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

Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!

I’m back in town this week, so it’s a very strange feeling after being on the road for the past five weeks!

I was up in Minnesota and Wisconsin shooting some farming stuff for my friends at LG Seeds. One of the farmers that we got to meet and shoot was Dean and he told me that he had an old tractor in the barn and that sounded like a good idea for a photo. He also told me that his grandfather had bought the tractor back in 1957 and at some point, his dad sold the tractor a number of years later. Dean hadn’t seen the tractor for a number of years and was talking to a farming neighbor from down the road a few miles and found out that the neighbor had bought the tractor from his dad. Dean wanted it and bought it back from the neighbor and brought it back “home”!

Here’s a snap of Dean and his grandfather’s tractor! Old school baby!!!!!!!

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

Kev

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to all!!!!

Even though April is a month that most of us dread because of April 15th and paying our taxes, it’s the anniversary of starting my photography business 21 years ago!

I was in Brazil last week on a shoot and it’s always very interesting to go to a place that you’ve never been before. We had a really good shoot and got lots of great images for the client and that’s always a very good thing! Most of the week was spent in the Sao Paulo area, but on the last couple of days, we were in Rio de Janeiro. One of the ares that we got to shoot in Rio was “Christ O Rendentor” or in english, “Christ the Redeemer” statue. If you’ve ever seen any photos of Rio, they will always show photos of the 130 foot statue that sits atop the 2,300 foot high mountain of Corovado and over looks the city of Rio. The best way to see the statue is to take the train, “Trem de Corovado” to the top of the mountain and then you can spend as much time up top at the statue as you’d like! Besides seeing the statue, you’ll get some incredible views of the city of Rio!

Here’s a few of my snaps from “Christ the Redeemer”.

Year 22 of business starts today and the doors are open are it’s time to get to work!!!!!!

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

Kev

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Sunday night greetings from Sao Paulo, Brazil!!!!

I’m back on the road after a quick two day stop at home to do a couple of shoots and some laundry. It’s always nice to be home!!!!!!!

When I get some praise for nice photos that I’ve done, it’s usually not so much about me as a photographer as it is the opportunity that I’ve been given. My clients put me in the position to succeed and make pretty pictures. The photos that you’re looking at weren’t taken around the globe, but they could have been. Instead, we went to Seattle for the week and shot photos that made it looked like we had gotten a ton of frequent flier miles!!!!! There were a lot of meetings and preparation that went into this shoot well before I ever took the first photograph. It shows what can be done with a lot of planning!!!

Here’s four of the many snaps that we got and I have to say that I’m pretty darn proud of these!!!! From Africa to Asia and all points in between!!!!! At least we made it look that way!!!!

It’s time to get to work, Brazil is calling!!!!

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

Kev

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Monday morning Seattle greetings to all!

I’ve been on a whirlwind tour of the USA this past couple of weeks with shoots in Texas, Las Vegas and now Seattle for the past couple of days!

I’ve got a friend named Mike, Mike Rowe to be official. Are we BFF? Probably not. Have we consumed adult beverages together? Yes! In the past year, I’ve had the distinct pleasure of doing three different shoots with Mike and I have to tell you that it’s one of the highlights of my photography career! We’ve had so much fun on these shoots and I laugh throughout the day and it’s a very good thing. There are so many “Mikeisims” that occur during a days shoot like these and it’s just so much darn fun!

Our shoot in Las Vegas this past week was wonderful and it’s just a pure joy working with Mike as it always is! We had a special guest for part of this shoot and it was Caterpillar’s CEO, Doug Oberhelman. Doug and Mike did a number of video clips together and as usual, I was there to capture these behind the scenes moments. You could tell that they both had a great time working together and it goes to show you that even CEO’s can be a little star stuck with someone like Mike!

I’ve got to get rocking and rolling becuase I’ve got a couple more days of shooting here in Seattle before heading back to Peoria for a couple of days and then I’ll be down to the southern hemisphere for a shoot in Brazil to start off April!!!!!

As always, I hope that you have a wonderful week and thanks as always for checking out my photos!!!!

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