April 2, 2010

Unfettered Brain

By In Photography, Thoughts

Tonight as my sister, niece and I looked out from the roof-top deck at the rising dusk, my niece said, “Good morning, night.”  Even though she is three, I am inspired by her sideways approach to everyday things.  One day, after I sang the phrase, “too many monkeys,” during a long walk, we transformed the conversation into a game where we said, “No more _____.”  Could be anything.  No more airplanes.  No more apples.  No more chicken butts.  There was no pattern or goal other than the naming of pretty much every noun we could think of.  We both didn’t seem to get bored with this game, funny enough, although granted it was broken up from time to time by running away from ghosts or toward doggies.

This morning I intended to shoot the front of Evanston Hospital.  There was a thing cloud bank in front of the sun which terminated at the zenith of the sky, blue beyond toward the west.  It created a perfect lighting situation of nice soft shadows toward the foreground and good blue sky in the background.  Perfect!  So I ran to get my camera but got tied down by emails and phone calls.  Thirty-five minutes later, when I made it out front, the clouds had all melted away into a clear panorama of royal blue.  The shadows were flat against the building now and were uninteresting.  So I took some interior shots instead.  Here are some of them.

Written by Jon Hillenbrand

Jon Hillenbrand is a Chicago-based artist working in photography and filmmaking. He has over 15 years of professional award-winning experience working both locally and nationally in television, print and web advertising. He currently calls Evanston, IL home.