Photography Chinatown Jon Hillenbrand, August 13, 2008October 17, 2019 My annual review is coming up next week. I believe that my immediate boss likes me and will give me a fair and honest review. That’s really all I hope to get. In the end, the raises that my company gives are based not on merit but on the “3%…
Photography Blessed are those who have music to listen to Jon Hillenbrand, July 31, 2008October 17, 2019 (By the way, there are more hyphenated-words in this blog post than normal. Please use caution when reading.) This is a good time to be alive. Despite the money grab from most music artists nowadays, you can still get DRM-free music on Amazon.com. Find a song you like, and almost…
Photography The Revenge Insanity Jon Hillenbrand, July 28, 2008October 17, 2019 Today some random nurse charged into me with the full voice of whatever crap is going on in her life. I did my best to use the, “Service Values Recovery Behavior Training,” to steer her back toward a constructive conversation. The situation was, I agreed to encode three videos by…
Poetry The Land and the Sky Jon Hillenbrand, July 2, 2008December 30, 2015 There is a legend of a man and a woman who lived long ago. The man loved the woman more than anything and she loved him in return. He was a calm man, someone who knew the purpose of it all, who could see the wide view. But his love…
Photography How to Survive a Bank Robbery Jon Hillenbrand, July 1, 2008October 17, 2019 I’m a man of action. I don’t wear suits to work, I wear cargo pants and roomy shirts so that I can slide across car hoods comfortably. My footwear enables me to chase down perps and run two or three steps up a vertical wall. That way I can grab…
Photography Circling Jon Hillenbrand, June 27, 2008October 17, 2019 Today I was tasked with capturing all of the new topiary at one of the hospitals I am responsible for photographing. It was a hot day and I took my time concentrating on getting nice shots despite the highness of the sun in the mid-morning sky. Forty-five minutes in, I…
Poetry Delta Delta Delta Jon Hillenbrand, June 26, 2008December 30, 2015 Last night, I walked past my bookshelf and glanced at one of the two spiral-bound notebooks leaning against the oversized Dan Eldon book. One notebook has a collection of terrible charcoal drawings I made in a period when I imagined I could practice my way into talented charcoal artistry. The…
Photography Endless Generosity: How to Train a Cat to Do Your Taxes Jon Hillenbrand, June 23, 2008October 17, 2019 So, the old phrase, “It was like herding cats,” tends to bring either a smile or a grimace of understanding to my face. My affinity for that phrase stems from its daily applicability here at my workplace. If any of my millions of readers have ever owned a cat, you…
Photography Pushing the limits Jon Hillenbrand, June 21, 2008October 17, 2019 Today I let a $920 lens fall to the ground attached to a $5000 camera. I was rigging a shot on a 16 year old girl’s bicycle. The plan was to mount the wide angle lens to the front of her bike, set the camera for a 10 second countdown,…
Poetry How am I not myself? Jon Hillenbrand, June 21, 2008December 30, 2015 I am an impostor standing alone secretly regarding the twenty-five kinds of gourmet waters available for purchase at prices similar to the wine. Ironically the granola-lined asphalt of the parking lot welcomed in my turbocharged Subaru with the ultra high performance tires, three inch exhaust and carbon fiber wing as…
Poetry Dropping the soap Jon Hillenbrand, June 14, 2008December 30, 2015 So you know what I’m really good at? Avoiding soap to foot impacts in the shower. I’m like the Smith from the Matrix movies who could avoid all those bullets. I think it’s a very useful skill to have. Now if only I could work on not dropping the soap….
Photography Check please Jon Hillenbrand, June 11, 2008October 17, 2019 The good thing about life is that there are checks and balances. Everyone needs them. People like Gandhi and Patton weren’t born great. They were forged from the iron of their birth into the steel icons that still exist through the heat of position and the pressure of time. Today…
Photography Rockstar Jon Hillenbrand, June 10, 2008October 17, 2019 I was just emailed this question from a client for an upcoming photo shoot I will be working: Jon, do you need any special arrangements for the luncheon on 6/27? – Let me know – Thanks,(name withheld to protect the innocent) Here was my reply: I will need the following…
Photography What might have been Jon Hillenbrand, June 10, 2008October 17, 2019 My recovery from grade school began the first day of high school. It was the very definition of a clean slate due mostly to the size of the student body. Grade school involved less than 200 students, most of whom were vastly different ages. High school had more than 2000…
Photography Hot enough for ya!? Jon Hillenbrand, June 6, 2008October 17, 2019 Hi blog.So I’m feeling kind of basic today. Maybe it’s the heat and the humidity. It’s so hot and humid today I saw the devil wearing a t-shirt and drinking a Gatorade. I swam into the parking garage today and snorkled to my car. I wiped off my hands and…