Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!!!!!

It’s probably got to be a very short week for a lot of my American friends with the big 4th of July weekend coming up next weekend! If you are going to travel, make it a safe one!

I was out this past Saturday morning at Illinois Central College’s Hort Gardens with some of my friends from the Peoria Flickr group. They have a monthly photo walk and this month we were over at ICC. We had a very good day to shoot and I’ve already seen a number of great shots from everyone in the group and that’s what it’s all about!!!!! Here’s a collage of nine of my snaps and you might see something that you like in these!!!!!!

Here’s also a link for our Peoria Flickr group if you’d like to see some of the very talented photographers here in Peoria!!!! http://www.flickr.com/groups/peoria/

Thanks as always for checking out my work and I hope that you have a great rest of the week!!!! Safe travels to those that will be out and about for the big holiday weekend!!!!

Kev

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Monday Peoria greetings to all!!!!

My friends over at Azura Boutique have moved to a new store in Peoria Heights on the corner of Prospect and Glen and needed some snaps of the new place! I waited for the perfect night and here’s the results!

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

Thanks!!!!!

Kev

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Night-time or early morning Peoria greetings to all my friends around the world!!!!!

You’re probably looking at the bottom of the e-mail looking for your Monday morning pretty picture and there isn’t one, what gives? You’ll just have to click on the first link on the page to see the treat that I have for you today!!!

When I first started doing some time lapse photography six months ago, I started thinking about other possibilities and variations of it besides time lapse.  I had taken a series of photos of this Australian truck for print ads and I thought that I might be able to put something together in the computer that could be different and fun. The first attempt was the original color photos and it was pretty neat,  but it was lacking in intensity.  I took the photos into Photoshop and converted them to Black and White and then added some grain to give it a more edgy feeling.  I also did some blurring and some burning (darkening certain spots of the photos).  I now was getting the look and feel that I was after!!!!!  I want these photos to have a very edgy Mad Max type of feel and I think that I got it!

The piece that I’ve put together today isn’t shot on video, it’s a series of still photos!  I repeat, this isn’t a video!!!!!!

Also for those looking to kill a little time and would like to see a ton of my photos on all sorts of subjects, here’s a link for the rest of my photos on Flickr.  On the right side of the page you’ll see some different “sets” of photos with everything from Peoria photos to food, nature, farming and everything in between!!!!!  Enjoy!!!   http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmay/

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

Kev

Monday Peoria greetings to all,

Competition. Some people fear it, I embrace it! When I started 21 years ago,  there were only a hand full of photographers in the Central Illinois area doing commercial photography. Today we have a lot of very talented photographers along the I-74 corridor from the Quad Cities down to Champaign that are out there kicking butt with their photography.  When you’re faced with competition like that, you can go sit on the porch and feel sorry for yourself or you can get out there and “step up your game”!  I know that all of these good photographers have pushed me to be a better photographer because of that competition!!!!

I had a Lamborghini Gallardo in the studio this past week and besides shooting a bunch of standard shots,  I tried to push the boundaries with some more moody lighting and this is one of those shots that I really liked!!!!!!   It’s time for me to “Step up my game”!!!!!

I’ve also made a couple of sizes of the image if you want to use this for a desktop image on your computer!
Standard screen    http://kevinmay.com/kmcsd4june11.jpg
HD Widescreen    http://kevinmay.com/kmchd4june11.jpg

I hope that you have a great week as always!!!!

Kev

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!!!

If you’re over 30 years old, Summer Camp might have a different meaning then for someone under 30!  Summer Camp Central Illinois style is whole lot different that the summer camp that I went to where we swam and rode horses!!!!!  Summer Camp is the brain child of Ian Goldberg and this was the 11th annual event.  They expected 20,000 people for this years festival and I can attest to that!!!!  It’s also very surreal to be one of the oldest people at this event and also not under the influence!!!

Here’s a few snaps from the weekend and you might get a feel for what Summer Camp is all about!  

Here’s also a shot of camper Kelly and I (she was wearing a Bear hat and probably wondered why someone as old as me would be out at Summer Camp)!!!!

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

Kev

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Monday morning Peoria greetings!!!!

I was outside shooting for my friends at Schutt Sports this past week and we were working on some baseball and softball snaps!!!!! Here’s a few of the goodies that we got and it’s always nice to have a great shoot like this!!!!

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

Kev

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!!!!

Sometimes things don’t go as planned in this business and this shoot was one of those times!!! I got a call from “Treasury and Risk” magazine and they were going to be doing a cover story on Caterpillar CFO, Mr. Ed Rapp. We got a shoot set up and the location was going to be at Caterpillar’s Edwards demo area. At Edwards, they’ve got a lot of very big toys out there and I had these grand ideas of how I was going to photograph Mr. Rapp with some of the bigger pieces of earth moving equipment. When I got out to Edwards, they told me that Mr. Rapp wanted to be photographed with some of the smallest equipment that Caterpillar makes since he had been in charge of this equipment in the past! Damn, time for plan “B”! Well, I was very fortunate that I had gotten out there early and was able to figure out a number of shots for the cover and inside photos to support the story! Needless to say we banged things out and got some very nice stuff for the magazine! Here’s the cover shot that the magazine picked!!!

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

Kev

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!!!!

The Broadway show “Wicked” will be playing in Peoria for 20 shows from October 12th through the 30th this year!!!!! If you want to go, when tickets go on sale, you better grab them real fast!!!!

The Peoria Civic Center had a sneak preview of Wicked this past week and it was incredible! Producer David Stone talked about the show and also had some video clips and then a couple of the performers sang two songs from the show! I have to tell you that both these young ladies were kicking it out for 10:30 in the morning!!!!!! Here’s a quick snap of the room before the performance began last week!

I for one will be going and when the tickets do go on sale, I’ll be camping out at the Civic Center to snag a couple of seats!!!!

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

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Monday morning Peoria greetings!!!!

It seems like a lifetime since I’ve said that, “Peoria greetings”, that is!!!! I’m here in town for the foreseeable future!!!!!

This past Tuesday, the Peoria Journal Star was kind enough to do a “Business Tuesday” story about me and how business is coming back. I was very humbled once I saw this and they really did a great job! If you haven’t seen the article, here’s a link for what they ran in the paper!!!! http://kevinmay.com/paper.jpg

I was over in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky last week photographing more farmers for my friends at LG Seeds. As always, these people couldn’t be more down to earth and generous and just so easy to work with!!!!! As I like to say, these are “real people” and there isn’t an ounce of pretentiousness in them! It’s a true joy to be around them and indeed they are the “Salt of the Earth”!!!! Here’s 12 of my new farming friends and you probably couldn’t ask for a better neighbor if they lived next door to you!!!!

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

Kev

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Monday morning greetings to all!

It was good to be back in Peoria this past week and to be able to get caught up on a bunch of stuff at the studio and the house! Only being home four days out of the last six weeks isn’t a lot of time to keep up on things!!!

VLA (Very Large Array) is one of those places that’s not on the way to anywhere. If you want to see it, you’ve got to make the effort becuase it’s out in the middle of New Mexico 50 miles from nowhere. It’s 27, 230 ton radio telescopes that are looking deep into space to see what’s out there! The whole complex is pretty spread out and when you see these telescopes off in the distance, it’s very cool! When I got there, I was amazed to see these giant telescopes being put through their paces. It’s amazing to see these massive pieces of hardware moving so precisely and also in unison! The best part of this is that it’s free to check it out and it’s a very interesting place. Here’s a link for the National Radio Astronomy Observatory with all kinds of great information about the facility and their mission. http://www.vla.nrao.edu/

It’s time to run, but I hope that you have a great week as always!!!!

Kev