Tag Archives: Illinois

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

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

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

2012 Top Ten Kevin May Photos

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Thursday afternoon greetings from a snowy Las Cruces, New Mexico!

I’ve put together my top ten photos from 2012 and wanted to show the variety of gigs that we did for clients this past year.

I’ve got two links for you, to view the PDF version, click on this link http://kevinmay.com/2012topten.pdf
to view the Powerpoint version, click on this link http://kevinmay.com/2012topten.ppt

Thanks for checking out my top ten photos and I hope that you have a great weekend!!!!

Kev

The best Peoria Illinois sunset ever?

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Christmas Eve Peoria greetings to all my friends around the world!!!!

The end of the year is almost here and it seems like just yesterday it was summer time and hotter then heck!

Peoria has been my home for over 30 years now and I can remember coming here when I first started at Bradley University all those many years ago. No matter where I go or what I do, it’s always a wonderful feeling to come back home to Peoria!!!!

Here’s todays promo and the city of Peoria looks great! Sunset on the Illinois River from under the Murray Baker Bridge with Peoria in the background!
I’ve also done an incredible Time Lapse of the same setting of Peoria and do yourself a favor and see this 30 second video on YouTube. Watch in at HD quality for a real treat! Here’s the link

I hope that you and yours have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanzaa!!!!! Thanks as well for checking out my work, I really appreciate it!!!!!

Have a great one!!!!

Kev

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kmcpia22dec12

Hot potato!

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

One of the two best things that happens here in the Midwest in the fall is the cooler temperatures from summer and the other great thing is IHSA playoff football. These high school kids have all played a season of football and now the best of the best are competing in the playoffs. They will have playoff games for a few more weeks with the championship games being played at the University of Illinois in Champaign on Thanksgiving weekend!

One of the things that I really like is to have a high school football payoff game that’s played on sunny Saturday afternoon and I get to shoot it!!! Brimfield/Elmwood played a St. Thomas Moore from Champaign, Il. on Saturday and I was able to shoot it and I had a blast!!!!

Here’s one of my snaps from the game and indeed that football can be a “Hot Potato”!!!!

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

Kev

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If you build it, they will come!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

It was a long time coming, but the Caterpillar Visitors Center and Peoria Riverfront Museum had their grand openings this past Saturday! These projects have been talked about for years and it was great to see both of these buildings finally completed. This is going to be huge for the city of Peoria and I think that we’ll see other development downtown as well and that will be great!!!!

On Saturday, CVC and PRM had a joint ribbon cutting ceremony and the event started off with Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman arriving on a new Caterpillar locomotive and it was pulling a number of Caterpillar products as well. It was one heck of a way to make an entrance!!!! A number of people responsible for making these projects happen gave some speeches and then the ribbon cutting happened! After that, both facilities were opened to the public and the crowds flocked in! I was only shooting photos at the CVC on Saturday and I’ll have to get over to PRM at some point soon!!!!

Here’s some of my shots from Saturday and the inside of the Caterpillar Visitors Center! Hopefully you’ll be able to make it to see both facilities and enjoy all the hard work that was put into these projects!

Have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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Chevrolet and the University Of Illinois

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

I did a shoot for Chevrolet last May over at the U of I in Champaign, Illinois and I’m now able to share the first part of that shoot. Chevy has teamed up with the U of I to do a promotion with the football and basketball teams and I got hired to snap the shots! Chevy wanted shots of some of their different cars with Memorial Stadium (football) and Assembly Hall (basketball). I went over a few weeks before the shoot and scouted the locations and did some quick test shots for the people in Michigan. We looked at the weather and picked what ended up to be a perfect day, beautiful blue skies and lots and lots of sun!!!! For the different ads, we shot individual shots of the cars at each location and then did a group shot of all of the cars as well.

Today I’m sharing the group shot at Memorial Stadium!!!

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

Kev

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