Photography Remember your audience Jon Hillenbrand, March 29, 2010October 17, 2019 I shot Billy Corgan for a benefit concert the other night. Though he was donating his time, he made a few comments to the crowd which reminded me that contempt for the audience is not always made up for by expert guitar picking. This reminded me of the axiom, “Remember…
Poetry Chaotic Soul Jon Hillenbrand, March 28, 2010December 30, 2015 Driving with purpose seemed to dry the aqueous pressure behind my eyes as the shrinking distance between my soul and that of my parents stretched the road and all its travelers into panoramic time lapsed smears. I was glad for the speed of other enthusiasts and procrastinations as it hid my…
Photography The Bunker Jon Hillenbrand, March 10, 2010October 17, 2019 When I lived down in Momence, IL, or “The Kank” as I like to refer to it (Kankakee Valley area about 90 minutes south of Chicago), I often came home to a dark Hill House-esque pink cottage which teased me with its Pepto crust and screwy center. To say that I believed…
Photography :| (unamused) Jon Hillenbrand, February 23, 2010October 17, 2019 Today during a studio shoot, I had an interesting interchange with an older woman who volunteered to be a model for a set of ads we are putting together for the launch of a new wing to a hospital: SUBJECT: “I own my own ad agency, so I know all about…
Photography The Long View Jon Hillenbrand, February 17, 2010October 17, 2019 Sometimes I can feel the neurons in my head recharging to execute a wrong decision once again. And in that shiver of a moment, I sometimes see the long view of my life stretched out before me like bolts of drying linen across the stone floor of time. Thoughts meander…
Photography Fate of the Created Jon Hillenbrand, February 4, 2010October 17, 2019 Would it bother you to know that you were created in a lab? That your insides were not the result of slow evolutionary processes but of the genius machinations of a scientist? Sometimes I wish I had a robotic hand like in Terminator 2, but then I look at my natural hand with…
Photography Cowboy Up Jon Hillenbrand, January 25, 2010October 17, 2019 Today I had a great photo shoot. I was tasked with photographing a group of 7-year-olds who all have movement disorders. When I asked for a definition of that, one of the supervisors said that they weren’t especially good at coordinating their left and right sides. So, for example, one of the kids…
Poetry Do We Allow Our Existence? Jon Hillenbrand, January 11, 2010December 30, 2015 Or are we merely the beneficiaries and victims of Existence, depending on the flap of the butterfly’s wings? Things happen. Shit happens. Life happens. Ups and downs and gutters and strikes. Why do things happen? Who knows why the vibrations among the atoms of the universe gang up on us or…
Photography Instruction Manual – Life – 2010 Jon Hillenbrand, January 1, 2010October 17, 2019 I don’t know about you, but I sometimes feel shortchanged by the instruction manual I received when I was born. Oh wait, there isn’t an instruction manual for Life. What the heck?! There are instruction manuals for everything, even chopsticks. The first time I saw those three Chinese pictures on…
Photography My Sound of Music Jon Hillenbrand, December 27, 2009October 17, 2019 The Von Trapp family was the Partridge Family of their day but without the annoying pastels and giant flowers randomly painted on walls. A string of silver-throated talents from old to young, this family did more to further my love of singing than any other early influence. I suspect I even subconsciously…
Poetry How do I love thee Jon Hillenbrand, December 25, 2009December 30, 2015 Man is a wonder. So full of possibility, so acutely a master of all things good and evil. Often we gather to push together, our efforts as one more powerful than the sum of the individuals. We chose to go to the moon, not because it was easy
Photography Duck! Jon Hillenbrand, December 10, 2009October 17, 2019 Ducks seem to have a lock on a lot of things in the human world. There’s the old saying, “Be calm on the surface and paddling like the dickens underneath,” duck analogy. Then there’s the, “If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…,” analogy which is used…
Photography Vanilla petals melting on the ground before me Jon Hillenbrand, December 7, 2009October 17, 2019 I’m glad I’m not a writer, in the professional sense. Sure, I take photos, and sure, some people might think I’m putting myself out there with my “vision of the world”, but for me, my vision(s) of the world are literally snapshots in time, not labored over, heavily edited presentations…
Photography Scared for my liver Jon Hillenbrand, October 29, 2009October 17, 2019 If you’ve ever seen the movie, “Saving Private Ryan,” you might remember the death scene for “Doc” brilliantly acted out by Giovanni Ribisi. Ribisi is great because he has a darkness to him that’s offset by highlights of innocence. Well, in his final scene, shown from the point of view of…
Poetry List of Deeds Jon Hillenbrand, October 21, 2009December 30, 2015 The Truth will not reveal itself to the idle mind. We must sometimes engage in things which we might find uncomfortable, the least of which may be the admission that we were previously incorrect about something. Concurrently, this sometimes uncomfortable journey may bring us to a bridge we have to…