Tag Archives: Peoria

Day and Night PIA!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Well it’s one of those holiday weekends coming up that’s a long weekend and that means this week is a short work week for most of us! The 4th of July is this coming Friday and I know that a lot of you will be traveling or are already traveling for the holiday! Make it a safe one on your travels and also make it a fun one! I know that having a long weekend sure is nice and we can put work aside for a couple of days and have a little fun is even better!!!!

I’m always very proud of Peoria and I think we have a great city here in the Midwest! Last year we won the All-American city for the fourth time in the history of those awards! There’s lots going on in Peoria and also a lot to see and do!!!! We should all be proud that the city is moving forward and not remaining stagnate! The Peoria skyline along the Illinois River has always been a wonderful view from across the river in East Peoria and it’s fun to watch the sun go down and see the lights of city come up!

Here’s a day and night shot of our city!!!!

I hope that you have a safe and wonderful 4th of July this coming weekend and thanks as always 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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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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Halloween Hunt!!!

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Monday morning greetings from Peoria!!!!!!!!!

It was an very beautiful weekend here in Peoria!!! Fall is in the air and with temps in the 50’s, it’s time to put that sweatshirt and jeans on!!!!! I really just love this time of year!!!! The humidity of summer is long gone and having the cooler temperatures is a wonderful change from summer here in the Midwest!!!

Wow, the Peoria Riverfront Museum is kicking things up and they had a great event yesterday! They hosted their first “Halloween Hunt” on Sunday and I’d say it was a huge success!!!!!! I saw lots of kids dressed up in costumes and also a few adults got into the swing of things as well!!!! They had all kinds of fun and educational things for the kids from a laser light planetarium show in the dome with Halloween music to science demos with dry ice (always a favorite of mine) and also real live bats!!!!!!!!!! The bats were very cool and the kids liked them!!!!! One of my favorite shots on this promo is the shot of the young man wearing his Batman custom and they hung a real live bat on him!!!! The funny thing was they asked him after how it was and he said, “his claws were sticking me, it hurt!!!” Priceless!!!!!!!

Lots of fun in P-Town yesterday at the museum and here’s a few of my snaps!!!!

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

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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Tee it up!!!!!!!!

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Labor Day Monday morning St. Louis greetings to one and all!!!!!!

For all my friends here in the USA, I hope that you’re having a wonderful Labor Day weekend!!!!

This past Monday I was out shooting photos for the 2013 “Tee it up for the troops” charity event in Peoria. This was the fifth year that the event has been in Peoria and in those five years, the Peoria area has raised over one million dollars for this great charity!!! We have so many great charities here in Central Illinois and it always amazes me just how generous this area is to all of these organizations! For a smaller town like Peoria, we do pretty darn good!

For those that haven’t been to this event, it’s now held at two local golf courses, the Country Club of Peoria and also Mt. Hawley Country Club. At both courses in the morning they have about 240 veterans at each course that play golf and then have a great lunch and dinner as well (no charge for any of that for the Veterans)! In the afternoon, all the golfers are paying to play and help support the charity. At lunch time at both courses they have ceremonies that honor the veterans and also the active duty military that have and do keep us safe and free! As everyone is playing golf, there is lot of fun and laughs (and a occasional swear word for a bad shot), but when the ceremony is happening and then the trumpeter plays Taps, you realize why we are all there and what the event is all about!!!!

Here’s a couple of my snaps from this years Tee it up event!!!!

Thanks as always for checking out my work and I hope that the rest of your Labor Day weekend is a safe and fun one!!!!!

Kev

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Women of Faith

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all,

I’ve been working with the Peoria Civic Center this past month documenting some of the events going on and also working on new fresh photos for them to use in their marketing materials. This past weekend the PCC hosted the “Women of Faith” conference in the arena. There were thousands of women there listening to a wide variety of spiritual messengers and it was pretty neat to see! When I first walked into the arena I thought I had walked into a full blown rock and roll concert. An amazing set up with incredible lights, sound system and video projection! First rate to say the least and a very well thought out and produced show!!!!

Here’s a few of snaps from the Peoria stop of the “Women of Faith” 2013 tour.

I hope that you’re going to have a wonderful week and thanks for taking the time to check out my work!

Kev

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kmcwof18Aug13

Wow!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all of my friends around this big beautiful place we call Terra Firma!!!!!

One of the projects that I’ve been working on lately is to help the Peoria Civic Center freshen up their images to help promote itself as a place to host Peoria events. We’re very fortunate that we have a lot of options here in Peoria for clients to look at for their events, be it meetings or a convention or even in this case a wedding!!! I got an e-mail from the Civic Center telling me that they had a great wedding reception that they would be hosting and said the room would be a knock out! Well, when I first walked into this room at the Peoria Civic Center, my first word was “Wow”!!!!! I don’t know how you could describe it any other way and I can’t think of a better word that describes some place knocking your socks off like this room did!!!!

We have an awful lot to be proud of here in our city of Peoria and the Civic Center is one of those gems!!!!!

Here’s one of my snaps of the room that made me say “Wow”!!!! You might be wondering also about the food, “Oh yea, it’s good”!!!! Here’s a link for that! http://kevinmay.com/kmc2pcc11aug13.jpg

I want to say thank you for always taking the time to see what I’m shooting and what I’ve been up too!!! Have a very wonderful week to come!!!!

Thanks again!!!!

Kev

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Where has the summer gone?

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all!

Where has this summer gone? It seems like just yesterday it was Memorial Day weekend and here we are and July is almost over! I guess it’s better when time is moving faster then slower!!!

One of the annual summer events here in Peoria just wrapped up this past Saturday night and I was able to get out and grab a couple of snaps! The 64th Annual Heart of Illinois Fair is one of those Peoria events that kids of all ages (mostly the under 16 crowd) looks forward too with all of the games, food and rides! There was a pretty good crowd for the last night of the fair and the weather cooperated and it was a lot cooler then it’s been the past week! Here’s one of my snaps from Saturday night!

We all better get out there and enjoy the rest of the summer before Labor Day weekend hits in just five weeks!!!!

Have a great rest of the week and thanks as always for taking the time to check out my work!!!!

Kev

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AMA Flat Track Racing

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

If you know me, you know that racing is in my blood! No, not as a driver, but as a fan and a photographer! For me it’s so much fun to go out and shoot whatever form of racing there is from bikes to cars to boats to camels!!!! There’s just something about the speed that is like a drug to me and pulls me in. I guess I just love being around it!!!!!

I was out yesterday at the Peoria Motorcycle Club’s track in Western Peoria for their June race. Yes, the June race had been postponed, so they had it yesterday! It was a great day despite the heat and there was a lot of great racing going on!!!! Here’s one of my snaps from the day and I just loved the motion and speed that I was able to create in the camera.

Thanks for checking out my work as always and I hope that you have a very wonderful week!!!!!

Kev

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