jan

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Recharging the creative batteries

Monday morning Page, Az. greetings to one and all!!!

Well it sure is nice to be back out West once again for a little R & R! Mind you, for some people R&R means rest and relaxation, but for us it means shooting nature photography and that’s our relaxation! It’s so good to be getting out and hiking around and seeing nature and all of its beauty. It’s also good to be out shooting photos for yourself and the creative freedom that it brings. There is something that is very rejuvenating for the mind and the soul and the great thing is that when we get back home and are shooting photos and video for our clients again, we will have recharged our creative batteries and that’s a very good thing!

Our first stop on this trip was to Bryce National Park in Southern Utah and it’s always a great place to come out and shoot photos. For those that have been there, you already know what I’m talking about and for those of you that haven’t, you need to put it on your bucket list and make it one day! The scenery is spectacular and there’s probably no other place like it on earth! The thing that’s nice is that you can see it with a short walk from your car or you can get out and hike the trails and see it from a completely different perspective!

Here’s a few of our shots from Bryce National Park!

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

Kev and Jan

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Down in the park

onday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

We busted through another month and here we are into October and the last quarter of 2016! Amazing! We just keep knocking them out and to think that we are about seven weeks from Thanksgiving and then 11 weeks to Christmas is amazing too!

The fall season really is my favorite time of the year and with the humidity coming down from the highs of summer, it makes for better outside photos. We get those nice blue sky days which I really like and it makes everything look so much better. We’ve been taking advantage of the better weather and have been able to work in some outdoor shoots for our different clients. David Vaughan Investments is one of our clients and we try to come up with different seasonal photos of the outside of their building. We were able to get over there and get some shots before the leaves started to turn. The other fun thing is that their backyard is right next to Forrest Park Nature Center, so they have a lot of different animals that stop by for a little food in the morning. I’ve seen a ton of birds, squirrels and turkeys there at different times of the year. When we were there for this last shoot, I did get the chance to shoot some photos of my first deer at their place. There was a young buck and a couple of doe’s that had come in from the park to eat a little corn. The deer all kept an eye on me, but with a longer lens I was able to get a few shots of them before they took off to go back to the park!

Here’s a couple of my shots from David Vaughan Investments.

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

Kev and Jan

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