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.