ANGELA B. PAN

The end of 2017 is fast approaching and I can’t help but reflect on the amazing year it’s been. I think this whole week on the blog I’ll talk about all the fun photo adventures of the year. It started off with an awesome trip to Iceland. It was my second time there but definietly not my last. If you’ve never been to Iceland, it’s hard to describe. It’s just so amazingly beautiful and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the outdoors.

I took this image on one of the last days we were there. We had shot sunrise and was wondering around Höfn when we stumbled upon this group of horses. It was beautiful because the early morning light was hitting them perfectly. But if you look at this guy in the eye, you can totally tell how calm and relaxed they all are. The horses in Iceland are super chill and so great to pet… and hug… and basically obsess over.

Shout out to Peak Design for their awesome camera straps. I have the clutch, which is basically a camera strap for your hand. I love it! It makes it so easy to carry around and shoot from different angles. I was able to get this low perspective without having to bend down. I just had my arm straight out, pointed up, and I didn’t have to worry about dropping it at all. Its kinda fun to see what you end up with. It was not serious shooting but shooting for fun and if you get something that turns out cool, it’s even better!

Click here if you’d like to see more images from Iceland.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/100th of a second ISO 80 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

So you know that one of Sue’s highlights from the trip was the Ocean Path. If I had to pick mine, it would have been the airplane tour we did on our last night in Maine with Acadia Air Tours. We booked the “airvan” for 35 minutes at sunset. It was perfect because the plane was actually built for sightseeing.

But if you have never been on a scenic airplane tour, I have 2 photo tips for you:

1. Constantly check your images. The beginning of the flight was perfect. I had the correct settings to make sure I wasn’t getting any motion blur in my images. But as the sun was setting towards the end of our flight, I did not realize how much the light had changed.  I should have bumped up my ISO or something because all the images towards the end of the flight were so blurry. I wasn’t upset or anything, I still had a rockin’ time on the flight. Just check your images as you go!

2. Zoom lens all the way. I brought my 70-200mm just in case, but didn’t feel like I needed it at all. We were only up 2000ft max in the air and I was still able to get pretty good zoom-age with my 28-70mm. I say zoom instead of a wide angle because there were times when there would be a lot of sun glare on the windows. Especially when we were faced a certain way, it was very difficult to avoid it. At least with the zoom lens, I was able to avoid those spots as opposed to a wide angle or something that would have captured it all. Sue was taking pics with her phone and said that the sun glare was really difficult to avoid the entire trip. All of her photos had at least a spot.

So if you’re in Acadia National Park and want to see it from a different point of view or even have a totally different experience, I’d highly recommend Acadia Air Tours. Bernard was our pilot and he was so nice. It was very easy to talk to him and I didn’t feel like I was bothering him with the million and one questions I was asking 🙂  And if you do book a trip with them, tell them I sent ya!

This was taken at the beginning of our flight and my camera settings for this image is 1/25th of a second at F5.6 ISO 640.

For some reason it has just occurred to me that summer is almost over. What?! Like didn’t it just start last week? I feel like I now have to pack all these summer activities in the next 3 weeks before fall comes. What about you? What are the things you have to do every summer? My idea of a good time is just being outdoors. Although this past month it seems like it’s been raining more than it has been sunny. I hope that doesn’t mean we’re going to have a real cold winter.

In effort to jam in as much as we can these last few weeks of summer, Andrew and I have booked another trip to go to New York City at the end of the month. He must have realized how fast summer was going too. HAHA. We’ll be staying for a few days which will be really different for us. We’re usually there for a weekend and we’re gone. This time, I’m really looking forward to taking my time in the city but I already know if Andrew’s involved there will definietly be massive amounts of eating amazing food. It’s usually his job to find the food. It’s my job to find the photo opportunities. So I want to go to the places that I’ve always wanted to go to visit but we were never able to cram into a weekend getaway. Like art museums or trying to find some amazing views from New York buildings like the top of the Empire State building or top of the One World Trade Center. So if you guys have any New York City recommendations, please let me know. We’ll be staying in Brooklyn this time and Frankie is coming with us too! Family filled fun <3

So the settings for this image was F7.1 at 1/200th of a second ISO 160.

So grateful that yesterday’s Independence Day fireworks were so awesome! The forecast had called for 40% rain showers but you would have never known it. The weather was perfect. It wasn’t too hot that it was unbearable to stand outside and sitting under a tree made for a nice breeze. Luckily the clouds weren’t so heavy and dark this time that the fireworks were really able to shine.

My friends Jim and Rosa joined Andrew and I in capturing the fireworks. We ended up at the US Capitol which I had never thought of shooting from before. It turned out awesome because they were having their own concert there and John Stamos (Uncle Jesse) was the host! I was singing and dancing up until the big show. Then while the fireworks were going off, they had even more performances going on. It was a little distracting because I didn’t know what to look at, the performance or the fireworks, but overall it was a blast!

At first I was a little disappointed with how many people were in front of us for the pictures. But taking a moment to really think about what I wanted the end product to look like, I think it worked to my favor. It’s a totally different view of the fireworks than I’ve ever captured before and I think it’s an accurate depiction of what it’s like shooting on July 4th in DC. Crowds of people, a big production, and everyone having a good time. I really like how you can see the fireworks in 4 different places in this image. Can you spot them all?

But lesson learned. If I ever shoot at the US Capitol again, go early. Same goes for all the Lincoln Memorial which I might try to go to next year. The angle from that memorial looks beautiful!

But if I process images from the beach, it will be like I’m there. Right?

Lake Anna wasn’t all just water sports, I went shooting too! We’re super lucky that we stayed at this great rental property that overlooked Lake Anna. I naturally wake up early. I’m not sure if it’s from all the sunrises that I wake up for or waking up to feed Frankie, my internal clock is just used to it now. So I saw the gorgeous sky and had to go out with my camera.