Tag Archives: Peoria

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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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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kmcdp9june13

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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kmcpia19may13

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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kmcprm28apr13

23 years and counting!!!

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

Here I am after 23 years of working for myself and every year I’m shocked that this all is still happening! To think that I was assistant all those many years ago and to see all the things that I have seen and photographed since then, it’s truly been a wonderful ride!!!

What is so stunning to me is how what I’ve done has been changing so much over these last 23 years. When I started back in April of 1990, we were shooting film and I’ve been doing that ever since I was a kid and first picked up a Kodak Instamatic camera back in the 60’s! Here we are all these years later now shooting digitally for the last 13 years and that in my mind is amazing! We’ve come a long way and I know that how we do things will always be changing and evolving and you have to be ready and embrace the change that is coming!!!

Here’s a shot of my home for the last 31 years, Peoria! P-Town as I like to call it!!!! This night photo is of the Peoria Civic Center, Peoria City Hall, The “Twin Towers“, Sacred Heart Church, and The Pere Marquette Hotel!

For my friends on Facebook, here’s a cover photo that you can upload as well!!! http://kevinmay.com/kmcpia15apr13fb.jpg

Thanks so much for 23 great years and I sure appreciate your taking the time to see what I’m shooting!!!

Kev

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Stitching

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April Fools Day Peoria greetings to one and all!!!!

Sometimes I get asked if I ever miss shooting film for my photos and the answer is no! There were things that we could only dream of doing with our photography back in the days of printing in the darkroom that are now possible with shooting digitally. One of those things that’ve been doing for probably seven or so years is “Photo Stitching”. It’s pretty simple, you take a series of photos and then in the computer you “stitch” the images together to create one big image. In the case of the snap that I’m sharing today, this is my first attempt at doing a 360 degree photograph. Inside the Caterpillar Visitors Center here in Peoria is what I like to call the “Big Room”. In this room there are a bunch of Caterpillar products including a life size version of a 797F mining truck. It’s hard from a photography stand point to get a good shot showing the size of these machines and the scope of the room all in one photograph, but that’s where this stitching shot comes in!

Here’s my photo of the CVC “Big Room”. This 360 degree photograph is 72 individual photos stitched together! Enjoy!!!!

Thanks as always for taking to time to check out my work and I hope that you have a wonderful week!!!!!

Kev

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kmccvc25mar13

Two years in the making!!!

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Monday morning Peoria greetings to one and all,

I was just able to finish up a gig that we have been trying to shoot for the last two years. The Peoria Park District wanted to do a shoot showing some of the different zoo animals out in the snow to help promote visiting the Peoria Zoo in the winter time. For this shoot, we needed to have at least a couple of inches of snow to make the shots look good and last winter we never really had enough snow to do the shoot. This winter rolls around and we’re waiting for a good snow and nothing of any amount for the first three months of winter. We had come up to the end of February and still really didn’t have any good snow and we were starting to think that we were going to strike out again this year and would have to wait until next year. All at once last week we got a lot of snow and were able to get the shots that we needed!!!!

Here’s a few of my snaps from a day at the Peoria Zoo!

I’ve also got a Facebook cover shot of Lizzy the Lion as well for those that would like to use it! http://kevinmay.com/kmczoofb.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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kmcpz10mar13

Is lighting is becoming a lost art?

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Monday morning Corpus Christi, Tx. greetings to one and all!!!!

I’ve talked for a long time about the lost art of doing lighting! It’s something that we did before the days of digital photography and it seems like we do it less and less nowadays. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never go back to shooting film and I’m so happy to have a digital image that I can massage and manipulate in the computer. So much of the photography that I now do wouldn’t be possible without shooting digitally! I just miss that we would take time in the past to do some really nice lighting on a product or a person and now we just kind of bang it out in a more photojournalistic style (Thank God I have a degree in Photojournalism from Bradley University)!

I was very fortunate to have one of my clients Simformotion allow me a little time to do some lighting on one of their simulators. The best part is that we were able to come away with some really nice shots of their products without spending a ton of time! The client was happy and I was happy!

Here’s one of our shots from the day showing what can be done if you just take a little time to do something right!

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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kmcsim22feb13

2012 Top Ten Kevin May Photos

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Thursday afternoon greetings from a snowy Las Cruces, New Mexico!

I’ve put together my top ten photos from 2012 and wanted to show the variety of gigs that we did for clients this past year.

I’ve got two links for you, to view the PDF version, click on this link http://kevinmay.com/2012topten.pdf
to view the Powerpoint version, click on this link http://kevinmay.com/2012topten.ppt

Thanks for checking out my top ten photos and I hope that you have a great weekend!!!!

Kev

The best Peoria Illinois sunset ever?

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Christmas Eve Peoria greetings to all my friends around the world!!!!

The end of the year is almost here and it seems like just yesterday it was summer time and hotter then heck!

Peoria has been my home for over 30 years now and I can remember coming here when I first started at Bradley University all those many years ago. No matter where I go or what I do, it’s always a wonderful feeling to come back home to Peoria!!!!

Here’s todays promo and the city of Peoria looks great! Sunset on the Illinois River from under the Murray Baker Bridge with Peoria in the background!
I’ve also done an incredible Time Lapse of the same setting of Peoria and do yourself a favor and see this 30 second video on YouTube. Watch in at HD quality for a real treat! Here’s the link

I hope that you and yours have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanzaa!!!!! Thanks as well for checking out my work, I really appreciate it!!!!!

Have a great one!!!!

Kev

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