Monday morning Rapid City, South Dakota greetings to one and all!

We are on the road once again and what a surprise that is to some of you! 🙂 Last week we had a shoot over by Omaha, Ne. and now this week we’ll be in Colorado for a shoot as well. One of the very nice things for us is that we are able to combine a little fun in with our work and that makes these great road trips for us. We were able to make a little zig in our zag on the way out West and spent yesterday at Badlands National Park and also exploring some of the back roads as well. One of our stops was in the very small town of Scenic, SD. If your driving from Rapid City to Badlands National Park on Rt. 44, you’ll come across the semi ghost town of Scenic. There’s one gas station and a few houses and that’s about it, but back in the day, there was a little bit more here. They had a saloon and the jail was right next door, so you can only imagine what would happen at this place on a nightly basis!!! Good times indeed!!! 🙂

Here’s a couple of our snaps from Scenic, South Dakota.

Next week will be the 4th of July holiday weekend, so if you’re going to be traveling like we will be, make it a safe one between the hot dogs and fireworks! Thanks as always for taking the time to check out our work as well!

Kev and Jan

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

I was out in New Mexico this past week and one of my stops along the way was the City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico. I made my first visit there about seven years ago and I was fascinated by the different formations of rocks that are there. It’s a concentrated group of free-standing rocks that are quite large in some spots and that makes for an interesting place to visit. They also have camping sites in and around the different formations so you can really connect with the surroundings and get back to nature.

Here’s a couple of my snaps from my day at the City of Rocks!

We’ve got a pretty busy week coming up and then we are on the road again before the 4th of July holiday weekend. Summer is here and it’s our busy time indeed!

Thanks again 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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Monday morning New Mexico greetings to one and all!

One of the things that I’ve always loved is stuff that’s “old school”. It can be anything from a vintage car to some cool deco architecture on a building. There’s something about the style of things from the past that probably never will come back again that’s always been intriguing and interesting to me. The other thing that I find fascinating is seeing these things and wondering how long they will be around.

On my road trip to New Mexico on Sunday, I saw a bunch of vintage signs from some places that are long gone and I had to stop and shoot them becuase you just don’t know how long they will be around. The next time that I might come that way, the old buildings and signs could be long gone! I picked out a few of my favorite snaps and there’s something very fun to me about seeing these old designs and styles of signs!

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

Kev

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Monday morning greetings to one and all!

We are rocking and rolling and shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that knows us and also knows that this time of the year is our busy season! It’s all good though and we are loving it!

We’ve been out on the road with our friends at LG Seeds and made quite the road trip a week ago. We traveled to Minnesota, Iowa and Indiana over four days and stopped at eight different locations to shoot customer testimonial photos and video. It’s amazing to think that we would visit our neighboring states and still travel over 1500 miles in just four days. When it was all said and done, the trip was well worth all the effort and we got a lot of great content for LG Seeds to use in the coming months.

This week I’m sharing Jan’s photos of the different farming people that we interviewed on our trip. I’ve always loved shooting candid photos of people when they aren’t on camera and you can get some of the best and most relaxed images of people. When you see these photos that Jan took, you’ll see what I mean. Lots of smiles and laughs and to me these are pure money photos! At some point when we get some of the video testimonials put together, we’ll share those as well. I don’t want you to think that I’m just sitting on my butt while Jan’s doing all the work!

Here’s eight of Jan’s great candid photos for LG Seeds!

It’s time for us to get going, we’ve got another busy week and then we are off and on the road once again! We hope that you’re going to have a great rest of the week and thanks for taking the time to check out our work!

Kev and Jan

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Tuesday morning greetings to one and all!

Most of us had Monday off for Memorial Day and hopefully the weekend was a good one. If you were traveling or are traveling this week, be safe because so many people are out on the road. The kids are out of or about out of school for the summer and families will be out on vacation in the next few weeks and months enjoying the time off. I always remember when I was younger and in school that I was so happy to have that last school day done and then the start of summer and the fun that I knew I would be having.

One of the good things that I see more and more of is an awareness about what Memorial Day means and seeing people acknowledging it on social media. I think that sometimes it’s easy for us to forget what the day means and we get wrapped up in cook-outs and racing on tv. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of those things too, but I try to take some time to remember those that have given it all so that we can be a free country.

We’ve got a couple of our shots from Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, Ca. If you’ve not been there in person, it’s a beautiful area at the end of the Point Loma peninsula and you have an incredible view of the downtown San Diego area and also the Pacific Ocean.

Here’s those shots from the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.

It’s going to be a short week of work this week, so let’s all make it a good one!

Thanks again!

Kev and Jan

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Well we are back on the road this week with a couple of farming shoots here in the Midwest. We always enjoy getting out and talking with the different farmers that we will be working with this week and it should be a lot of fun!

After 146 years of entertaining boys and girls of all ages, Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus gave their final performance and took their final bow last night. It was an amazing run and it’s the end of an era and to me that’s a little sad. Long before there were video games and the internet, the Ringling Circus was a big deal and if they came to your town, it was a very big deal. The circus would travel by train and they would have a parade with the animals and performers from the rail-yard to the venue that they were playing that night. I can fondly remember this from my childhood and it was a very magical time for me.

I was incredibly fortunate to shoot some photos at a stop that Ringling Bros. made here in Peoria back in September of 2003. I had taken some portraits for one of the performers in the circus at my studio and he got me a pass to shoot the circus that evening. To be down on the floor shooting all the things that went on that night was very special and a memory that I’ll never forget. I even still have the Ringling coveralls that I had to wear since I was down on the floor of the arena with all of the performers.

Here’s a few of my snaps from that night 14 years ago at the Peoria Civic Center of “The Greatest Show on Earth”.

The Explorer is loaded with gear and it’s time for us to get out and do a little photography and video with our farming friends! We hope that you have a great week and if you’re traveling this coming Memorial weekend, make a safe one!

Thanks again!

Kev and Jan

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Monday morning greetings to one and all!

Wow, the sun came out in Central Illinois and the end of this past week and what a difference it made in our attitudes! The whole weekend couldn’t have been nice with the temperatures in the high 70’s and abundant sunshine all weekend. It’s amazing how much you appreciate seeing the sunny skies and the warmer temperatures after going through a period of overcast and rainy days upon days upon days. Jan and I made the best of it and took a little road trip down South of Peoria to Jacksonville, Illinois. They are working on revitalizing their downtown area and you can see the progress that they are making and you drive around the city. Jacksonville’s got a small town square in the center of town and they have worked on rehabbing some of the older buildings and aren’t letting things deteriorate. We spent the afternoon walking around and shooting photos and it’s always so much fun for us when we get the time to do that!

Here’s a couple of our snaps from an afternoon spent in Jacksonville, Illinois.

We hope that you’re going to have a great week to come and thanks for taking the time to check out our work.

Kev and Jan

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Monday morning Alabama greetings to one and all!

Well it’s that time of year when the road trip gigs are starting once again and we are ready to roll. I’ve talked about this a number of times with our traditionally busy season being the months of May, June, July and August. This year it’s already shaping up to be busy and we’ve got a number of road trips on our calendar for the next three months, so it should be interesting as it always is! If we didn’t like being out-of-town for our gigs, this would be horrible, but since Jan and I both like to travel it’s a very good thing!

We’ve got a couple more of our San Diego images to share and it’s amazing to me that it’s been two months since we were just there, it does seem like it was just last week! For those that haven’t been to San Diego, Point Loma is a peninsula West of the downtown and it provides some incredible views of the city along with the Pacific Ocean. We were very fortune to be there as the sun was going down and as luck would have it, the USS Nimitz was leaving the port and heading out to sea. It’s truly amazing to see one of these big ships in person and see it in action.

Here’s a couple of our snaps from Point Loma and the USS Nimitz.

Thanks as always for taking to time to check 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!

In April of 1990, I started down the road to being self-employed and 27 years later here we are still rocking and rolling! It has been an amazing ride and it’s not over just yet, so we’ve got a few more years of doing photography and video for our clients and that makes us happy! We’ve come a very long way from the days of shooting film from 35mm up to 8” x 10” film for the view cameras in the studio. The transition from shooting film to digital in 2001 was a huge step and a big learning curve, but well worth the effort. The funny thing is that you couldn’t pay me to go back to shooting film after all these years shooting digitally! We’ve also made the jump just two years ago to shooting video for clients and now that video work accounts for 70% of our business. I’d also be very remiss if I didn’t mention that Jan started shooting and working with me on a full-time basis two years ago as well. A lot has happen in 27 years and there’s still more for us to do before we finally hang things up in a few years. We are so very blessed to have so many great clients that we have worked with over the years and that have supported us and what we do. I can’t ever say thank you enough for all the work all these many years! We’re not done yet, so there’s more to come!

Here’s a couple of our photos from Balboa Park in San Diego, California. What a great place to visit and to enjoy all that goes on there!

We hope that you have a very wonderful week to come and thanks for checking out our work and being part of our lives!

Kev and Jan

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

After what seemed like weeks of rain and gloom here in Central Illinois, we finally had some sun and warmer temperatures this past weekend and it sure was nice. There’s something in me that can get very depressed when I don’t see the sun enough, so I guess that rules out Seattle as a retirement city! Oh trust me, the rainy season isn’t over by a long shot, so we’ll just have to enjoy the sun when it’s out in the coming weeks!

One of the charity projects that we worked on last year was for our friends at Peoria Rescue Ministries and it’s that time of the year for homeowners and landscapers to get out and get their yards beautified for summer. PRM has an incredible program that helps rehabilitate men that need some guidance in turning their life’s around. Victory Acres is part of PRM and making the mulch is one of the great funding programs that helps keep PRM going.

We shot and edited this tv commercial for Victory Acres and it was a collaborative effort with our friends and Burdess and Associates who helped with the creative content. It’s always fun to work on a project like this because you can see that it helps those that need it and also provides a great product for our local community!

Here’s our 30 second commercial for the mulch program at Victory Acres and Peoria Rescue Ministries.

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

Kev and Jan

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