Tag Archives: kevinmay.com

Pushing dirt!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

Well it was another rocking week for me with work and there is just so much going on right now, I don’t know if I’m coming or going! Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take this over the first half of the year when there wasn’t too much going on work wise! I have always liken business to a roller coster ride and at times like the first half of the year, the coster was going down hill with nothing going on. The past three months the coster has been climbing and for the foreseeable future it’s continuing to climb and that makes me very happy!

This past week I was out shooting photos of bulldozers pushing dirt and something that I’ve always enjoyed shooting. No see these machines doing what they do has always been a source of great joy for me. I’ve also always been fascinated by watching the farmers out working with their tractors in the fields or at this time of year with the combines harvesting the crops that they planted. I guess that maybe it’s the kid in me that just loves watch these machines out there doing their thing!

Here’s one of my shots of three Caterpillar bulldozers out pushing dirt in Central Illinois this past week!

It’s time for me to get rocking because it’s going to be another busy week and there’s lots of gigs for me to shoot! Have a great week as always and thanks for taking the time to check out my work!!!!!!!

Kev

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Rocking in Central Illinois!

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Monday Morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Well it’s been another rocking week of work and there’s lots going on! I can tell you that working makes me happy and to have work is a very wonderful thing. I enjoy what I do, so I want to do it all of the time! When things are slow and I’m not shooting photos, it’s just not nearly as much fun, so being busy makes me very happy!

I’ve been doing some work these past few weeks for my friends at G & D Integrated here in the Peoria area and it’s one of those companies that does a lot more then I thought that they did! I’ve always thought that they were just a logistics company that transported parts around the country, but they are also doing some assembly of parts and that’s a big thing that I never realized as well. That’s one of the things that I really love about what I get to do is that I get to see inside a business and see what they are really doing! I guess there is more then meets the eye and that’s a good thing!

Here’s a few of my snaps with my friends at G & D Integrated.

Thanks as always for checking out my work and I hope that your week is a good one!!!

Kev

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Echo Valley Meats

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

Having a short work week this past week was a very nice one! Now we’ll have a full five day work week, but that’s ok! It’s good to be busy!!!

I’ve been shooting photos for Echo Valley Meats for a number of years now and it’s been great to see a local Central Illinois business doing so well! Dave Alwan started EVM about 16 years ago and things have been going nicely for him in terms of business all these years. Last year, Dave was picked to be on the ABC television show, “Shark Tank“. He made his pitch on the show, but his idea wasn’t chosen by any of the “investors” for financial backing. Well a funny thing happen the day after the show aired. The EVM phone started ringing off the hook with orders for Dave’s different meat packages. The calls were coming in from all over the country as viewers had flocked to the EVM website and liked what Dave was selling. Needless to say, business has been booming for EVM ever since!

A few months ago, ABC brought their cameras back to Central Illinois to do a follow up story on the success of EVM since being on the Shark Tank show. This past Friday night ABC aired the follow up story on EVM and I have a feeling that Dave’s phone will be ringing off the hook again this morning!

Here’s one of our shots for the new web page that EVM will be rolling out very soon!

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

Kev

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It’s that time of year!

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Tuesday morning greetings to one and all!

We’re back to work after a nice three day holiday weekend! Hopefully your Labor Day weekend was a good one and also a safe one!

One of my favorite times of the year is upon us with the start of football season. The high schools and colleges started playing games this past weekend and the NFL will start playing this Thursday night and coming weekend! As much as I love watching football, I really love shooting the games even more! Most of the high school games are played on Friday nights and from a photography standpoint, night games aren’t all that great to shoot. Most high school fields have poor lighting for photography, so it really makes it hard to get good photos. I usually have to wait until the regular season is done and for the playoffs to begin before I can shoot any games. The high school playoffs are played on Saturday afternoons and usually the weather is very conducive for good photography. As luck would have it for me, we had some storms and lighting in the Central Illinois area on Friday night and a few of the games had to be postponed because of the bad weather. One of the games that ended up being played on Saturday morning was a match up with Washington Community High School taking on Bloomington Central Catholic. Both teams were a little rusty in the first half and there were a lot of penalties and not much to shoot in terms of the football action. Things picked up in the second half of the game and I was able to get a few good action shots and that made me very happy!

Here’s one of my photos from this past Saturday’s game with WCHS vs BCC.

Enjoy the short week of work and I hope that your week is a good one!!!

Thanks as always!!!

Kev

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DAL

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

Wow, this is it, the last week of summer is upon us and it’s going to be a hot one here in Peoria! The heat index will be well over 100 degrees today and we really haven’t had that kind of heat this summer! We’ve had our warm days, but thankfully most of the summer was relatively mild and that was great! The good thing is that after a few hot days, this should be the last of the really hot weather!!!

One of my oldest clients here in Peoria is one of those companies that you’ve probably never heard of unless your a dentist. DAL or Dental Arts Laboratories has been in Peoria since 1934 and they make all kinds of dental products that our dentists use to make our smiles better! If you go to DAL’s website, you’ll see my photos of the different products that DAL makes. This past week we were able to go into the labs and shoot some working shots of the different things that were going on and the people making it happen! It’s probably one of the best parts of what I do is to go and see the behind the scenes workings of a business like this. There are a lot of people that work at DAL and to be able to see what they are doing to make there different products is very interesting to me!

Here’s a few of my shots from this past week with my friends at DAL!

Labor Day Weekend is coming this weekend, so if you’re going to be traveling for the holiday, have a great time and have safe travels!!!!!!

Thanks and have a great week to come!!!

Kev

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Missouri Botanical Gardens

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

Another week of summer has rolled along and we’ve got just a few more weeks before Labor Day weekend and the unofficial end of summer! This summer has really gone so fast and I’m wishing that it would have lasted a little longer! Oh well, we’ll all just have to enjoy it while it lasts!!!! 🙂

One of my favorite places to shoot photos here in the Midwest is the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. It’s one of those places that I’ve been to many times, so the fun challenge for me is to come up with different ways to shoot what’s there. I really do like a challenge like that because it can be something as simple as having the light hit the subject in a different way then when you photographed it the last time! Being at the gardens through out the year can also change the way that the gardens looks with flowers and plants blooming at different times durning that year. For me, there is a serenity that happens at the gardens and being able to walk around and see how things look and then be inspired to create a photograph is something that I’d like to do for a very long time!!! I know what I’ll be doing when I retire!!!! 🙂

Here’s a few of my snaps from a day spent at the Missouri Botanical Gardens!

Two more weeks of summer are out there, so let’s all enjoy it while it’s here!!!! Thanks as always for checking out my work and have a great week to come!!!

Kev

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Ignite Peoria 2014

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all,

We had quite a art event here in Peoria this past weekend. It was the first year for Ignite Peoria 2014 and in essence it was created to jump start the Peoria community in the world of art. This event has been in the works for a long time and I can’t even begin to imagine how much work went into this.

It was a real smorgasbord of things going on durning the Ignite event on Saturday; music to theatre to the visual arts. There really was something for everyone and that’s always good to see! The other thing that I liked is that they had a lot of activities for the kids to do and to get involved with and that was a big part of this event. It seems with kids having so many activities like sports and school stuff, to get them off of the computer or video games is a good thing!

One of the activities that I really enjoyed seeing and photographing was some of the different “world” dancers. They had everything from little kids to adults dressing in their native countries garb. They had their music and would do a traditional dance and it was wonderful! I just loved the colors of all the costumes!

Here’s one of my snaps from the first Ignite Peoria event.

I hope that you’re going to have a great week to come and thanks for checking out my work!!!

Kev

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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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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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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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