The Week Ahead 07

I'm going to go crazy if I don't get to get in a pool or any body of water here soon...

Anyway, it's Monday and we're halfway through June. Here are some thoughts and notes I've put together for the week.

I've had this quote in my notes on my phone for awhile now, but I thought it would be a good way to start off this week.

"To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders." Lao Tzu

While, I'm thinking about quotes and reading, if you're not familiar with Goodreads, you should be. Well, if you care about reading at all you should. The site is a great resource, but I've recently found it most useful for tracking the books I've read and what I would like to read. It will also give you recommendations based on your interests and saved online library. Last week I finished the book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. The story follows a series of murders of wealthy Osage Indians and sheds light on a truly dark time and place in history. I highly recommend this book. I'm looking forward to the movie adaptation Martin Scorsese has been working on. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are expected to be in the film.

I've spent a decent amount of time in Osage County Oklahoma. There haven't been too many other places where I've seen more stars in the sky at night and better sunsets.

The photo below is from an old video I took on a GoPro several years ago while hunting in Osage County.

In other news, I've been spending more time working in Photoshop recently. I'm familiar with the program and know a good amount of the basics for retouching, editing, and even creating some composites out of multiple images, but I'm still very much at an intermediate level (if that). I still enjoy it anyway. Down below, you'll see I put together a double exposure composite the other day. I took both of the images myself. I didn't spend too much time trying to get it perfect, since I wanted to do this as more of an exercise. This isn't always the case, but sometimes it's better to see a finished product that's not perfect. Maybe I'm just justifying the quality of this blog haha, but in my opinion, this also helps create a habit of finishing things. Which goes without saying is extremely important for creatives. Unfinished and unpublished work doesn't do much good sitting on a dusty shelf or stuck in a folder on your computer.

I'm over on Thumbtack, a site for finding professional services. A link to my profile is here. If you want to help ya boy out, I could use some more reviews. If you shoot me a message to my email or through my contact page, I'll send you a link to create a review.

And if someone you know is in need of photography, well, you know where to send them.

Maybe it's the second cup of coffee talking, but I have a good feeling about this week.

-Nick