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

Laissez les bons temps rouler

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Monday morning greetings from New Orleans to one and all!!!

It’s always great to get out of town for a few days and to have more then a few days means a much longer road trip!! Being from the Midwest and going to the gulf coast from New Orleans over to the panhandle of Florida has been a family tradition for my family for many years! We spent many a Easter vacation in Biloxi, Mississippi when I was a kid and came to love this part of the country! Here we are all those many years later and we are still drawn to the Gulf Coast!!!! Lots of great food and drinks and that famous Southern hospitality, it’s always a can’t miss time!!!!!

One of my favorite places in New Orleans is Pat O’Briens! If you’ve been there, you know all about Pat O’s!!!! If you haven’t been Pat O’Briens, you need to add it to your list of places and things to do! There’s something special from sitting outside on the courtyard patio to being inside in the dueling piano bar! Their motto is “Have Fun” and I can’t think of a better place to do that!

Here’s one of my snaps of the world famous Pat O’Brien Hurricanes!!!! What a drink!!!!

As they say down here in NOLA, “Laissez les bons temps rouler” and for those of us that don’t speak French, “Let the good times roll”!!! That’s a metaphor for life!!!!!

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

Kev

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kmcpob3nov13

Halloween Hunt!!!

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Monday morning greetings from Peoria!!!!!!!!!

It was an very beautiful weekend here in Peoria!!! Fall is in the air and with temps in the 50’s, it’s time to put that sweatshirt and jeans on!!!!! I really just love this time of year!!!! The humidity of summer is long gone and having the cooler temperatures is a wonderful change from summer here in the Midwest!!!

Wow, the Peoria Riverfront Museum is kicking things up and they had a great event yesterday! They hosted their first “Halloween Hunt” on Sunday and I’d say it was a huge success!!!!!! I saw lots of kids dressed up in costumes and also a few adults got into the swing of things as well!!!! They had all kinds of fun and educational things for the kids from a laser light planetarium show in the dome with Halloween music to science demos with dry ice (always a favorite of mine) and also real live bats!!!!!!!!!! The bats were very cool and the kids liked them!!!!! One of my favorite shots on this promo is the shot of the young man wearing his Batman custom and they hung a real live bat on him!!!! The funny thing was they asked him after how it was and he said, “his claws were sticking me, it hurt!!!” Priceless!!!!!!!

Lots of fun in P-Town yesterday at the museum and here’s a few of my snaps!!!!

Thanks so much for checking out my work as always and I hope that you have a wonderful week to come!!!!!

Kev

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kmc1prm27oct13

Bringing in the crops!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all,

Well it’s that time of year when the farmers are out in full force here in the Midwest getting their crops in! If you’ve traveled at all in farm country, you’ve seen the combines out working in the fields. The weather here in the Peoria area has been perfect for harvesting and we haven’t had much rain so the farmers have been working day and night! They have to take advantage of the good weather because they’d like to get their crops in before the weather turns and the rain will keep them out of the fields!

Here’s one of my snaps of a glorious day of sun and dry weather for our farmers! The numbers should be good and the grain bins will be full!!!!!

It’s time to get to work, so I hope that you’re going to have a great week ahead!!!!

Kev

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kmc1lg20oct13

The Moody Blues

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

Shooting bands in clubs and concerts is something that I’ve always enjoyed doing! For the last number of years, I haven’t had the time or opportunity to do it and it’s something that I’ve really missed! I got my chance to get back into the game this past week in Peoria to shoot the Moody Blues at the Peoria Civic Center. Those of you under 30 probably won’t know who this band is, but to those of us in that 50 and over range, we know all about the band!

I was shooting photos for Frank Productions out of Madison, Wisconsin who was promoting the MB show here in Peoria! The concert was in the Civic Center Theater and they had a sold out show!!!! It was my first time shooting in the theater having seen a number of shows there as part of the audience. One of the challenges is that with any press pass, you can shoot the first three songs and then you’re done! You’ve got to make sure that you get your shots and at most you have 15 minutes of time to get those shots! The other challenge in shooting at the PCC theater is that you can’t get in front of the stage since they have seating there, so it’s either stage right or stage left to get your shots! There’s no time to mess around with a gig like this!!!!! 🙂

The band came out and right out of the box starting cranking out some of their hits! While they were singing and playing I was working on getting my photos! I think that I got a number of good snaps and here are some of my shots from this past Monday night!

It’s another busy week for me, so I’ve got to get rocking and rolling!!!!!! I hope that you’re going to have a great week to come and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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kmc1mb13oct13

“Muscle on Main”

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

I was able to get over to Morton, Illinois this past Saturday for the 7th annual “Muscle on Main” strongman competition, It’s the first time that I’ve had the chance to watch this event since I’ve been out of town in past years. They shut down a block on Main St. in Morton and they set up a bunch of different challenges for these tough men and women! It was raining for a good part of the event, so for safety they didn’t have all of the events. What I did see was amazing! One of the events that I have featured in this promo was the “yoke” carrying of two full sized refrigerators. The object to to pick up the yoke and carry those refrigerators 20 yards in the quickest time possible. Some of the bigger contestants we’re able to do this fairly quickly and others that were a little smaller had a heck of a time! In those cases it was pure guts and determination that would get them through it. You can see the pain that they were going through to get the yoke picked up and then walk with it! Oh by the way, the whole rig weighted over 500 pounds!!!! That’s crazy!!!!!!!!

The other event that I shot was the “Conan’s Wheel” and for this challenge, the contestants had a long steel bar that had a Ninja motorcycle as the weight that they had to move. The object was to see how many times they could carry this motorcycle in a circle. The one interesting thing is that when they started, the bar that they were carrying was up by their neck and as it the motorcycle got heavier and heavier, the bar would drop lower and lower in their arms until they couldn’t hold it anymore! Amazing to watch!!!!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from the 7th annual “Muscle on Main”!

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

Kev

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