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Rain, rain go away…

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

Well we’re sure had more than enough rain here in the Midwest these last few weeks. It seems like everyday day we are getting some rain and things are getting a little soggy! I ended up getting my yard cut yesterday and normally I would wait for things to dry up before cutting it, but I saw a break in the weather for a few hours and thought I’d better get it done. The whole time that I was cutting it, the ground was wet and my shoes were nice and squishy! We’d love to send some of this water out to the West Coast where they don’t have enough!!!

Back at the first of this year I made the announcement that we were starting to shoot some video for clients. I’ve been truly amazed at the number of projects that have rolled in this year. We just did another one last week where I was shooting video images and Jan was shooting still images for the client, so that was a lot of fun!

We have learned so much in the past few months about the whole process and ways to do things better. There are technical things that we never had to deal with shooting still images and now we are learning about video. One of the biggest things that we’ve learned was getting better audio for a video commercial like the ones we’re sharing today. There was some trial and error in the beginning, but with the help of an incredible video mentor, we are getting things where they should be! These spots are a great example of that!

We’ve been doing a series of TV commercials for our friends at Goldfine and Bowles. We learned so much about audio recording doing these commercials and ways that we could make it sound even better. Like anything else in life, we learn from our mistakes and try to not make them again!

Here’s a couple of our new spots for Goldfine and Bowles!

Thanks as always for checking out our work and we’ll keep rocking and we hope you will as well!

Kev and Jan

Off they go

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Well we sure had quite the Sunday of weather in Central Illinois. In the afternoon the thunderstorms really heated up and the winds were rocking. I heard on the radio that about 10,000 Ameren customers were without power at some point yesterday, so that’s a pretty good storm!

We were recently helping out our friends at UnityPoint with some photos. We were trying to show some of the projects that the UnityPoint Health – Methodist / Proctor Foundation has funded. One of the many projects was this project that we are featuring today. When a child is going in for some surgery at the hospital, there is a point where they have to leave the parents and head in for that surgery. This can be a little scary for the child to leave the safety of mom and dad, so to ease that anxiety they get them all gowned up and ready to go. Once they do this, they have a couple of battery operated cars that the kids can drive to surgery. It might not sound like the biggest thing in the world, but it’s probably that little bit that makes things a little easier during what could be a very stressful time for the child.

The one funny back story to this shoot was that we had three sisters aged 7 to 4 and we were going to have the oldest one drive this little yellow Hummer for us. Well as sometimes happens, she got scared and didn’t want to do it. We then tried the middle sister and she wanted no part of it either and then on to the youngest sister and the same results. We ended up putting the youngest sister in the Hummer and the nurse pushed the gas pedal and as soon as the other sisters saw what was happening, they both couldn’t wait for their turn. I think we got this photo with the youngest sister, but we photographed all of them so they would each have a turn driving the Hummer. Sometimes when you think something is’t going to work like this, you get lucky and get the shot that you’re after!

Here’s one of our photos from this great project that was funded by the UnityPoint Health – Methodist / Proctor Foundation.

We hope that you’re going to have a great week and thanks for taking the time to check out our work!

Kev and Jan

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kmcup8june15

In the Limelight

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Jan and I are rocking and rolling as always and things have been pretty darn busy of late and we can’t complain about that!

One of the things that I’ve always enjoyed seeing is live music! It doesn’t matter what type of music it is, to see musicians playing live has a wonderful feel and there’s an energy that you get from them and their music. I can recall from my days here in Peoria when I was going to Bradley University, a bunch of us would get out to the Second Chance (for those from the Peoria area and also old enough to remember that place) and catch some local and regional bands. It was a great venue to see bands and I really miss the place! Well not to fear, it looks like we’ve got a place here in Peoria that’s fitting the bill as a local place to see live music. The Limelight is an entertainment complex on the North side of Peoria and it’s a great venue to catch live music. I was there for the first time yesterday for a Generations show with local bands from yesterday and today. My guys, The Rave who I’ve photographed for over 30 years and featured here on the blog were there and did a 10 song set of original music. Let me tell you from a photographic standpoint, 10 songs sounds like a lot of time to get photos, but it’s not! I was really banging the motor drive on the camera and trying to get as many images as I could in such a short amount of time! It was a great show and as always the guys rocked!!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps of The Rave rocking the Limelight!

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

Kev and Jan

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kmcrave1june15

Abandoned

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Tuesday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

For my friends in the US, hopefully you had a safe and wonderful Memorial weekend. We’ve got a four day work week this week, so I’m sure that not too many of us will be complaining about a short week of work!

I’ve got one more image to share from my trip out to New Mexico a few weeks ago. One of the things that I always enjoyed about being out West is coming across abandoned buildings like the one that I’m sharing this week. It seems like when you’re going through a small town you’ll find these cool old buildings from a bygone era. Sure all cities will have old abandoned buildings, but it seems like the smaller towns have some pretty cool ones! If I see something like this I’ll try to stop and take a few photos if time permits.

Here’s my snap of this great old abandoned building in New Mexico.

It’s time to get busy and get this week started, so thanks for checking out the work and have a great rest of the week!

Kev and Jan

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kmclc26may15

The desert is alive!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

I made it back from a quick trip out to New Mexico last week to see my folks and as always it was a great time! I’ve
made trips out there at different times of the year, but never during this time of the year. In Southern New Mexico they have had their rainy season and it’s showing in the desert. They only get about six inches of rain a year, so when they do get rain, everything in the desert comes alive.

I was able to get out for a hike at one of my favorite spots, Dripping Springs Natural Area. In all of my hikes there over the years, I’ve never seen many animals. This time I was rewarded with a number of lizards, toads and even my first ever snake! Fortunately for me, the snake was a non-poisonous Bull snake, but it sure looked like a Diamond Backed Rattlesnake! The flowers were out in force and that’s something that I haven’t seen much of either during my past visits! It’s usually something that doesn’t last long, so I just happened to be there at the right time of the year to see all the color!

Here are some of my photos taken at Dripping Springs Natural Area last week!

Next weekend is Memorial Day Weekend and it’s the official start of summer! If you’re going to be traveling next weekend, be safe and have some fun as well!

Have a great week to come and thanks as always!

Kev and Jan

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kmcds17may15

Rocking along

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Monday mid-morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

We clicked another month off for 2015 and the year is motoring along and that’s a good thing! Last week Jan and I were on the road for a gig down in Oklahoma for our friends at Telsmith. Telsmith manufactures rock crushers and conveyors that crush and transport the rock at quarries. It’s one of those worlds that unless you work there, you’ll probably never see it! We were very fortunate to have great weather for this shoot and as I’ve always talked about, having a good sunny day is about 90% of the battle for any outdoor shoot. We shot video and stills of the whole operation from the beginning when the rock was loaded into the crushers to the end when the rock was hauled away for the customers to use. I think that’s one of the things that I most enjoy about doing stuff like this is seeing the behind the scenes of what goes on at any business that we work with!

Here’s a few of the photos that Jan and I both shot last week in Oklahoma for TelSmith!

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

Kev and Jan

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kmctel4may15

Residences at SOSC

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Wow, it’s been busy! There is so much going on work-wise right now and it’s a great feeling! Most of this weekend was spent shooting or on the computer editing photos and video from the past week. It wasn’t too upsetting to be on the computer on Saturday with the weather being cold and rainy here in Central Illinois. Sunday was the complete opposite from Saturday and there was glorious sunshine all day and we were out shooting a number of projects, so we took full advantage of the great weather!

One of the ongoing projects is a series of still and video images for our friends at Cullinan Properties. This project took us down to St. Louis and Quincy this past week and the weather was sunny, but very windy! One of the properties that we photographed was the Residences at The Streets of St. Charles. The property is just West of the Missouri River in St. Charles, Mo. and it’s a great set-up. They have condos and then have incorporated shopping as well within the neighborhood. It gives the area a city feeling without all of the hubbub of the big city!

Here’s a series of time-lapse images of the Residences in a nice little YouTube video.

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

Kev and Jan

Click on image to video the Time-Lapse

Old School Fun

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Monday morning greetings to one and all!

One of the things that I have talked with fellow photographers a lot about over the last five or so years, is the art of lighting and how it is becoming a lost art. When we think of old school photography, and I’m talking about shooting film, there wasn’t any Photoshop to massage or manipulate an image. As a photographer you had to get it right in the camera, which meant that you had to have everything perfect when you pressed the shutter button. The lighting and composition had to be spot on or the photo wouldn’t be what you needed.

In today’s photography world, clients’ budgets have been squeezed and we are having to work faster, not being able to spend the time on a photo like we have in the past. I think what made this shoot last week so special is that we had time to do lighting on the project and what a difference it made in the photography. We were shooting some antique tractors and were given the proper time to make them look as good as possible with our lighting. It takes a lot of photography gear to light one of these big tractors and make it look great. It also takes time to set everything up on location and then do the actual photography. As we all know, time is money!

Here’s one of our shots from last week of this beautiful Best tractor from a bygone era!

Here’s hoping that you’ll have a great week to come and thanks as always for taking the time to check out our work!

Kev and Jan

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kmcbest20apr15

Working with kids

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

After my 25 years of shooting photography, when it comes to shooting photos of kids, you just never know how it’s going to work out! Now I could tell stories for hours and hours about shoots that didn’t happen or were a complete train wreck because we were working with young kids. Now it’s not that the kids were all bad or a problem, but depending on the age of the child, you usually have a very limited time to work with them. Most kids have a very limited attention span and the younger they are, the shorter their attention span can be! What I usually try to do when I know that I’m going to be working with children is to have everything set up (camera, lighting, etc.) so we can start shooting as soon as the child arrives on the set. I will always figure that I maybe have five minutes to work to get the shots I need and anything beyond that is a bonus!

Last week we had a shoot at the Morton Unity Point Clinic and we were going to be shooting some photos of a young child with a pediatric doctor. Well we couldn’t have gotten more lucky, we had Dr. May Sun as our pediatrician and little Addison as our young patient. Dr. Sun was great with Addy and I can see why she is so highly regarded with the kids! Remember that five minute rule that I have when working with kids, heck I think we got a half hour or more out of Addison and that was great as well. Like I said, you just never know how much time you’re going to get, so you really have to work fast!

Here’s a few of our snaps with Dr. Sun and Addison!

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

Kev and Jan

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kmcup6apr15

Nighttime is the right time!

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Monday morning Des Moines greetings to one and all!

We are headed back from a quick trip to Colorado for some advanced video training. It was a real banzai run these past few days. We got in the Explorer late Thursday afternoon arriving in Colorado on Friday afternoon. Saturday was spent getting more advanced techniques with the video camera and also some computer software lessons! Sunday morning we started back home and made it as far as Des Moines, Iowa and we’ll be back to P-Town ready to rock once again this afternoon! All and all, it was a great trip out West even if it was so incredibly brief, but lots of great information that will really help on future video projects!!!

This past week we got rocking and rolling for 2015 with the first architecture shoot of the year. In Peoria with the snow and the lack of vegetation in the winter months, it makes no sense to be out there shooting photos of buildings when you can see things that you don’t want to see. When it comes to daytime photography of architecture in Central Illinois, we are still a good month or so away before things start to green up enough to make good photos. In the case of a night time shot in Peoria, we have hit the time of year when we can get started. Our friends at Unity Point Hospital in Peoria were needing some nighttime shots of both hospitals (Methodist and Proctor) and we had some perfect weather last Monday to be out shooting at night! Everything came together and we had a great sunset that topped off the shot!

Here’s our photo of Unity Point Proctor Hospital at night!

Well it’s time to get to work, so we hope that you both have a very wonderful week!!!

Kev and Jan

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kmcup22mar15