ANGELA B. PAN

I left to Orlando with no real photo intentions. All I really wanted was to have a good time with family at all the amusement parks.  Mission accomplished! I thought I’d get a cool shot of the Disney castle with the fireworks, but that didn’t really happen. Instead, I woke up early one morning and ubered to Lake Eola to check out the sunrise from there. Holy cow was it foggy.

2018 is turning out to be the year of the fog! For real.

You could barely see anything in front of you. I went to Lake Eola park with intentions of capturing the water in the foreground and the skyline in the background but I could barely see 10 ft in front of me. Instead, I changed my focus from the big picture down to the little details of what I thought made the lake so cool, all the birds and swans! This guy came at me because he thought I had food. Sorry bud, if I had some, I would have given it all to you.

Otherwise, Orlando was fantastic. It felt so nice to walk around in a tshirt and sneakers. My favorite park was Universal Studios because my favorite ride was the Incredible Hulk Coaster. I love rides that go upside down! I definietly want to go again because I know there’s so much more that we didn’t have time to do! Like Pandora- The World of Avatar ride in Disney’s Animal kingdom was a 3 hour wait. I’m sure it was worth the wait but we just didn’t have the time. I’ll be back, Orlando!

Anyways, here’s a group shot of all us in front of the Tree of Life in Disney’s Animal Kingdom 🙂

My settings for the swan image is F4.0 at 1/320th of a second at ISO 3200 on my Sony A7II with my 28-70mm lens.

I have this song playing in the background as I’m writing this blog post. Although I don’t share the same thoughts about rain with Missy Elliot, I do appreciate a catchy beat when I hear it. LOL. Oh, how I make myself laugh.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know how important music is to me. I love it. It just puts me in such a good mood. Whether I’m driving, taking pictures, editing pictures, whatever it is, there’s a song for any mood you are in. And watching music videos is something that I remember doing ever since the Total Request Days with Carson Daily. I’d come home from school, heat up a hot pocket, and spend the next hour mesmerized by song and dance. I think watching the visual representation of a song makes the song so much more enjoyable to me. I guess that means I am just a very visual person.

But about this image… This was taken right before a big storm was about to approach the Washington Monument. Luckily, it was around the same time as sunset and it made the sky turn this amazingly warm color in the sky. The coolest part is seeing the cloud formation right on top of that sun. I also enjoy looking at each individual flag and seeing how different they are blowing in the wind. Yea, that evening was something very special.

So unlike Missy Elliot, I love the rain. I love the pre-rain, post-rain, and rainbows. Actual rain, I’m sort of iffy about. As long as my camera gear doesn’t get damaged, then I’m all good 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/13th of a second ISO 100 on my Canon 5d Mark II with my 17-40mm wide angle lens.

Today on our road trip we’re driving from Oklahoma City, OK to Roswell, New Mexico. Over the weekend we zipped past the east coast and most of the central time zone with only a few stops. This was intentional because Sue and I wanted to spend most of the time in the south west. The temperatures will be hot but the pictures will be too, amiright? *high five* Really looking forward to the rest of this adventure. Follow along on my instagram stories to see what we’ve been getting up to in real-time.

The image above was taken just a few weeks ago in Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. I loved seeing these little cacti along the walking trails. Every time I saw one, I’d squeal. They’re just so cute. I bet if you were just walking, you wouldn’t even notice them. They aren’t very big and there weren’t very many of them but it’s little details like this that I love photographing. Things other might have passed by but if you really take your time and look around, they’re so fun to see. The sunrise lighting was perfect. Perfectly describes the mood I felt while I was there, happy and warm.

I did not have a macro lens with me on this trip, so I shot this with my 16-35mm wide angle. That was so I could make sure to get enough foreground and background in this shot. My camera settings for this image was f7.1 at 1/25th of a second at ISO 250. My favorite part is seeing the glow on all the plants in this image. Especially the tall purple flowers on the right hand side. Barely noticeable, but it’s there 🙂 And who knows who’s foot prints those are in the very front. They definietly were not mine.

I remember while I was taking this picture, I thought I’d never post it. I don’t know why but it’s just one that is very different from what I usually shoot and to be honest, it’s just a water fountain?

But for some reason I came back to it. I still remember walking back to my car and seeing this scene and thinking it was absolutely beautiful. I think it was the sound of the water that attracted me to it first. Then it was the sun light onto the water. It reminds me of peace and stillness.

Often times I’ll still shoot these type of scenes. Even if I think I’ll never post it or even if I know the composition isn’t really working for me, I’ll still shoot it. With digital photography, it’s so easy. I kinda see these images as drafts or the beginning stages of something better. Even so, I still think this one is really great and worth posting. What do you think about it?

Even to this day, I’ll still go out shooting and not post a single image from the shoot. Some may call it a waste of time. I personally that you don’t have to get a perfect 10 every time you go out. Its just not possible. I don’t get mad or frustrated. It’s just how creativity works sometimes. It’s not always there and you can’t always force it. You just have to create whatever makes you feel happy. So yes, this water fountain makes me happy. Same with the glow that the light bounce off the water is giving off.

Anyways, I hope you all have a great weekend and you see things that make you happy enough that you would want to photograph it and remember that moment forever. Peace.

PS. I don’t know where all that zen-ness came from. It was just flowing from my mind to my fingers.  I’m super sleepy and I think when I get sleepy, I get very zen like 🙂

If you saw me this morning than you would of seen a girl with a tripod sprinting across Constitution Ave because the sunrise was AMAZING!!! I got to the Lincoln Memorial and had never seen it so pink before. The light from the sky, reflecting off the reflecting pool must of been so bright and strong that it made everything pink. Even these big workout guys stopped to watch. It was incredible.

Speaking of incredible the response to the Vietnam Memorial image from yesterday was absolutely mind blowing. Thank you all so much for the kind messages and comments. I’m going to spend some time today to try to get back to everyone. Thank you so much.