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…
Photography Kick the habit Jon Hillenbrand, June 5, 2008October 17, 2019 Jerking the trigger, focusing with one eye closed and complacency with exposure are just some of the bad habits that I struggle with as a professional photographer. Where do these repetitive behaviors come from? Memory? Memories are collections of energy in neurons distributed throughout the brain connected together by things…
Photography The self portrait Jon Hillenbrand, June 3, 2008October 17, 2019 This is a picture I took of my hand while shooting physicians on-location one day. I didn’t have a stand-in other than a medical skeleton, so I shot my hand to see how the lights were looking. But I think it would be a funny series to shoot my hand…
Photography French Vanilla Jon Hillenbrand, May 30, 2008October 17, 2019 Honey Nut Chex combined with vanilla-flavored soy milk is the second most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. By the way, thanks a lot French language, you jerk. I started out the first sentence of this post capitalizing almost every word. I had to go back and change them all back…
Poetry The future remains, as always, uncertain Jon Hillenbrand, May 30, 2008December 30, 2015 I may not have all of the answers, but I know what I know. I’ve drunk lessons from the fire hose, most of it getting away from me. I’ve filled my cup with what I know, and periodically pour it most of the way out onto the pavement like tears…
Photography This is my face Jon Hillenbrand, May 30, 2008October 17, 2019 So I shaved off my goatee a few days ago, and so far no one has noticed, not even my sister or mother. I know one person who will probably notice when I see her on Saturday. But she probably won’t say anything either because of the recent unpleasantness. The…
Photography RTFM Jon Hillenbrand, May 29, 2008October 17, 2019 So I re-read the manual to the Nikon SB-800 speedlights that I use here at work and I discovered two things that were, in the corporate parlance of our times, big ah-ha’s to me. See, when we first got these strobes, I read up on them and knew that some…
Photography Crowd watching ‘Otters Holding Hands’ Officially Annoying Jon Hillenbrand, May 29, 2008October 17, 2019 Have you ever seen the Youtube video of two otters holding hands? Kinda cute. But if you listen to the crowd of idiots watching these two otters, it reminds me of how other people are always getting involved in my relationships. Seems like you can’t show any bit of attention…
Photography Killer Downtime Claims Victim Jon Hillenbrand, May 20, 2008October 17, 2019 I’m sure no one has ever died from downtime. I can only imagine the downtime that soldiers or combat photographers have. Stories of hours of sheer boredom followed by moments of sheer terror permeate the milblogs on the net. Personally, I almost never have downtime. But when I do, it’s…