Tag Archives: kevmaydude

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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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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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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The Rave is back and better then ever!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

I’m hoping that you were able to have a very wonderful and safe 4th of July weekend! These long weekends sure are nice and when you have the beautiful weather that we had here in Central Illinois for the weekend, that makes it’s even better!

Back in the middle of March I shared a promo about a band that I shot some pictures of called The Rave. Here’s the post from March if you’d like to refresh your memory http://blog.kevinmay.com/2014/03/17/were-getting-the-band-back-together/ I’ve been taking photos of these guys for over 25 years now and we’ve had a lot of fun along the way. We got together back in March of this year to shoot some promo photos since the guys would were getting back together and would be playing some live shows this summer. As always we had a lot of fun doing those promo photos.

The guys had their first live gig this past Thursday down in Pekin, Il. and it was great to see them perform and hear them playing live! It was there first live performance in 25 years for The Rave and I think that they picked right up where they left off! They played a couple of sets and it was everything from the Beatles to the 2000’s. It was a bit of a time machine to hear those songs that I remember so well and to see the energy that they put into their show! They are still kicking it out all these years later and they aren’t done yet! Here’s a few of my snaps from Pekin, Il. with The Rave

Well it’s time for all of us to get back to work after the 4th weekend! I hope that you have a very wonderful week to come and thanks for checking out my work as always!!!!!

Kev

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The Metal Museum

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Memorial Monday greetings from Memphis, Tn.

Hopefully you have had a good and safe Memorial Day weekend!!!!

We were able to spend the Memorial weekend down here in Memphis and as always it’s a wonderful time! Lots to see and do and also lots of great food!!!! We are always looking for new things to do where ever we go and this time found a great new place to check out. The National Ornamental Metal Museum or The Metal Museum as it’s also know is in Memphis and it’s a very interesting place. The museum is a campus of small buildings with a couple of buildings just showing art work. There’s also a working foundry and blacksmith shop as well, so there is lots to see and do! We were lucky to catch a blacksmith doing his thing working with some iron making some decorative pieces for a gate. This is one of those places that we had never heard about in all of our years coming to Memphis! Do yourself a favor and check it out if you’re ever in the Mid South!!!!!

Here’s a few of my photos from the day at the Metal Museum!!!!

Thanks as always for checking out my work and I hope that you’ll have a wonderful rest of the week!!!!

Kev

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San Diego

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

Here we are a week away from Memorial Day weekend and it’s always amazing how fast time files!!!! It seems like just yesterday it was Easter and now here we are at the official start of summer. I’m not one to complain about having a three day weekend to regroup and relax!!!!

About a month ago I was out in Phoenix on a shoot and I was able to scoot over to San Diego for a couple of days! It’s always nice to get out to that part of the country and with the weather being so nice, I wasn’t complaining!!!!! There’s lots to see and lots of fun to be had as well in San Diego!!! I was able to hit Kona’s Surf Club Cafe and Balboa Park and really enjoyed shooting photos while I was there as well! I’ve attached a few photos from my time in SoCal for you to check out!

I hope that you’ll have a great week to come and Memorial Day weekend as well!!!! If you’re going to be out on the roads next weekend, be safe and have a fun time!!!!

Thanks as always!!!!!!

Kev

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