Top Ten Photos of 2013!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

What a difference a week makes! Last week we had below zero temperatures and wind chills that would rival the Arctic! This weekend in Peoria, the temperature got back to normal and even a little about at 40 degrees and you’d think that people were ready to break the summer shorts out! Winter’s not over by a long shot, but it sure has been nice to have a few days like we’ve been having as of late!!!!

One of the questions that I’ll get from people is “What’s your favorite or the best photo that you’ve ever taken?” To me, that’s always a very hard question because I like to think that my most recent work is always my best work. By that I think that I continue to learn and get better as a photographer everyday that I’m shooting photos! I feel like if your attitude as a creative person is that “I know it all” and I can’t learn anything new about my craft, your time is over! From that point forward, you’ll probably never progress and get better at what you do!!

I always enjoy looking back on the year to see what I’ve shot and to pick out some of my best work. It can be very hard when I look at all the photos that I’ve shot in a given year to just pick ten photos out of that year. 2013 was no exception and I started pulling some images and ended up with about 20 that I really liked and from there I had to whittle it down to my ten best! Very difficult indeed!!!!

Here’s my ten best photos for 2013 and I’ve added some notes for each of the photos with a little more info for those that want to know a little bit more!

Thanks as always for taking the time to check out my work and I do very much appreciate it!!! 🙂

Have a great week to come!!!!!

Kev

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2013TopTen

Welcome to winter!!!

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-42 degree wind chill Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

Yes folks that aren’t here in the Midwest, the wind chill this morning in Peoria is -42 degrees and that’s pretty darn cold!!!!! It’s not like this happens every year to us, but we do get blasted every few years with a -20 degree wind chill, so it’s not completely out of the question! The thing to do on days like this is to stay inside if possible and out of the elements! I know that barring an emergency on Monday, I’m not going anywhere!!!!!!!

Here’s a little something to warm you up on a cold day! I’ve put together some of my photos and video from the Big Island of Hawaii from December into a nice five minute slideshow! I know on days like this to see the tropical vegetation and have the warm trade winds blowing on you is pretty darn good! It will probably be awhile before we see temperatures in Peoria in the 80’s, so this will have to do!!!

Enjoy the show! Turn up the music and drift off to paradise for five minutes!!! Here’s the YouTube link for the Hawaii slideshow!

Alright, stay warm and inside if you can and know that spring is coming, just not soon enough! Have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!!

Kev

It’s a wrap!!!

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Year end Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Here we are at the end of 2013 and we’re just about ready to turn the calendar to a new page and a new year! It was a good year with a lot of great shoots and I was on the road for a number of them!!!! I’d always like to have a nice mix of shoots in town and on the road and this year it seemed like that was the case. Too much of either of those is not a good thing!!! I picked up some new clients in 2013 and that’s always nice as well!

All right, it’s time to get busy and get rocking in 2014! I’ll be all ready to go after having had a nice couple of months in November and December! Things are traditionally slow work wise, so it’s always been a good time to leave town on vacation!!!! As they say, “I’m tan, rested and ready to go!!!”

Here’s one of my shots from a couple of weeks ago in Kona, Hawaii. The cruise ships come into port in the morning at Kona and sail at night to their next destination. This ship was Norwegian Cruise Line’s “Pride of America” which sails to the different Hawaiian islands!

I hope that you’re going to have a very safe and fun New Years tomorrow night!!!! Have a great 2104 as well and let’s make it the best year every!!!!! Thanks as always for checking out my photography and it’s very much appreciated by me!!!! 🙂

Kev

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kmchi30dec13

The Painted Church

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Monday morning Peoria greetings!!!!

Wow, reality once again!!!! Flying back from Hawaii yesterday and you already know the weather is not going to be as nice as what you left behind less then 24 hours earlier! Oh well, we can’t all live in paradise!!!! 🙂

We spend 12 days on the Big Island of Hawaii and as always, it didn’t disappoint!!! There is just so much to see and you’ll never do it in a week or even a year!!! One of the places that we saw and shoot photos of back in 2008 when we were there before was the Painted Church on the Big Island. The offical title of the church is St. Benedict Roman Catholic Church, but on the island it’s know as the Painted Church. It was painted by Father John Velghe in 1899 and the inside is something that you’ll probably not see in a church outside of Hawaii!!

Here’s one of my many snaps of the inside of the Painted Church and as you can see, it’s not a very big place! This imagine is a 180 degree view of the front half of the church!

It’s Christmas week and I know that a lot of you will be off of work and spending time with family and friends! I hope that your week is a wonderful one and also a safe one if you’re traveling!!!!

Thanks again for checking out my work and have a great Christmas week!!!

Kev

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kmcpc22dec13

Mele Kalikimaka!!!

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Monday morning greetings from Kona, Hawaii!!!

It’s coming on the end of the year and for me it’s usually a very slow time work wise! During the course of the year it can be so hard to predict a good time to take a vacation because of work, but at this time of the year it’s a good time to get out of town! You never know what the weather is going to be like leading up to Christmas and this year it sounds like we are missing a bunch of cold and snow in Peoria!

Well, when you’re in paradise, sunsets and 80 degree weather are never too upsetting! Unfortunately paradise in the 50th state will have to end and reality of the snow and cold will hit us!!!! Oh well, we’ll enjoy this while it lasts and then get back home!!!

Here’s one of my shots from Kona and a glorious sunset on the Pacific Ocean and some of the boats and a cruise ship in the harbor!!!

Oh by the way, Mele Kalikimaka is Merry Christmas in Hawaiian and we’re less then 10 days away from Christmas in case you had forgotten!!!!!!!!!!

Have a great week to come and thanks for checking out my work!!!!!

Kev

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kmckona16dec13

Christmas is coming!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!!

Here we are just a little over two weeks before Christmas and it’s hard to believe that it’s coming up this fast! I’m just amazing how quickly this year has flown by and it seems like just yesterday it was Labor Day weekend! I guess the saying about how time flies the older that you get seems to be true in my case! Well with Christmas just a few weeks away and just around the corner 2014 is less then a month away! Amazing!!!!

I was out shooting this past weekend and one of the things that I wanted to try to get was a Christmas tree shot and I found the perfect one out at the Shoppes at Grand Prairie. They’ve got a 25 foot Christmas tree that is all decked out with lights and a incredible sound system! From 5:00pm to 9:30pm every night, there is a light and sound show that can only be described as a mini version of the Freemont Street Experience in Las Vegas. The tree goes through a light show as an assortment of music is playing and it’s very neat! If you’re out that way in the next couple of weeks, it’s worth the time to see it and check out the show!

Here’s one of my shots from Saturday night!

It’s time to get to work today, so I hope that you’re going to have a wonderful week!!!! Thanks as well for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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kmcgp8dec13

Back at it!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

It’s time to get back it for my friends here in the US! My hope is that you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving break and now it’s time to push it to the end of the year!!!!

I was fortunate to spend time with my folks in Southern New Mexico this past week and as always, it’s a wonderful time! It’s always great to see family and spend time with them! In my case, since my folks now live in the Southwest, it’s time for me to also get out and shoot a little nature photography in a part of the country that I truly love! When you’ve grown up in the Midwest and seen cornfields for most of your life, to see the mountains and the desert is a wonderful thing! I’m sure that there are people that think that the Western US is “God forsaken” and that’s fine, to each his own! I do love it there!!!!

Here’s one of my snaps from last week in Las Cruces, New Mexico of the Organ Mountains!

Alright, it’s time to get back to work! I hope that you have a very wonderful week and thanks again for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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kmcom1dec13

Chihuly and Thanksgiving

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New Mexico greetings to one and all!!!!

It’s been a little over a year since the Caterpillar Visitors Center and the Peoria Riverfront Museum opened up in downtown Peoria and it sure has been a great improvement to our city!

For those of you that remember Lakeview Museum, the PRM is a huge upgrade and they really have done a nice job with it! Since PRM has opened, we’ve had a couple of major shows with a great show of photographs from nature photographer Ansel Adams and now a show of glass work from the George R. Stroemple Collection. In this collection is the work of one of my favorite artists, Dale Chihuly! Chihuly’s glass work is incredible and if you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and come down to PRM in the next few months and check it out!

Here’s my snap of the exhibit room at PRM of the Chihuly and Friends show!

It’s Thanksgiving week and like me, I have a feeling that a lot of people that I know will be taking advantage of this short work week and traveling! I’ve traveled down here to New Mexico to spend Thanksgiving with my folks and am very happy about that!!!! I’m thankful for the people and things in my life, so this is a great time of the year to reflect on all of that!

If you’re going to travel this week to visit family and friends for Thanksgiving, make it a safe one!!!!!

Have a great week as always and thanks again for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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kmcprm22nov13

Washington, Ill.

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Sunday the 17th started out like a normal Sunday in Central Illinois. The weather people had talked about some rain and maybe a storm or two in the morning and then a sunny afternoon. At some point around 9:00am things started to get dark outside at my house (about 25 miles west of Washington). I checked the radar on the internet and you could see some storms and rain coming, but nothing looked too ominous. At some point at my house, it started to rain pretty heavy and then a bit of hail and a lot of wind! The trees were blowing and things were rocking pretty good for about 15 minutes and as fast as it started, it was over. No damage or issues and I’m thinking it’s just another storm that we have here in the Midwest. I couldn’t have been more wrong! The storm really picked up when it got on the Eastern side of the Illinois River and it rocked the Pekin, Il. area pretty good. The storm then headed North and hit Washington, Il. and just nailed the city. By now you’ve probably seen the photos and video of the devastation and unless you’re in it, it doesn’t seem as real. I found out a couple of people that I know lost their homes in this storm and for me that’s when it really became real. You’re then putting a face with what you’re seeing on TV and the reality starts to hit home!!!!

It’s been speculated that because this happened on a Sunday morning and people were at church, more people weren’t home and hurt or killed by this storm. I don’t know if this is true, but I’d like to think that it is!

In the coming days we’ll hear more about what can be done to help out the people effected by this storm and I know that it’s going to take awhile for things to be rebuilt! The good thing that I’ve come to know about Central Illinois is that it’s a very giving area and we will help our own!!!

Thanks for checking out my work and I hope that you’ll keep all these people in your thoughts and prayers!

Kev

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kmc17nov13

St. Joseph Plantation

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!!

We got back from our quick little vacation down in New Orleans a few days ago and it was really great to be down there as it always is! There is just so much going on with all of the great music and food and it’s always a good time!

One of the things that we like to do is to get out and away from the city and drive on the back roads in the area! Part of the fun of this is to go along the Mississippi River and see some of the different plantations that are still there. There are a number of really good ones and each time we are there we try to see a new one. The St. Joseph Plantation is a working sugar plantation that has been around since 1830, so there’s an incredible amount of history there! After taking the tour of the St. Joseph plantation, we were able to walk around the grounds and see some of the other buildings. One of the buildings that caught my eye was some of the slave cabins that were there on the property. When you see the main plantation home and all of it’s elegance, comfort and style, it’s a bit shocking to see the complete opposite of the slave cabins!

Here’s one of my shots from the St. Joseph Plantation that I really like!!!

I hope that you’re going to have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!!!

Kev

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kmc11nov13