ANGELA B. PAN

Yes, this is very random for me but I thought it was too fun not to share.

A few weeks ago, I offered to take engagement/save the date pictures to my cousin, Brian who’s getting married to Mona in September. If you know anything about Brian, you know his favorite food are donuts. So he said he wanted to do a donut photoshoot theme. So once he told me that, I went onto Pinterest and searched the web and couldn’t really find anything that had couples donut theme for inspiration.

So sitting on it for a few days, I randomly thought of American Beauty, with the scene of the girl who’s just surrounded by rose petals. I brought up the idea to Brian and Mona and they loved it. Obviously, we would have had to have A LOT of donuts in order to replicate that, so this was the best we could do. LOL.

I think it came out so good though! HAHA

My camera settings for this image are F9 at 1/15th sec and ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and 35mm prime lens.

It seems like for the majority of February we’ve been getting a lot of rain and cloudy days.

Why can’t it just be snow?

I captured this image on the first (and I hope not only) snow day we’ve had this season so far. After I flew my drone for a bit, I ended up driving around to see if I could find some more interesting things to capture. That’s when I stumbled onto the Manassas National Battlefield’s Stone Bridge Trail. I had never seen or heard of it before, but I just saw some snowplows in the parking lot so I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. At least I knew I could park easily 🙂

Luckily the trail was mostly paved and it was a very easy walk. I love it when trees are covered in snow. I know I was smiling the whole time I was walking along this path.

My camera settings for this image are F7.1 at 1/320th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens .

After I created this image, I ended up walking around the Tidal Basin a little more and didn’t like what I was getting. Once the sun started to come up a bit, the sky started to get less foggy and I was feeling less inspired. So I ended up just walking back to my car and driving home. On my way home, I noticed the fog getting heavier and heavier. I wished that there was more fog like that around the city.

But in the suburbs of Virginia, it was fantastic. When I turned into our neighborhood, I ended up driving past Andrew as he was taking Frankie on his morning walk. So I parked my car, grabbed my camera and asked if we could all walk down this trail behind our neighborhood. It’s just a small walking path that is hard to notice, but I knew with all the bare trees, it would give off this really cool, spooky vibe.

Luckily, Frankie is the easiest model to work with. And by the time I saw him, he was already almost done with his walk so he was tired. When I told him to “sit”, he literally just stood there and didn’t move. So I took his leash off and snapped a few pictures of him real quick.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/500th sec and ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

We’re forecasted to get some snow this weekend! I’m not going to be a naysayer this time and say it won’t happen because I really hope it does! This time I’m hoping for a significant amount of snow. LOL. *crosses fingers for manifestation*

Throwback to last week when it did snow. It was only a little bit and it didn’t even stick for more than 24 hours but I’m so glad it at least stayed for a beautiful sunrise. I was in Manassas, Virginia. I really wanted to fly my drone for a bit to see what I could capture. But when I saw the pinks in the sky start to show up, my drone started running out of battery. It was ok because I just landed it for a little bit and pulled out my Sony camera to shoot some landscape images. After capturing a few images with my regular camera, I changed the battery on my drone and went straight back up. In the end, it all worked out.

My camera settings for this image are F7.1 at 1/500th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

After my drone batteries died, I hopped back in my car and started driving around a bit to see if I could find more spots to pull over and take pictures. Unfortunately, it was still early in the morning and there weren’t a lot of places where the roads had been cleared.

Fortunately, as I was about to give up and U turn it back home, I found a couple of these guys. It reminded me of being in Iceland. While we were visiting, we would always pull over all the time to check out the horses but in Iceland, they are wild. This guy obviously belonged to people and it seemed like he was used to visitors. As soon as I stood in front of their fence, a couple of horses spotted me and started walking over. They looked like they wanted some treats, unfortunately, I had none or else I would have given all my treats to them.

I love the way this portrait turned out. So unexpected but so fun to capture.

My camera settings for this image are F7.1 at 1/800th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm.

I knew we were going to get snow for almost a week but I didn’t think much of it. Every time I checked the weather, it said the high was going to be in the 40’s so I figured if we did get any kind of snow, it wouldn’t stick or it would just end up becoming rain. I was wrong.

When it actually started to snow on Tuesday afternoon, it really came down. I was shocked when it was sticking to the grass and even created some slush on the roads. So I tried my best to capture it all on Tuesday around my neighborhood, but I wasn’t really happy with anything I captured. I went to sleep hoping the night air would be cold enough to keep the snow on the trees.

So I woke up Wednesday morning, packed up my drone and camera gear, and crossed my fingers that there would still be snow a little further out west in Virginia. I was right! I was so excited to fly, especially when the sun started to come up. The winter glow really came alive on the snow-covered trees and I couldn’t help but smile (even if I was by myself, standing in the shivering cold). I was getting wind warnings the entire time I was flying, but I’m so glad I pushed it a little bit further to capture this.

I really hope we get more snow later on in the season ❄️❄️❄️

My camera settings for this image are F2.2 and 1/640th sec and ISO 400 with my DJI Mavic Pro