Christmas Shopping at Amazon?

With all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers, when I saw Amazon reduce Adobe's Dark Room 2 to $124, I could not pass that up. I already have CS4, and Photoshop Elements 4 and 7, so Light Room should be a nice complement for my work-flow. We'll see!

Milwaukee at Dusk

My youngest daughter and I had some time to kill while in Milwaukee this weekend (she was at an Honors Band event at UW-Milwaukee) so for dinner, we drove through down-town and admired the Christmas lights, ate, and then drove back north along the lake-shore. Near the Marina, I saw this reflection in a pond and pulled over to shoot. Too bad I didn't have a tripod, but I still like it. Canon 40D, handheld at 1/4 sec, f/2.8, 33mm, iso-400.

Cave Photography, Anti-Landscapes?

We have a few caves in the state of Wisconsin, with the best known being Cave of the Mounds, which I've enjoyed many trips to. This past weekend, I chaperoned an 8th grade Middle-School's Science Club to this cave, and shot a number of pictures of their adventure. This cave is known for having many colors, but with cave lighting, it was a challenge to capture it well. Here's one of a small section that was dripping with water.

No Birds, but a Great Pair of Cattails

This shot was taken at Loew Lake, in the Loew Lake Unit of the Kettle Moraine State Forrest (Wisconsin) this past weekend. The lake is next to impossible to get to. The hiking trails don't go near the lake because it is surrounded mostly by thickets and brush and rotting trees in a marsh. But from the bluff near the lake, I heard very loud and clear duck/goose noises coming from the lake, which was barely visible. I wanted to see what they were, and what they were doing, for some possible good pictures. I decided to just do it, and made my way through the mess with only getting a little wet. When I got to the lake, I found the bird noises were coming from 4 duck hunters who had a boat and blind set up. Well, no wildlife to take pictures of, but the cattails with the fall colors behind them looked really nice to me.

Fall in Delafield, Wisconsin

I was out looking to see what was happening today, and found a nice spot for a "car-shot" in a nearby State Park. My intention was to pose next to it, an updated self portrait, I guess, but I didn't have all the components for my tripod with me. Oops. Then I headed to Delafield (WI), to the Bark River, and to Nagawicka Lake. I spotted some Cedar Waxwings picking at a berry bush, and then I saw 4 swans quite a ways out on the Lake (where the Bark River flows out of it). The swans were too far away for a good shot, so I drove around the Lake and found a home-owner who allowed me access to the Lake, and then I saw them, 2 parents and 2 juveniles, Mute Swans. The home-owner said they'd been there all summer, raising their young.

Fall Colors in Baraboo, Wisconsin

This past weekend, I had an enjoyable time helping to chaperon a group of Middle School students, a Science Club, to Devils Lake State Park, near Baraboo, Wisconsin. It was a bit cold at first, but with the hiking trail that we chose, one of the more difficult ones, I got warm in a hurry. The fall colors were really nice, though I suspect they will peak in about one more week. The kids had a great time, and no one got hurt or lost, but my knee has been acting up ever since the "climb"

Cedar Waxwing Birds - Feeding Time!

This past weekend, my Brother-in-Law mentioned that he had seen Cedar Waxwing birds feeding off the nearby trees. I went over to investigate, but they were not there at the time, so I headed out of town to a State Park, and sure enough, I found a dozen or more of them, feeding off the cedar tree's berries. I've updated my web site with my favorites from the weekend (JHillmer.com) and here is a link to a slide-show with about 10 bird shots feeding.

Cedar Waxwings

Full Moon, Over Historic Waukesha

A few times each year (quarterly?), Waukesha Wisconsin holds an Art Crawl along Main Street in the Downtown area. This evening, I spent a little over an hour walking through the art studios and enjoying the nice autumn weather. It was nearly a full moon, but a bit cloudy. However, as I walked past one of the older historic buildings (that houses Martha Merrell's Books and Cuddles) I saw the chance for a nice shot. I drove home and got my cameras and tripod, and when I got back, here's the result (shot with a Canon 40D using a Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens, with the shutter open for 3.2 seconds, f/4.6, ISO-100, zoomed to 28mm).

Marching Band Material

While my hobby is Nature and Wildlife photography, I have also been a high-school Marching Band's photographer for a few years. This past weekend was a lot of fun, getting group and sectional shots of the kids, while also looking for material for a glossy program that is being put together for a show we will be hosting in two weeks. Candid and group shots are provided to the band members and their parents using a semi-private site, so I usually don't display their shots elsewhere. I will include a few here that I like from the weekend, as they capture the mood and event, without focusing on the individuals. One of these will be on the cover of the program that we sent off to the printer today, the others are just shots that I like.

Golden Gate Bridge - in Fog

At the end of August, I spent a few days in San Francisco on business, and had a few hours to myself one late afternoon. The Bay-Area was fogged in as usual, and while I took a few shots of the sea lions and local birds, I had fun trying to capture the Golden Gate Bridge with fog, sun-down, pelicans, and without getting too much salt water near my camera. To help with this, I took a short 1 hour tour out from Fishermen's Wharf, around Alcatraz Island, and then back. Here's one of my favorites from the evening.

Canon EOS 7D DSLR - Wow!

I was not in the market for another camera, but news of the Canon 7D that was just announced caught my eye! As of today, Amazon is not yet showing it but others are listing it as "not available yet" and other sites suggest it will be on the street by the end of this September.

See more at: Canon's Site, or check out for one of my favorite review sites, dpreview.com

Canon's site says msrp will be $1,699, so it will be interesting to see what the internet sites offer it for, and if this new model causes any price movement on the Canon EOS 50D, or to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II (I've been thinking that might be the next one for me, but the 7D could be interesting too).

ShiftN - Free Perspective Correction

I'm sure there are other ways to address Perspective Corrections, but I found ShiftN, a free (for personal or commercial) use tool. Pictures taken with a wide angle lens, sometimes get a bowed effect that can look funny, especially when objects in the shot make it obvious that your wide angle lens did a number on the perspective. A week or so ago, I took some shots for a work-related function at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The shots were for business reasons so I'm not showing those, but here's one of the "Hill-Climber" that is outside of the museum.



This was shot with a Canon 40D using a Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM, at at focal length of 23mm. The flag pole in the actual shot was pretty bowed. ShiftN helped me correct that. The background buildings aren't perfect, but this is better than the original.

NWF selected one of my shots

A while back, I posted a few pictures on Flickr, and made them part of a National Wildlife Magazine's group (the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Gardens Group). Soon after, the National Wildlife Federation contacted me and asked to use one of my Cedar Waxwing (see below) shots in a screen saver they were putting together. I agreed, and you can now get that for free. You can go to their Wildlife Habitat Screen Saver page, or you can directly download it by clicking here: screen saver.



I have not put a lot of shots on Flickr, because I have my own site, www.jhillmer.com, but I added a few today so that I could enter a few more shots into the National Wildlife Magazine's “America the Beautiful” contest.

Pencil drawings that will amaze you

I'd like to pass a web site on to you, a site that is owned by a distant relative of mine. www.bjurstromstudio.com is where David Bjurstrom displays and sells his art, mostly western subjects, many nature works, all done in pencil. Take a look, you will be impressed.

So, who is David? David is the son of my dad's cousin, who is the daughter of one of my grandmothers sisters. Complicated? Maybe, but I'd love to get one of his prints someday, and I'd love to see one of his originals in person too.

To respect his copyrights, I am not attaching any pictures of his prints, but click the link and you'll see for yourself!

Second White Squirrel in our yard

Yesterday, and again today, a second white squirrel appeared in our back yard. We know it is the "2nd" because the "1st" was there too! For over a year, we've enjoyed watching a white squirrel who frequents our yard about once a day. We feed birds and squirrels, but in the past, it's been only gray squirrels, so the white one has been a lot of fun to watch. This past spring, we saw a second white one about a quarter mile away, but now, as of yesterday, they both appeared at the same time in our yard. The second one is smaller (younger?). They don't appear to be traveling together. I don't yet have one picture of the two of them at the same time, but I will work on it. This shot was taken next to a picnic table leg.

Experimenting with Facebook

I played with Facebook tonight, and created a page for one of our cats, Ash, and you can become a "fan" of him.

Ash on Facebook

Looks like we will finally get some rain

It's been a really dry summer, and finally today rain is on its way. I had the day off so before it started getting wet, I visited a county park and a state park to see what I could see. Not much out there today - I found a few small birds, some wild flowers, and this butterfly. I'm behind in posting pictures from the past month to my web site (http://www.jhillmer.com/), so maybe this weekend I'll catch up on some of that.

High-School Band Camp

Usually, I shoot nature, wildlife, landscape scenery subjects, but I've also been helping our high-school band program with still and video photography. Shooting people, especially teenage kids, is a lot different than my normal material.

I've tried to make sure that my shots are fun, and tell the story of their events, and provide a time-line from the beginning of each year through the development of skills and performances to the end of their year. I hope I've earned their trust, in that I don't shoot stuff that they would not be happy with. All shots are kept on a semi private site for the students and their families.

This week, a two day band-camp was held, and I had fun shooting the event again for them. Good luck to the Waukesha South High School Band kids and their staff as they begin the journey again.

Wildlife, on the way home from work

On Monday and Tuesday, one of my children was involved in "band camp" - a few days at high school in the summer, where they begin preparing for the fall marching season. I like to stop in and help, or at the very least shoot some pictures so that they can see later in the season how far they progressed. I went to work those days - but had my cameras with me for the afternoon camp. On the way home, I drove through Whitnall park (a park in Milwaukee County) and I found a few deer, a ground hog, and then later on the way home, a pair of sandhill cranes. I will add these to my web site, www.jhillmer.com soon, but here's a preview of one of the deer and the cranes.

Spent Fri at EAA in Oshkosh

Annually, the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) sponsors the world's largest airplane gathering, in Oshkosh Wisconsin. The week long event attracts people and planes, many were experimental or homebuilt, from all over the world. Thank you to Computer Associates for hosting me at the event.

Of special interest to me this year was the double decked Airbus A380 that flew in for the week. It was on display, though the lines to get into it were a bit long. I watched it take off on Friday, as it headed back to Milwaukee and then on to its next event. The other craft that was incredible, was the White Knight 2, the carrier plane for the future Space Ship Two. The space pod was not attached at this time, but the plane looked really great.





I recently purchased a Honda CR-V, so when I saw that Honda has a jet too, the HondaJet (hondajet.honda.com), I had to check that out, and I got a HondaJet T-Shirt that matches my car's color, but the $3+ million tag on the jet was more than I had in my wallet.

Blog site up and running

Thanks to Google, I've added a blog site in connection to www.jhillmer.com

My intention is to post events and or locations that I will go to, or have been at, that will have some connection to the photo's that I take. While generally, I shoot nature, wildlife, and landscape photography, I also shoot some other events - sometimes to help with school groups, sometimes because its fun to learn how to capture other subject materials, and sometimes just for fun.