Tag Archives: kevinmay.com

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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Welcome to winter!!!

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-42 degree wind chill Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

Yes folks that aren’t here in the Midwest, the wind chill this morning in Peoria is -42 degrees and that’s pretty darn cold!!!!! It’s not like this happens every year to us, but we do get blasted every few years with a -20 degree wind chill, so it’s not completely out of the question! The thing to do on days like this is to stay inside if possible and out of the elements! I know that barring an emergency on Monday, I’m not going anywhere!!!!!!!

Here’s a little something to warm you up on a cold day! I’ve put together some of my photos and video from the Big Island of Hawaii from December into a nice five minute slideshow! I know on days like this to see the tropical vegetation and have the warm trade winds blowing on you is pretty darn good! It will probably be awhile before we see temperatures in Peoria in the 80’s, so this will have to do!!!

Enjoy the show! Turn up the music and drift off to paradise for five minutes!!! Here’s the YouTube link for the Hawaii slideshow!

Alright, stay warm and inside if you can and know that spring is coming, just not soon enough! Have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!!

Kev

It’s a wrap!!!

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Year end Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Here we are at the end of 2013 and we’re just about ready to turn the calendar to a new page and a new year! It was a good year with a lot of great shoots and I was on the road for a number of them!!!! I’d always like to have a nice mix of shoots in town and on the road and this year it seemed like that was the case. Too much of either of those is not a good thing!!! I picked up some new clients in 2013 and that’s always nice as well!

All right, it’s time to get busy and get rocking in 2014! I’ll be all ready to go after having had a nice couple of months in November and December! Things are traditionally slow work wise, so it’s always been a good time to leave town on vacation!!!! As they say, “I’m tan, rested and ready to go!!!”

Here’s one of my shots from a couple of weeks ago in Kona, Hawaii. The cruise ships come into port in the morning at Kona and sail at night to their next destination. This ship was Norwegian Cruise Line’s “Pride of America” which sails to the different Hawaiian islands!

I hope that you’re going to have a very safe and fun New Years tomorrow night!!!! Have a great 2104 as well and let’s make it the best year every!!!!! Thanks as always for checking out my photography and it’s very much appreciated by me!!!! 🙂

Kev

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The Painted Church

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Monday morning Peoria greetings!!!!

Wow, reality once again!!!! Flying back from Hawaii yesterday and you already know the weather is not going to be as nice as what you left behind less then 24 hours earlier! Oh well, we can’t all live in paradise!!!! 🙂

We spend 12 days on the Big Island of Hawaii and as always, it didn’t disappoint!!! There is just so much to see and you’ll never do it in a week or even a year!!! One of the places that we saw and shoot photos of back in 2008 when we were there before was the Painted Church on the Big Island. The offical title of the church is St. Benedict Roman Catholic Church, but on the island it’s know as the Painted Church. It was painted by Father John Velghe in 1899 and the inside is something that you’ll probably not see in a church outside of Hawaii!!

Here’s one of my many snaps of the inside of the Painted Church and as you can see, it’s not a very big place! This imagine is a 180 degree view of the front half of the church!

It’s Christmas week and I know that a lot of you will be off of work and spending time with family and friends! I hope that your week is a wonderful one and also a safe one if you’re traveling!!!!

Thanks again for checking out my work and have a great Christmas week!!!

Kev

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