Tag Archives: kevinmay.com

The “New” Pere Marquette

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

The grand lady of Peoria is back and better then ever. The “New” Pere Marquette is reopening later this week and I think the people of Peoria are going to be very impressed with what they see. The Pere was really in need of a major overhaul for a long time, but no one was willing to take a big risk and spend the money needed to restore it and bring it back until now. It was a jewel when it was first built in 1926 and I think that they have restored it back to that same condition! For those of my friends that are here in Peoria, drive by and you’ll see a very different Pere when you look in the windows!

I was shooting photos at the hotel this past week for ads that will be running in the coming weeks. For this first ad, they wanted to get a great night shot of the hotel. They had it all lit up for me and I was very fortunate to have a great night to get the shot!!! Here’s my shot and the first ad for the “New” Pere Marquette!

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

Kev

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Canton Cruise In

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

One of the questions that I get asked a lot is if I miss having the studio since I sold it last July. For the most part I really haven’t, but there is one thing that I have missed shooting and that is all of the cars and bikes that we shot in there in the past. It was always a lot of fun and challenging as well to do some lighting and make them look good! I was able to get a bit of a fix this past Friday night down in Canton, Illinois at their annual “Cruise In” for 2013. They had the entire downtown blocked off and well in excess of 200 cars and bikes on display. For me getting to go and shoot an event like this is always a big challenge becuase of all the people around the different vehicles. My challenge as always is to try to shoot some interesting shots and different angles and yet not have a bunch of people in the photos. I spent a couple of hours at the Cruise In walking around and checking everything out and shooting some of the cars that grabbed my interest! All and all it was a great event and the city of Canton should be very proud of how well it was organized and attended!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from this years Canton Cruise In!

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

Kev

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Dozer Park

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

This past Friday evening the Peoria Chiefs minor league baseball team had a ribbon cutting for the renaming of their ball park. The former O’Brien Field has now become Dozer Park and will be for at least the next ten years! The stars of the evening were two guests that might surprise you. No, it wasn’t Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman and his wife Diane, but their two black labs Dozer and Diesel. The two labs were the rock stars of the evening and the kids that were waiting to get into the game mobbed those two pooches with lots of pets and hugs! Dozer and Diesel were great and were loving all the loving that they got that night!!!!!!

Here’s a few of my shots from the evening spent at the new Dozer Park!

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

Kev

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Dirty Jobs

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

I was down in Galveston, Texas late last week for a quick gig on a dirty job! My friend Mike Rowe would feature different tough jobs on his show “Dirty Jobs” and the one that we were shooting last week would qualify to be on the show! We were down shooting photos and video (Water Street Media) for Honeywell Safety who makes a great new respirator product for people doing dirty jobs! As you can see in my photos, we had guys that are doing sand blasting of metal parts for Gulf Copper Dry Dock and Ship Repair in Galveston. Trust me, this is a dirty job that you don’t want to do! This new respirator that Honeywell has made is a great product that pumps cool clean air into the orange hood that you see in my photos. It’s a hot nasty job in the summer time, so to be getting cool air to the head gear and also have that air be free of dust and dirt particles is huge!

Here’s a couple of my shots from Galveston and despite being hot and sweaty on this shot, we sure had a lot of fun working with this guys!!!!

It’s time to get to work, so I hope that you have a wonderful week and thanks for taking time to see my weekly photos!!!!

Kev

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All gave some, Some gave all!

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Tuesday morning greetings to one and all!!!

“All gave some, some gave all”

Sometimes it’s easy to forget what Memorial Day weekend is all about. It’s easy to get wrapped up in a three day weekend and spending time with family and friends. There’s auto racing and cookouts and we look forward to that through out the year.

It takes just a moment to remember those that have fought and died to keep us free. Safe from people that don’t always have our best interests at heart and want to do us harm. We have those that have served before and those that are currently keeping us safe to thank and remember.

I hope that you had a wonderful and safe Memorial Day weekend and you took a moment to remember that “Some gave all”!

Kev

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PIA Skyline

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

I wanted to get out and get a new shot of the Peoria skyline last week and the weather was perfect! Our skyline has changed over the past few years with the new additions of the Peoria Riverfront Museum and the Caterpillar Visitors Center. The downtown is coming together and in the coming years is going to change even more! It will be interesting to see what happens next!!!

Here’s my new shot of the Peoria skyline and I’ve also got some links for a computer desktop images for those that are looking for something new to look at as well.

Widescreen image http://kevinmay.com/kmcpia19may13ws.jpg

Standard screen image http://kevinmay.com/kmcpia19may13ss.jpg

Facebook cover image http://kevinmay.com/kmcpia19may13fb.jpg

I hope that you have a great week to come and thanks for taking the time to check out my work!

Kev

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Graduation Time

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

One of the fun gigs that I’ve gotten to shoot these past few years is the graduation at Spoon River College. For those of you not from Central Illinois, SRC is a local junior college located in Canton, Il.

SRC has a very cool tradition at the end of the graduation ceremony that I’ve only seen them do. All of the professors will form up in two lines and the graduates will walk down the center of that tunnel. As the graduates are walking through the tunnel of professors, you’ll see “high fives”, handshakes, fist bumps, hugs and tears. It’s a very emotional time for the graduates and their professors.

Here’s one of my shots from Saturday’s graduation at SRC!

I hope that you have a great week to come and thanks for taking the time to check out my work!

Kev

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It’s planting time!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!!!

This year has been a very wacky year for weather and I’ve heard that we had the second coldest April since they have been keeping records! Besides being cold in April, it was also very wet with record flooding in parts of the Midwest. For our farming friends trying to get their crops planted in the fields, it means they are waiting for things to dry up and warm up. We’re now getting to a point where things are starting to look up for our farmers and the weather is getting a little better and they are getting out and getting their seed planted!

Here’s one of my snaps from last weeks first farming shoot of the year! This is always something that I really enjoy shooting and like the farmers wanting to plant their crops, I can’t wait to get out and do a little farming photography!!!!

Here’s a Facebook version of the photo as well! http://kevinmay.com/kmclg5may13fb.jpg

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

Kev

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The Peoria Riverfront Museum

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

The Peoria Riverfront Museum has been open for about six months now and I had yet to make it down to check it out. For those of you not from the Peoria area, PRM is located in the same block as the Caterpillar Visitors Center along the Illinois River in downtown Peoria. I have to say that I was very impressed with how nice PRM is! I was down there shooting some photos for the Peoria Chamber of Commerce to help promote the museum. There is a lot to do and see there and they also have done a great job with lots of things for kids to interact with and that’s great! Like anything else, if there aren’t some things for the families to do, it won’t be as successful. I know that I’ll be going back at some point in the next couple of months because they have an exhibit from famed nature photographer Ansel Adams and that will be wonderful!

Here’s some of my shots from the Peoria Riverfront Museum! Do yourself a favor and check out PRM!!!!

I hope that you have a great week to come and thanks for taking the time to check out my work!!!

Kev

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I think we’re getting closer to spring!!!

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

Our weather here in Peoria sure has been whacky this year! In February the weather was very nice and warm and I started to think that winter was going to be over and I wasn’t too upset with that! Well, March came in like a Lion and stayed a Lion the entire month, no Lamb by the end of the month! April hasn’t been anything to write home about and having a Monsoon this past Wednesday and then a little snow on Friday, we still have a ways to go before the warm weather hits!!!!

I was down in St. Louis a weekend ago and one of the things that’s always fun to do is to visit the Missouri Botanical Gardens. St. Louis is a couple of weeks ahead of us in terms of greenery and what’s blooming. It was a very nice day at the gardens and I was able to got a lot of really nice snaps! Here’s some of my photos from the day and I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did shooting them!

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

Kev

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