Tag Archives: Kevin May

Chihuly and Desert Botanical Gardens!

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Monday morning greetings from Nashville, Tn.!!!!!

I’m on my way headed South for a couple of shoots this week and it’s great to be back on the road once again!

A few weeks ago I was out West on some different shoots and I was able to have a little time to shoot some photos for myself!!!! I took a few hours when I was in Phoenix to get over to the Desert Botanical Gardens for some desert photography. Much to my surprise, they also had glass sculptures from Dale Chihuly in the gardens. I’ve been very fortunate to see Chihuly’s work in both the St. Louis and Dallas botanical gardens in past years. Seeing his work in those cities and environments was great and seeing them this time in Phoenix was really different. To see how some of the sculptures worked with the desert colors and textures was wonderful! It’s quite the contrast from our Midwestern grasses and trees!!! The other thing that was great as well was seeing the desert cactus and other flowers in full bloom!!! I’ve seen one or two types of cactus blooming in the past, but to see 10 or 15 different types at one time was amazing!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from the Desert Botanical Gardens along with the Chihuly glass art work!

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

Kev

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Joe Bonamassa

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

I’m getting back into the flow of things this past week and I can’t complain!

One of the goodies that I shot this past week was a concert with blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa at the Peoria Civic Center. Joe Bonamassa is probably a musician that you haven’t heard of, but he is a guitar player’s guitar player. He did a really interesting thing for his Peoria Civic Center show. The first half of the show was him sitting down and playing an acoustic set of songs with a three piece band and they were all ‘unplugged”. There was a very nice array of songs and different genre’s of music as well. Once the acoustic set was done, they took a 15 minute break and got ready for an electric set. The other thing that I really liked about his electric set is that he had a completely different group of musicians playing in the band for this set!!! Again, a great group of songs and genre’s of music that really made it interesting!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from the Joe Bonamassa show at the Peoria Civic Center.

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

Kev

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4650 miles!!!

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

Wow, that was one heck of a road trip!!! When I got back to the house on Sunday afternoon, my trip gage told me that I had traveled 4650 miles on my trip these past two weeks!!!! The thing that I so love about a big road trip like this is that I was able to combine a photo shoot with a lot of personal photography on the way!!! It’s one of the perks that I have always enjoyed is to be able to go somewhere and do a shoot for a client and then to be able to spend some personal time shooting photos for me! In this case, the road trip took me from Peoria to Phoenix for my shoot and then out to the West coast to see my folks for a few days before heading back and shooting all along the way!!!! It’s so nice to be able to do that and just go where ever you want and where the road will take you!!!!

One of my stops on the way out to Phoenix was at the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forrest National Parks. The area of the two parks are located just off of I-40 just outside of Holbrook, Az. They are two radically different areas with the Painted Desert being a big wide open area with vast panoramic areas! At sundown it is so beautiful to see the earth tone colors of the land! The Petrified Forrest is just down the road 10 miles and it’s landscapes are radically different with more subtle tones with the iron colored petrified wood dotting the landscape!!!!!!

I have two photos for you today, the first is from the Painted Desert and the second is a piece of petrified wood with it’s rich iron colors against the background of the “Blue Mesa” area of the park!

Painted Desert http://kevinmay.com/kmcpd20apr14.jpg

Petrified Forrest http://kevinmay.com/kmcPF20apr14.jpg

Alright, it’s time to get back in the saddle and busy with work!!! There are more imagines that I’ll be sharing from my Western road-trip in the coming weeks!!!! I hope that you have a wonderful week!!!!

Kev

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24 years and I’m still rocking!

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Monday morning greetings to one and all!!!

Here it is my anniversary this week of working for myself and it’s been 24 amazing years!!!! It’s funny how time can go so fast for some things and for others it seems like just yesterday when it’s been all these many years ago!! Needless to say I’m incredibly blessed to be doing something that I so enjoy doing! I’m also very fortunate to have been able to make a living doing photography and taking that from a hobby to a profession. The business of photography is changing and it has been changing for a number of years now and being able to adapt and change has always been a big part of any business! The question that I now get a lot is how much longer am I going to continue doing photography before retiring. My answer has always been that I’ll keep doing it as long I’m enjoying it and once I’ve had enough, I’ll be shooting nature photography for myself in my retirement! For the time being, I’m not going anywhere!!!! 🙂

Speaking of work, I was out in the Scottsdale, Az. area shooting some photos for a client this past week and I’ll be sharing some of those photos when the magazine gets printed! One of the things that I’ve always enjoy doing is to try and shoot some personal images when time permits! In this case, I was staying in Fountain Hills, Az. and little did I know that they have the fourth tallest fountain in the world! Needless to say I had to get a shot of it and this image at sundown seems like the perfect image to finish off my 24 years in business!!!

Thanks as always for checking out my work every week and I hope that you enjoy seeing these images as much as I enjoy shooting them and sharing them with you!!!!

I hope that you’re going to have a very wonderful week!!!!

Kev

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They are ready to go!!!!

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Monday morning greetings from Holbrook, Az.!!!!

I’m on the road again this week and I sure like that!!!!! It’s been a few weeks since I was out of state on a shoot, so it’s nice to do it again!!!! If you do too much of anything it can get old, so to have a nice mix of work in town and out of town has always been wonderful in my eyes! The other thing that I like is that I can combine some work for my client with being able to shoot some nature photography for myself! It’s never upsetting when that happens! You’ll be seeing some of those snaps in the coming weeks!

Well in Central Illinois, our farmers are really chomping at the bit to get going and start planting their crops. Our winter has lasted way longer then it did last year, so they are really behind compared to 2013. Last year at this time most of the farmers were well on their way to getting there crops in the ground, while this year they haven’t even started! There is still some frost in the ground and the top soil is too wet to get the planting equipment in the ground! It will happen at some point, but probably not as early as any of them would like!!!!

Here’s a few of my shots from last weeks shoot for my friends at LG Seeds!!!!

I know I’m going to have a great week here out West and I hope that you do as well!!! Thanks for checking out my work and have a great one!!!!

Kev

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Weihenstephan

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

In the business of photography things have always been “Feast or Famine” as far as having work goes. Last week was one of those famine weeks! Until things start to green up a little bit here in Central Illinois, there’s not always a lot going on work wise. I had a couple of shoots get postponed because of the weather and that does happen a bunch when you’re trying to shoot outdoors at this time of the year! Fortunately the next couple of weeks are going to be of the feast variety and that will be a welcome change! Having a week with not a lot to do just gets boring and I’m always the type of person that likes to be busy. As our Boy Scout leader said to us many times, “Busy hands are happy hands!”

Since I wasn’t out shooting photos for clients this past week, I did the next best thing! “Prost!”

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

Kev

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Haliaeetus Leucocephalus

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

And you’re probably wondering what the heck is a Haliaeetus Leucocephalus? Yes, it’s the American Bald Eagle!

It’s been that time of year when we can see the Bald Eagles here in Central Illinois. I was over at the Mississippi River this past week to try to find some eagles to photograph. It’s getting to be the end of the season when they are more visible, so with the cold weather and the rivers being iced over in spots it’s about as good a time as any.

If you’ve never seen a Bald Eagle in person, there are a couple of things that really stand out about them. The first thing is their size, they are a very large bird and if you’re able to get close to them, it’s very apparent. One of the other things that I really noticed is that when they are flying close by, you can hear the whoosh of the wind as they flap their wings. They are incredibly powerful and also can fly very fast!

Do yourself a favor if the opportunity presents itself and get out and see these birds!!! You won’t be disappointed!!!! Here’s one of my snaps from last week of our national symbol!!!

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

Kev

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You can do it too!

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

Sometimes I know that people think that the reason a photographer like myself is able to get good photos is because of the professional cameras that we are using. In some photos that’s true and there are some technical things that a more professional camera can do that a camera with less features can’t do! In the case of this weeks photo, the camera was my iPhone 5s. It’s amazing to me the technology that’s packed into this phone and to be able to get great snaps from a cell phone as wonderful. One of the other great features of the phone is a “panoramic” function with the software. By panning across a scene like this nature landscape, the phone is able to record the image and ‘stitch” the multiple images together into one very nice panoramic image! It’s truly amazing to see how far this technology has come in the last 10 years and it will also be interesting to see where it goes in the coming years as well!

Here’s my iPhone panoramic photo from Las Cruces, NM.

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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Walking around Santa Fe!

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

It sounds like we’re going to get popped with some more winter weather today here in Central Illinois! One of these days winter will be over, but probably not soon enough!!!!

When I was out in Santa Fe, N.M. a couple of weeks ago, I was able to spend a day walking around the downtown and shooting some photos! For me it’s always fun to get out and do this and it’s even more fun in a town like Santa Fe. The Southwest has a lot of great architecture and it’s just so different then what we see here in the Midwest! Lots of warm adobe tones and lots of turquoise colors really work well together and make for a lot of great photos!

I’ve got four photos for you this morning from Santa Fe. The top photo is from the
Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi and is a statue of Kateri Tekakwitha. She is the first Indian of North America to be promoted a saint. The photo on the left is a statue at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts called “Water Carrier”. The center photo is the inside of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. The last photo on the right is of the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.

It’s time to get to work, so I hope that you have a wonderful week and thanks for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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Photography in Santa Fe, NM.

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

After spending the week in New Mexico last week and then getting back to Peoria late Sunday afternoon to a two foot snow drift in my driveway, I’m wondering why I came back home!!!! Oh yea, that work thing!!! 🙂

I was out in Santa Fe last week doing a shoot for my friends at Modern Quilts Unlimited magazine! We were shooting on location in Santa Fe at the beautiful Las Palomas B&B and it made the perfect location for all these quilt shots that we did! We were able to shoot in a bunch of the different rooms there and it made for some very interesting backgrounds! Some of photos were also taken outdoors and we really lucked up because the evening after we finished shooting, Santa Fe got four inches of snow and that would have ruined any outdoor photography!!! Fortunately for us we were able to get the shots that we needed, so everything worked out great!

Here’s one of my shots from Las Palomas and I think everyone is very happy with the shoot!!!!

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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