Tag Archives: Illinois

The summer is rolling along!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

I know as I get older that time for me seems to go faster and faster. In my mind it seems like it was just a month ago and we here in Peoria were a foot deep in snow and thinking that winter would never end. Fast forward six months and this summer is almost over. I saw people at the store yesterday loading up on all the back to school stuff for the kids and it sounds like in the next couple of weeks they will be heading back to school! We’re a month away from the Labor Day weekend and that has always been the traditional end of the summer. Before we know it, we’ll be back to the foot of snow in Peoria!

Despite time seeming to be moving faster everyday for me, I still wake up and try to make everyday the best day that it can be. I don’t want to waste a moment of time in my life and look back with regrets for things that I didn’t do. I put on my smile to start the day and make the most out of each and everyday!

Here’s one of my summer shots at the Heart of Illinois Fair a few weeks ago and it’s part of enjoying every moment of time!

I hope that you’re going to have a wonderful week to come and thanks as always for taking the time to view my photos!

Kev

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kmc3aug14

Spotlighting Peoria

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

I’ve been a busy little beaver this past week. I’m doing some charity work for the United Way on a project for them and we got some good shots this past week and I know we’ll be getting some more good snaps this week as well!

The other project that I’m working on is one for the Peoria Convention and Visitors Bureau and this one will be going on for the next year. What we are trying to do is to step up the quality of the PACVB library of images that they use to help promote the Central Illinois area. We have a really good story to tell here in Peoria for visitors that come to the city to see places like the Peoria Riverfront Museum or the Caterpillar Visitors Center. We’ve also got visitors coming for different events like the TT motorcycle races or the IHSA boys basketball tournament. There are also a number of great hotels and restaurants, so we really have a lot going for our area!

One of the other areas that the PACVB is working on is the convention business. I shot some photos at the Growmark convention at the Peoria Civic Center this past week. Getting big conventions like this is huge for not only the Peoria Civic Center, but also the Peoria area. A lot of local business also benefit from these conventions as well like the hotels, restaurants, gas stations and shopping centers. This is why PACVB is working hard to get more conventions like Growmark to come here to Central Illinois.

Here’s one of my shots of the entire ballroom for the Growmark convention at the Peoria Civic Center and you can see just how big of a deal that this is!

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

Kev

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kmcpcc22july14

Let’s take a dip in the pool!

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Monday morning greetings to one and all!!!!

With all of the great weather that we’ve had in Peoria these past few weeks, there’s been a lot of opportunities for shooting photography outside. When it gets nice like that, you really have to jump on it and take advantage of the nice weather because you don’t know how long it’s going to be before it’s nice once again to be shooting photos.

I’ve been working with Russ Hinderliter at San Juan Pools for a long time now and we will go around and shoot photos of some of their unique pool projects. Russ and his team really do a nice job on everything from the smallest of projects to the bigger ones that I’m featuring today! For me it’s really a lot of fun to see what they have designed and then come up with the best way to capture the project and make it look good!

There is a trade publication called “Pool & Spa News” and they are going to be featuring one of San Juan Pools latest projects in the next issue. It will be in their annual “Masters of Design” issue and as you can see in my photo, rightfully so!!! Here’s one of the images from our shoot and this night shot has to be my favorite from our shoot!!!!!

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

Kev

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kmcsjp21july14

2014 Canton Cruise-In

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

This past Friday in Central Illinois we had weather that can best be described as “Chamber of Commerce” type weather. For those of you that haven’t heard that phrase it means a day that is so nice and perfect that people visiting the city would want to move there because the day was so beautiful and comfortable! So to have a day in Central Illinois in June that was Sunny, low humidity and 75 degree temperatures is just about perfect! Well this past Friday was one of those days and it was a perfect day for a car cruise in!!!

This is the second year that I have made it down to Canton, Il. for their annual “Cruise-In”. They had a great turnout of cars and it takes up a good portion of the downtown area! It’s a nice show in the sense is it’s not all the same types of cars, so there’s a great variety from old to new! One of my biggest challenges as a photographer and shooting this for the second time is to try and come away with photos that are different from last years photos. I did see a fair number of cars from last year, so I tried to look at them in a different light and come up with some angles and looks that were different. That’s a great challenge, but it’s also a lot of fun! Here’s a link from last years Cruise-In and you can see how I approached the photos and then compare them to this year! http://blog.kevinmay.com/2013/06/17/canton-cruise-in/

Here are this years photos from the 2014 Canton Cruise-In! I hope you like what you see!!!

Thanks as always for taking the time to view my work and it’s very much appreciated by me!!!! Have a great week to come as always!!!!!!

Kev

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kmccci16june14a

It’s that time of year!!!

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

Well it is that time of year when graduations from schools are in full bloom! The hard work of school is over for a lot of these students and they are ready to join the rest of us out in the real world of work!

I was shooting photos this past Saturday at Spoon River College’s annual graduation. One of the things that I really like about the way that they end the graduation is by having all the professors line up on either side of the departing students. You’ll see high fives, hugs and tears from the graduates and professors alike and it’s really a very great way to end the ceremony! This year I saw all of the nursing students had decorated their graduation caps with some bling and other goodies! Here’s one of my photos from Saturday with the nursing graduates, professors and the crowd of family and friends!!!!

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

Kev

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kmcsrc11may14

Christmas is coming!!!

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

Here we are just a little over two weeks before Christmas and it’s hard to believe that it’s coming up this fast! I’m just amazing how quickly this year has flown by and it seems like just yesterday it was Labor Day weekend! I guess the saying about how time flies the older that you get seems to be true in my case! Well with Christmas just a few weeks away and just around the corner 2014 is less then a month away! Amazing!!!!

I was out shooting this past weekend and one of the things that I wanted to try to get was a Christmas tree shot and I found the perfect one out at the Shoppes at Grand Prairie. They’ve got a 25 foot Christmas tree that is all decked out with lights and a incredible sound system! From 5:00pm to 9:30pm every night, there is a light and sound show that can only be described as a mini version of the Freemont Street Experience in Las Vegas. The tree goes through a light show as an assortment of music is playing and it’s very neat! If you’re out that way in the next couple of weeks, it’s worth the time to see it and check out the show!

Here’s one of my shots from Saturday night!

It’s time to get to work today, so I hope that you’re going to have a wonderful week!!!! Thanks as well for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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kmcgp8dec13

Chihuly and Thanksgiving

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New Mexico greetings to one and all!!!!

It’s been a little over a year since the Caterpillar Visitors Center and the Peoria Riverfront Museum opened up in downtown Peoria and it sure has been a great improvement to our city!

For those of you that remember Lakeview Museum, the PRM is a huge upgrade and they really have done a nice job with it! Since PRM has opened, we’ve had a couple of major shows with a great show of photographs from nature photographer Ansel Adams and now a show of glass work from the George R. Stroemple Collection. In this collection is the work of one of my favorite artists, Dale Chihuly! Chihuly’s glass work is incredible and if you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and come down to PRM in the next few months and check it out!

Here’s my snap of the exhibit room at PRM of the Chihuly and Friends show!

It’s Thanksgiving week and like me, I have a feeling that a lot of people that I know will be taking advantage of this short work week and traveling! I’ve traveled down here to New Mexico to spend Thanksgiving with my folks and am very happy about that!!!! I’m thankful for the people and things in my life, so this is a great time of the year to reflect on all of that!

If you’re going to travel this week to visit family and friends for Thanksgiving, make it a safe one!!!!!

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

Kev

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kmcprm22nov13

Halloween Hunt!!!

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Monday morning greetings from Peoria!!!!!!!!!

It was an very beautiful weekend here in Peoria!!! Fall is in the air and with temps in the 50’s, it’s time to put that sweatshirt and jeans on!!!!! I really just love this time of year!!!! The humidity of summer is long gone and having the cooler temperatures is a wonderful change from summer here in the Midwest!!!

Wow, the Peoria Riverfront Museum is kicking things up and they had a great event yesterday! They hosted their first “Halloween Hunt” on Sunday and I’d say it was a huge success!!!!!! I saw lots of kids dressed up in costumes and also a few adults got into the swing of things as well!!!! They had all kinds of fun and educational things for the kids from a laser light planetarium show in the dome with Halloween music to science demos with dry ice (always a favorite of mine) and also real live bats!!!!!!!!!! The bats were very cool and the kids liked them!!!!! One of my favorite shots on this promo is the shot of the young man wearing his Batman custom and they hung a real live bat on him!!!! The funny thing was they asked him after how it was and he said, “his claws were sticking me, it hurt!!!” Priceless!!!!!!!

Lots of fun in P-Town yesterday at the museum and here’s a few of my snaps!!!!

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

Kev

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kmc1prm27oct13

The Moody Blues

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

Shooting bands in clubs and concerts is something that I’ve always enjoyed doing! For the last number of years, I haven’t had the time or opportunity to do it and it’s something that I’ve really missed! I got my chance to get back into the game this past week in Peoria to shoot the Moody Blues at the Peoria Civic Center. Those of you under 30 probably won’t know who this band is, but to those of us in that 50 and over range, we know all about the band!

I was shooting photos for Frank Productions out of Madison, Wisconsin who was promoting the MB show here in Peoria! The concert was in the Civic Center Theater and they had a sold out show!!!! It was my first time shooting in the theater having seen a number of shows there as part of the audience. One of the challenges is that with any press pass, you can shoot the first three songs and then you’re done! You’ve got to make sure that you get your shots and at most you have 15 minutes of time to get those shots! The other challenge in shooting at the PCC theater is that you can’t get in front of the stage since they have seating there, so it’s either stage right or stage left to get your shots! There’s no time to mess around with a gig like this!!!!! 🙂

The band came out and right out of the box starting cranking out some of their hits! While they were singing and playing I was working on getting my photos! I think that I got a number of good snaps and here are some of my shots from this past Monday night!

It’s another busy week for me, so I’ve got to get rocking and rolling!!!!!! I hope that you’re going to have a great week to come and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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kmc1mb13oct13

Tee it up!!!!!!!!

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Labor Day Monday morning St. Louis greetings to one and all!!!!!!

For all my friends here in the USA, I hope that you’re having a wonderful Labor Day weekend!!!!

This past Monday I was out shooting photos for the 2013 “Tee it up for the troops” charity event in Peoria. This was the fifth year that the event has been in Peoria and in those five years, the Peoria area has raised over one million dollars for this great charity!!! We have so many great charities here in Central Illinois and it always amazes me just how generous this area is to all of these organizations! For a smaller town like Peoria, we do pretty darn good!

For those that haven’t been to this event, it’s now held at two local golf courses, the Country Club of Peoria and also Mt. Hawley Country Club. At both courses in the morning they have about 240 veterans at each course that play golf and then have a great lunch and dinner as well (no charge for any of that for the Veterans)! In the afternoon, all the golfers are paying to play and help support the charity. At lunch time at both courses they have ceremonies that honor the veterans and also the active duty military that have and do keep us safe and free! As everyone is playing golf, there is lot of fun and laughs (and a occasional swear word for a bad shot), but when the ceremony is happening and then the trumpeter plays Taps, you realize why we are all there and what the event is all about!!!!

Here’s a couple of my snaps from this years Tee it up event!!!!

Thanks as always for checking out my work and I hope that the rest of your Labor Day weekend is a safe and fun one!!!!!

Kev

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