Watching the sun go down!!!

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

One of the most fun things that I enjoy photographing is a nice city skyline at sunset! To me it’s always fun and challenging to try and come up with something that’s different and fresh! When I was down in Corpus Christi, Texas last month, I knew that I was going to try and get a nice skyline shot of the city. Corpus Christi is located on the waterfront of the Gulf of Mexico, so I knew that working the water into the shot was a must!

Here’s my panoramic snap of Corpus Christi, Tx. at night!!!!

I also did a time lapse of the transition from day to night as well and I’ve got a link for that on YouTube

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

Kev

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kmccc25mar13

Stitching

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April Fools Day Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

Sometimes I get asked if I ever miss shooting film for my photos and the answer is no! There were things that we could only dream of doing with our photography back in the days of printing in the darkroom that are now possible with shooting digitally. One of those things that’ve been doing for probably seven or so years is “Photo Stitching”. It’s pretty simple, you take a series of photos and then in the computer you “stitch” the images together to create one big image. In the case of the snap that I’m sharing today, this is my first attempt at doing a 360 degree photograph. Inside the Caterpillar Visitors Center here in Peoria is what I like to call the “Big Room”. In this room there are a bunch of Caterpillar products including a life size version of a 797F mining truck. It’s hard from a photography stand point to get a good shot showing the size of these machines and the scope of the room all in one photograph, but that’s where this stitching shot comes in!

Here’s my photo of the CVC “Big Room”. This 360 degree photograph is 72 individual photos stitched together! Enjoy!!!!

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

Kev

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kmccvc25mar13

Avery Island, Louisiana

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Winter storm Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

Here it is the end of March and we get another winter storm rolling though P-Town once again!!!! We had better weather in February then we’ve had in March and if I didn’t know better, I’d think the two months have switched places!!!

You’ve probably never heard of Avery Island, but I know that you’ve heard of a very famous product from Avery Island, Tabasco Pepper Sauce! Down in Southern Louisiana is the home of Tabasco at Avery Island. It’s one of those places that you have to make an effort to see becuase it’s not on the road to anywhere! Besides visiting the Tabasco plant for a visit, you can also visit Jungle Gardens which is right next door!

Jungle Gardens is a 170 acre nature park that contains a botanical gardens and also a bird sanctuary. I was there last month and it was just a little bit early for spring to really start blooming, but the Azaleas were all ready rocking and there were about 300 cranes nesting in the sanctuary. As well, there is also a 600 year old Chinese Buddha in the gardens!

If you’re ever down in New Orleans and looking for a nice day trip, Avery Island is a couple of hours down the road and well worth a visit to see the Tabasco factory and Jungle Gardens!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from my day at Jungle Gardens!

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

Kev

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kmcai25mar13

South Texas Botanical Gardens

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

I think that one of the things that most of us here in the Midwest miss in the winter time is the greenery that we get in spring and summer! In the winter here in Peoria, there’s not too much short of snow and a lot of brown! We don’t have any leaves on the trees and no grass in the yards, so it’s pretty bland! At this time of the year we’re really ready for some warmer temps and the signs of spring to get started. It seems like we’re having to wait a little longer for those warmer temperatures here in P-Town!!!

I was down in Corpus Christi, Texas last month and I was able to escape winter for a little while and also get some of that spring time color that we’ve all been missing! On one of my days in Corpus Christi, I was able to spend the day at the South Texas Botanical Gardens and it sure was fun!!! I was a little bit early for a lot of the plants and flowers that will be coming, but I was still able to see lots of greenery and color and it was wonderful!!!

Here are a few of my snaps from a day spent at STBG!!!

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

Kev

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kmcstbg18mar13

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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