Two years in the making!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all,

I was just able to finish up a gig that we have been trying to shoot for the last two years. The Peoria Park District wanted to do a shoot showing some of the different zoo animals out in the snow to help promote visiting the Peoria Zoo in the winter time. For this shoot, we needed to have at least a couple of inches of snow to make the shots look good and last winter we never really had enough snow to do the shoot. This winter rolls around and we’re waiting for a good snow and nothing of any amount for the first three months of winter. We had come up to the end of February and still really didn’t have any good snow and we were starting to think that we were going to strike out again this year and would have to wait until next year. All at once last week we got a lot of snow and were able to get the shots that we needed!!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from a day at the Peoria Zoo!

I’ve also got a Facebook cover shot of Lizzy the Lion as well for those that would like to use it! http://kevinmay.com/kmczoofb.jpg

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

Kev

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kmcpz10mar13

USS Lexington

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

I was down in Corpus Christi, Texas last week and I was able to get out and shoot a ton of stuff while I was there! The weather was perfect and it was nice to escape the Peoria winter for a little bit!

One of my days was spent shooting at the USS Lexington. This former aircraft carrier is now set up as a floating museum and it’s very cool. You have the option of doing a guided tour or you can do a self guided tour which I did. They give you access to five different areas of the ship from the top of the flight deck with a bunch of planes all the way down to the engine room in the bottom of the ship. One of the other areas that I really enjoyed was the bridge of the ship and it was amazing to see that! In the bridge area, I was surprised by the number of things that were made from brass and you can see that in a few of the photos that I’m sharing today. It was also very neat to see where the sailors lived and in a way the ship is like a floating city. From the galley to the dentist’s office, it was interesting to see what life might have been like for the men and women!

Here’s a few of my shots from the “Lady Lex”!

I hope that you have a great week to come and thanks as always for taking the time to check out my work!!!!

Kev

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kmclex3mar13

Is lighting is becoming a lost art?

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Monday morning Corpus Christi, Tx. greetings to one and all!!!!

I’ve talked for a long time about the lost art of doing lighting! It’s something that we did before the days of digital photography and it seems like we do it less and less nowadays. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never go back to shooting film and I’m so happy to have a digital image that I can massage and manipulate in the computer. So much of the photography that I now do wouldn’t be possible without shooting digitally! I just miss that we would take time in the past to do some really nice lighting on a product or a person and now we just kind of bang it out in a more photojournalistic style (Thank God I have a degree in Photojournalism from Bradley University)!

I was very fortunate to have one of my clients Simformotion allow me a little time to do some lighting on one of their simulators. The best part is that we were able to come away with some really nice shots of their products without spending a ton of time! The client was happy and I was happy!

Here’s one of our shots from the day showing what can be done if you just take a little time to do something right!

I hope that you’re going to have a wonderful week and thanks for taking the time to check out my work!!!!!

Kev

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kmcsim22feb13

Finding hidden treasures at home!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Sometimes in life we miss things that are right in our backyard. It doesn’t matter what city you’re in, you just don’t always know what little treasures are out there. I found one of those gems down in Manito, Ill. last week at Sand Ridge State Forest. It’s a place that I had seen on the map, but there wasn’t a lot of information out there on it so I never made a visit. Last week I thought what the heck and went out and I was very pleasantly surprised by what I found. Sand Ridge is 7,200 acres and probably has about 70 miles of hiking trails! I picked the “Orange” trail and it’s a five mile hike. I didn’t see one person all day, so I had the place to myself. It was great in February and I can only imagine how great it will be in October when the leaves are turning on the trees!!! I will be back!!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from an afternoon spent at Sand Ridge State Forest.

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

Kev

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kmcsr17feb13

Chevy and Assembly Hall

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

For those of you that remember I shared a photo from the University of Illinois at Memorial Stadium with four cars that we shot for Chevrolet last summer. Chevy was doing a cross promotion with the U of I for their football and basketball programs. We shot photos of the different cars in the morning at the basketball arena, Assembly Hall and then in the afternoon at the football stadium, Memorial Stadium. We had the perfect day to be out there shooting and the shots came out great!!!!

Here’s the shot of the four Chevy cars at Assembly Hall http://kevinmay.com/kmcuoi10feb13.jpg

For those that don’t remember, here’s the link to the promo of the Chevy cars at Memorial Stadium http://blog.kevinmay.com/2012/10/01/chevrolet-and-the-university-of-illinois/

I’m also going to try something new for my friends on Facebook as well this week. I’m going to crop the Monday morning photo into the format of the Facebook cover photo and all you’ll have to do is download the photo from this link and then change your cover photo and you’ll be all set! No fuss, no muss!!!!! Here’s the link for the Facebook cover version of this weeks promo! http://kevinmay.com/kmcuoi10feb13fb.jpg

I hope that you have a wonderful week as always and thanks again for checking out my work!!!

Kev

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kmcuoi10feb13

Where are you headed next?

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

That’s the question that I get asked all the time now, “Where are you headed next?” It’s amazing to me how much time I do spend on the road and out of Peoria for work and also to shoot for myself! As anyone that travels a lot for work will tell you, it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be! Sure there are some good things that happen on a road trip and sometimes things don’t go as planned!!! I do love it though and I’ll take the bad with the good anytime!

If I am going, it’s a good thing that I have some cash from past road trips!!!

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

Kev

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Rebirth

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Having been through parts of the Western United States, you’ll come across areas that have been devastated by forrest fires. It’s amazing to see whole areas that have burned and what little is left afterwards. It’s also incredibly amazing to see how the forrest comes back from these fires! It takes time, but it does happen!

While traveling in New Mexico last month, I could see the results of a big forrest fire that hit Eastern Arizona and Western New Mexico a couple of summers ago. The Apache and Gila National Forests got rocked pretty good and you can see the scars of the fires on the blackened trees, but you can also see the forrest healing it’s self. Life is coming back and it will take time, but in 20 or so years, you probably won’t be able to tell that there ever was a fire!

Here’s a couple of my snaps from the Apache National Forrest and you can see the life coming back to the forrest!

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

Kev

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kmcrb28jan13

Needles Overlook at Canyonlands and 3000 Flickr photos

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

On my trip out West a few weeks ago, I was able to visit the Needles Overlook at Canyonlands National Park in Utah and it’s spectacular! The Needles Overlook is south of Moab and it’s about a 22 mile drive one way out in the middle of nowhere, but well worth it! You’ll see incredible views from a couple thousand feet above the Needles area of Canyonlands!!! Here’s one of my snaps of the Needles areas!

I’ve been on a photo sharing website called Flickr for almost seven years now and this weekend I just uploaded my 3000th photo. The thing that I love about Flickr is that I have a ton of photos on a wide variety of subjects that people can check out! If you’re wanting to see a bunch of my photography, here’s a link for the different sets of photos that I have on Flickr. Enjoy!!!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmay/sets

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

Kev

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kmcno20jan13

Arches National Park Time Lapse

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to all of my friends around the globe!!!!

If you’ve known me for any amount of time, you know that my favorite national park is Arches in Moab, Utah. I guess that for someone from the Midwest to see those red rocks and the formations is nothing like we have here with our flat landscape and cornfields! There is just something about that area of the country that calls me to come back again and again and explore all the different areas of the park!!!!

I was able to put together a nice time lapse from the park at three different areas within Arches; Devils Garden, Delicate Arch and the La Sal Mountains.

Here’s also a link for the image on the right of some tracks going through the snow at Arches! Your guess is as good as mine as to what kind of animal makes tracks like these!

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

Kev

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kmc3anp13jan13

Back in the ball game

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Monday morning greetings to one and all!!!!

Happy New Year and I have a feeling that most of us are now back to work! Wow, It sure was nice to be off durning the Christmas holiday!!!!!

I spent some time this past week at one of my favorite National Parks in the US! Arches National Park in Moab, Utah is one of our treasures here in the US and I feel like it’s my home away from home! If you’ve been there, you might know what I’m talking about. If not, make a road trip there and I guarantee you won”t be disappointed!!!!!

Here’s one of my snaps of Delicate Arch at sundown and to see the La Sal mountains as the background is wonderful!!!

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

Kev

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kmcanp5jan13