Tag Archives: kevinmay.com

Mele Kalikimaka!!!

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Monday morning greetings from Kona, Hawaii!!!

It’s coming on the end of the year and for me it’s usually a very slow time work wise! During the course of the year it can be so hard to predict a good time to take a vacation because of work, but at this time of the year it’s a good time to get out of town! You never know what the weather is going to be like leading up to Christmas and this year it sounds like we are missing a bunch of cold and snow in Peoria!

Well, when you’re in paradise, sunsets and 80 degree weather are never too upsetting! Unfortunately paradise in the 50th state will have to end and reality of the snow and cold will hit us!!!! Oh well, we’ll enjoy this while it lasts and then get back home!!!

Here’s one of my shots from Kona and a glorious sunset on the Pacific Ocean and some of the boats and a cruise ship in the harbor!!!

Oh by the way, Mele Kalikimaka is Merry Christmas in Hawaiian and we’re less then 10 days away from Christmas in case you had forgotten!!!!!!!!!!

Have a great week to come and thanks for checking out my work!!!!!

Kev

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Christmas is coming!!!

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

Here we are just a little over two weeks before Christmas and it’s hard to believe that it’s coming up this fast! I’m just amazing how quickly this year has flown by and it seems like just yesterday it was Labor Day weekend! I guess the saying about how time flies the older that you get seems to be true in my case! Well with Christmas just a few weeks away and just around the corner 2014 is less then a month away! Amazing!!!!

I was out shooting this past weekend and one of the things that I wanted to try to get was a Christmas tree shot and I found the perfect one out at the Shoppes at Grand Prairie. They’ve got a 25 foot Christmas tree that is all decked out with lights and a incredible sound system! From 5:00pm to 9:30pm every night, there is a light and sound show that can only be described as a mini version of the Freemont Street Experience in Las Vegas. The tree goes through a light show as an assortment of music is playing and it’s very neat! If you’re out that way in the next couple of weeks, it’s worth the time to see it and check out the show!

Here’s one of my shots from Saturday night!

It’s time to get to work today, so I hope that you’re going to have a wonderful week!!!! Thanks as well for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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Back at it!!!

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

It’s time to get back it for my friends here in the US! My hope is that you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving break and now it’s time to push it to the end of the year!!!!

I was fortunate to spend time with my folks in Southern New Mexico this past week and as always, it’s a wonderful time! It’s always great to see family and spend time with them! In my case, since my folks now live in the Southwest, it’s time for me to also get out and shoot a little nature photography in a part of the country that I truly love! When you’ve grown up in the Midwest and seen cornfields for most of your life, to see the mountains and the desert is a wonderful thing! I’m sure that there are people that think that the Western US is “God forsaken” and that’s fine, to each his own! I do love it there!!!!

Here’s one of my snaps from last week in Las Cruces, New Mexico of the Organ Mountains!

Alright, it’s time to get back to work! I hope that you have a very wonderful week and thanks again for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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Chihuly and Thanksgiving

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New Mexico greetings to one and all!!!!

It’s been a little over a year since the Caterpillar Visitors Center and the Peoria Riverfront Museum opened up in downtown Peoria and it sure has been a great improvement to our city!

For those of you that remember Lakeview Museum, the PRM is a huge upgrade and they really have done a nice job with it! Since PRM has opened, we’ve had a couple of major shows with a great show of photographs from nature photographer Ansel Adams and now a show of glass work from the George R. Stroemple Collection. In this collection is the work of one of my favorite artists, Dale Chihuly! Chihuly’s glass work is incredible and if you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and come down to PRM in the next few months and check it out!

Here’s my snap of the exhibit room at PRM of the Chihuly and Friends show!

It’s Thanksgiving week and like me, I have a feeling that a lot of people that I know will be taking advantage of this short work week and traveling! I’ve traveled down here to New Mexico to spend Thanksgiving with my folks and am very happy about that!!!! I’m thankful for the people and things in my life, so this is a great time of the year to reflect on all of that!

If you’re going to travel this week to visit family and friends for Thanksgiving, make it a safe one!!!!!

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

Kev

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St. Joseph Plantation

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

We got back from our quick little vacation down in New Orleans a few days ago and it was really great to be down there as it always is! There is just so much going on with all of the great music and food and it’s always a good time!

One of the things that we like to do is to get out and away from the city and drive on the back roads in the area! Part of the fun of this is to go along the Mississippi River and see some of the different plantations that are still there. There are a number of really good ones and each time we are there we try to see a new one. The St. Joseph Plantation is a working sugar plantation that has been around since 1830, so there’s an incredible amount of history there! After taking the tour of the St. Joseph plantation, we were able to walk around the grounds and see some of the other buildings. One of the buildings that caught my eye was some of the slave cabins that were there on the property. When you see the main plantation home and all of it’s elegance, comfort and style, it’s a bit shocking to see the complete opposite of the slave cabins!

Here’s one of my shots from the St. Joseph Plantation that I really like!!!

I hope that you’re going to have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!!!

Kev

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kmc11nov13

Laissez les bons temps rouler

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Monday morning greetings from New Orleans to one and all!!!

It’s always great to get out of town for a few days and to have more then a few days means a much longer road trip!! Being from the Midwest and going to the gulf coast from New Orleans over to the panhandle of Florida has been a family tradition for my family for many years! We spent many a Easter vacation in Biloxi, Mississippi when I was a kid and came to love this part of the country! Here we are all those many years later and we are still drawn to the Gulf Coast!!!! Lots of great food and drinks and that famous Southern hospitality, it’s always a can’t miss time!!!!!

One of my favorite places in New Orleans is Pat O’Briens! If you’ve been there, you know all about Pat O’s!!!! If you haven’t been Pat O’Briens, you need to add it to your list of places and things to do! There’s something special from sitting outside on the courtyard patio to being inside in the dueling piano bar! Their motto is “Have Fun” and I can’t think of a better place to do that!

Here’s one of my snaps of the world famous Pat O’Brien Hurricanes!!!! What a drink!!!!

As they say down here in NOLA, “Laissez les bons temps rouler” and for those of us that don’t speak French, “Let the good times roll”!!! That’s a metaphor for life!!!!!

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

Kev

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Bringing in the crops!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all,

Well it’s that time of year when the farmers are out in full force here in the Midwest getting their crops in! If you’ve traveled at all in farm country, you’ve seen the combines out working in the fields. The weather here in the Peoria area has been perfect for harvesting and we haven’t had much rain so the farmers have been working day and night! They have to take advantage of the good weather because they’d like to get their crops in before the weather turns and the rain will keep them out of the fields!

Here’s one of my snaps of a glorious day of sun and dry weather for our farmers! The numbers should be good and the grain bins will be full!!!!!

It’s time to get to work, so I hope that you’re going to have a great week ahead!!!!

Kev

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The Moody Blues

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

Shooting bands in clubs and concerts is something that I’ve always enjoyed doing! For the last number of years, I haven’t had the time or opportunity to do it and it’s something that I’ve really missed! I got my chance to get back into the game this past week in Peoria to shoot the Moody Blues at the Peoria Civic Center. Those of you under 30 probably won’t know who this band is, but to those of us in that 50 and over range, we know all about the band!

I was shooting photos for Frank Productions out of Madison, Wisconsin who was promoting the MB show here in Peoria! The concert was in the Civic Center Theater and they had a sold out show!!!! It was my first time shooting in the theater having seen a number of shows there as part of the audience. One of the challenges is that with any press pass, you can shoot the first three songs and then you’re done! You’ve got to make sure that you get your shots and at most you have 15 minutes of time to get those shots! The other challenge in shooting at the PCC theater is that you can’t get in front of the stage since they have seating there, so it’s either stage right or stage left to get your shots! There’s no time to mess around with a gig like this!!!!! 🙂

The band came out and right out of the box starting cranking out some of their hits! While they were singing and playing I was working on getting my photos! I think that I got a number of good snaps and here are some of my shots from this past Monday night!

It’s another busy week for me, so I’ve got to get rocking and rolling!!!!!! I hope that you’re going to have a great week to come and thanks as always for checking out my work!!!!

Kev

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200,000 hits and SRV!!!

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

I’ve had my photos on a website called Flickr since March of 2006 and it’s been a great place for me to share my images! I shared a post back in December of 2011 about how my 2400 photos had passed the 100,000 view mark. It took me five and a half years for me to reach 100,000 views. Now here we are less then two years later and my 3339 photos have passed the 200,000 view mark. It’s amazing to me and it also shows me just how much we as a society are migrating to the web for everything that we do! One of the things that I like is that people can go to my Flickr site and see a wide variety of photography that I enjoy shooting! Here’s a link for the 14 different sets of photos that I have on Flickr, so just pick a subject and enjoy some of my work! http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmay/sets

Back in July I was down in Texas for a shoot and I was able to spend a day in Austin before I flew home. In Austin down at their riverfront, they’ve got a statue for their hometown boy, blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn. I was able to get out and get a few shots of SRV’s statue at night with downtown Austin in the background. I’ve also paired that photo with one that I shot of SRV here in Peoria almost 30 years ago!!! Yes, I have been around for awhile!!! 🙂

Here’s my photos of Stevie Ray Vaughn back in 1984 and today in Austin, Tx.

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

Kev

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It’s that time of year!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all,
Yes it’s that time of year when football is back and it’s a glorious time of the year! The high schools and colleges started playing last weekend and this weekend the NFL kicked off their season. I felt a little guilty watching my beloved Chicago Bears on Sunday being such a nice sunny day in Peoria, but I couldn’t miss the first game of the season. On a yucky rainy day it’s one thing to be a couch potato and watch all the ball games and I don’t feel too guilty, but on a good day I do just a little bit!!!! 🙂 It’s going to be fun watching all the games this season and I’m looking forward to it!!!

I was shooting for my friends at Schutt Sports recently and we shot a bunch of football shots! It’s always fun and challenging to come up with some different ways to showcase the different Schutt products. We’ve got a good team working on these shots and it shows in the shots that we are getting! It’s fun to be able to do lighting and create some mood and drama to these photos!
Here’s a few of my shots from the day shooting for Schutt Sports.

It’s time for the big push for the next few months before Thanksgiving and I’m ready to rock!!!!!

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

Kev

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