Change up!

Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!

I had the chance to get out and see a little live music on Saturday night and that’s always great! There’s nothing better then seeing musicians live doing their thing!!!! The band is called “Change Up” and they are a local Peoria band that plays a bunch of old school R&B, Rock, Funk, you name it and they will probably play it!!! I saw that they will be back at the Rhythm Kitchen on July 13th if you’re looking for a great night out!

Here’s a few of my snaps from Saturday night with Change Up!

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

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version

LG Seeds and farming in Central Illinois

Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

It’s always nice to see children of farmers stepping up and taking over the family business and Mark Douglas is one of those young people! Farming is a very hard gig and I know that the next generation of farmers will come from a home where mom and dad are farmers. It’s not a business that you can jump right in and be a success if you haven’t grown up around it! Mark’s dad Roy is the 5th generation of his family to be farming has been farming all his life and I suspect that Mark as the 6th generation of the family might be doing the same! The Douglas family farms in Urbana, Ill.

Here’s my shot of Mark Douglas for LG Seeds and we had a little fun with this shoot. The look that I was after is a combination of some lighting we did out in the corn field and also having fun in Photoshop to give it a different look and feel!

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

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version

kmcmd3june12

They sure don’t make them like this anymore!!!

Memorial Weekend Monday greetings to one and all,

Don’t get me wrong, there are some cool cars out there today, but Detroit sure doesn’t build cars anymore like the 1957 Chevrolet Nomad that I had in the studio a week ago! I remember seeing these when I was a kid and thinking how cool they were!!!! I would see photos in some of the different car magazines back in the 60’s and they would have Nomads all rigged up with surf boards on the roof and I always thought that was great!!!!

On this snap that I’m sharing today, it’s a rear three quarter view and I just love how those massive fins reach skyward!!!!

If you’re traveling home today, I hope that you have safe travels and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version

The $64.99 shot!

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

Sometimes it takes money to make money and I’m sure you’ve heard that before! I was doing a shoot last week and one of the things that I love is when someone is doing grinding of metal. The photos that I get from this are always great and usually better then when someone is doing welding. With welding you can get sparks and stuff is flying, but you have this intense spot where the welding is being done and the photo gets really overexposed in that area and I’m just not a fan of that! You don’t get that effect when someone is doing grinding, so it really makes for a better photo!

On this shot, I was shooting some other stuff and saw this guy doing some grinding on the job site and thought I would take a few minutes and try to create something different. I took my camera and put it in right into the trail of sparks that was coming off the grinder and that’s something that I’ve never tried before. Right away I knew that I was getting something special, so I shot a few photos like this for a couple of minutes. When I was all done shooting this, I looked at the front of the lens and the UV filter on the front of the lens was pitted from all the sparks and it’s pretty much toast! I had to order new one and it cost me $64.99 for a new UV filter, but that’s a small price to pay for a great shot! The other good thing is that I’ll save that filter and next time I get in a situation like this, I’ll be able to use the pitted filter for that!

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

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version

1966 Aston Martin DB6

подаръциикона за подаръкMonday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

You probably know that I love shooting pictures of cars, so it should come as no surprise that getting the opportunity to shoot an Aston Martin is something special! We’re talking an old school 1966 DB6 and this baby is pretty darn sweet! For those of you James Bond fans, this is a couple years older then the 1964 DB5 that was featured in the movie “Goldfinger”. One of the things that’s always amazing to me about a car like this is the craftsmanship that goes into building and assembling one of these beauties! You can really tell that a lot of love and sweat went into this outstanding DB6!

Here’s a couple of my snaps of this beautiful 1966 Aston Martin!

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

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version

Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge

Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!

On my trip to Charleston a week ago, one of the cool things that grabbed me right away was the bridge from Charleston Sc. to Mount Pleasant Sc. The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge is one of those cable-stayed bridges that really gets your attention with its two distinctive towers that support the bridge along with the white coated cables that hold up the bridge. I just love the interplay and geometric shapes that are created within the bridge!

We were able to get a couple of views of the bridge from some different vantage points from around the area and I’m sharing three of those shots today!

Thanks as always for checking out my work and I really do appreciate that you take the time to do so!!!! Have a great week to come as well!!!

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version

Charleston, Sc.

Monday morning greetings from Tennessee on the way back to P-Town!!!!

I’ve had a quick trip down to Charleston, Sc. this past week and I have to tell you that it was my first there and it won’t be my last time!!! A few years ago I was down in Savannah, Ga. and loved it, so I thought that a trip to Charleston would be pretty close to the same. Little did I know I was right!!!! Wow, what a wonderful area!!! The people were great and the food was spectacular!!!!

Needless to say that I was out shooting and loving it!!!! One of the places that I got to shoot at was Folly Beach and the Morris Island Lighthouse and it was great! There were lots of bleached out trees there on the beach and it was a lot of fun to work with those and work them into my shots!!!!

Thanks as always for checking out my work and I hope that you have a great rest of the week!!!!

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version

Bear Run Mine

Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!!!!

I was over in Dugger, Indiana for a quick shoot last week. We were shooting some photos at the Bear Run Coal Mine and we met a lot of very nice people and that’s always a very good thing! One of the people that we met was Jeff and he works on servicing some of the mine vehicles for the mine. We wanted to grab a quick portrait of Jeff with one of the bulldozers in the background. When I got back to the studio, I started to play with the image and have a little fun working on it. I wanted to give this photo a little more of a gritty feel and by converting it to black and white and doing a few other things in PS, I think that it worked great!

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

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version!

Year 22 in the books!!!!

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

Today is the start of year 23 of self-employment and I have to tell you that I feel pretty darn blessed to be doing something that I so love to do!!!! It’s been a great ride so far and it’s not over yet!!!! I’m always amazed to think of where I started and all the wonderful places that I’ve had shoots at!

Here’s todays photo from the Painted Desert in Northern Arizona!

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

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version

Grand Prismatic Spring

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

One of the things that happens when I go on a big road trip is that sometimes I don’t always get to look through everything that I’ve shot on that trip! Typically when I’m out like that, I’ll “work up” some of my photos in Photoshop and it’s the ones that grab me right away. When I get back home and if time permits, I’ll work up some of the other photos that I didn’t have time to work on before! This snap taken last October from Yellowstone National Park at the Great Prismatic Spring is one of those shots! There were a couple of dead trees that were obstructing part of the shot and they really stood out like a sore thumb and I knew that it was going to take a lot of work to remove them from the photo. I was finally able to take the time (and also have the patience) to remove those dead trees and make this shot even better then it was!!!!! Next time I visit out there, I’ll take a chain saw and cut down the dead trees and then I won’t have to worry about doing and Photoshop work!!!! lol

Here’s my panoramic stitch of the entire Midway Geyser Basin and the Grand Prismatic Spring!

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

Kev

Click on image to see a larger version