ANGELA B. PAN

I did it. I went back to the sunflower fields again. But this time, I went with IGDC. I was a little reluctant to go last weekend because it was just so hot and humid out but I’m so glad I did.

It was so great to see so many of my friends and going out and taking pictures with them. It made the whole experience so different. I felt like I was able to see the sunflowers in a different light. Instead of just concentrating on the blooms, I was more interested in the interactions of my friends with the sunflowers. While some people brought ladders and drones, others had props like picture frames and colorful umbrellas. It was pretty interesting to see the kind of shots everyone was trying to take.

At one point, I was asked to go out into the middle of the field with the umbrella to pose for some images. I agreed and my friend, Birch said that she would go in the middle with me. After my job as “model” was done, Birch and I took some time to just stay in the middle of the field to take some pictures of our own. Luckily, we brought out this ladder so we had an elevated view of the field.

But when it was Birch’s turn on the ladder, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could get a sun flair or something coming from her shoulder. I got some shots but then I ducked down a little bit and loved the way this super tall sunflower was framing her. I love how you’re able to get the sunflower petals on top of the image but also see sunflowers in the distance. A shot I probably would have never gotten if I kept on going to the sunflowers by myself 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F22 and 1/60th of a sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

PS: click here to see this image on the Washingtonian

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend! Mine was amazing. Probably one of the best in a while because of all these beautiful people in this image. Thanks so much to everyone who came out to the IGDC Anacostia Photo Walk this past weekend. I had a blast and hope you did too.

In case you missed it, my friend, Austin organized this really cool photo walk around his neighborhood, Anacostia. Prior to the walk I had not spent much time there and I’m so grateful for this opportunity to change that. I’m honored that Austin even asked me to be a part of it as I tried my best to give photos tips along the way. Anacostia is way more beautiful and interesting than I originally thought. One of the best parts was listening to his friend, John speak. He grew up in the area and knows so much about the history. Just listening to him speak so passionately about the culture and history was fascinating.

Obviously, I had to highlight some of the amazing creatives that were on the walk with us. Here are just a few of the awesomeness.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BpunfMZB9F9/

Proud to say I was standing next to Anu while she was taking this. LOL. I was totally in my own world when she stopped to capture this. Love how it came out.

A very common sight to see on our photowalks but loved the candidness of it and the beautiful tree at the Frederick Douglass House.

Beautiful framing of the clouds by this lighthouse in Anacostia.

Love this view from the Frederick Douglass house!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpuw1JpBo5X/

The photowalk just happened to land on the perfect weekend for fall foliage. This image is so fun and I love all the color.

Finally here’s an image of Austin and I. LOL I love it, Andy!

Thanks again to Austin for organizing it and for being a friend, IGDC for the amazing community that you are and John for all your knowledge. If you weren’t able to make the photo walk, I highly encourage you to check out Anacostia for yourself. You may be surprised!

This past weekend was absolutely amazing for so many reasons. But most of all it was for the photowalk that happened Saturday at the Tidal Basin. Thank you so much to IGDC for hosting. I had the time of my life! Thank you to my friends who came out but also the new ones I met that evening. The weather was cloudy, the water levels were extremely high (the highest I’ve ever seen), but it seemed like everyone came out with amazing pictures. So before I share some of my own, I wanted to highlight some of my favorites from the walk. If you’d like to see more of what everyone created, check out #igdcsnapdc on instagram.

There were so many great images to choose from but here are a few of my favorites:

The beginning of our walk started at the Jefferson Memorial and we were greeted by prom! I love the way you captured this, @ciarasandborg

@pootie_ting, the framing in this is incredible!

@jane_connors, I’m so glad you captured the heron under the cherry blossom trees. This turned out fantastic!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi_5HH_Al5y/?taken-by=jane_connors

So many birds! But I love how they are framing the Jefferson Memorial. Stunning capture, @virginia.cheng

LOL talk about perfect timing, @mica4life. This makes me smile 🙂

The sky turned moody very quickly after sunset. This is so great, @dcrooks_us

And after the photowalk officially ended, the Washington Monument decided to light up the sky. This is AH-MAZING @zackowicz

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjAmY4sAh1S/?taken-by=zackowicz

Thanks again for those who walked! I appreciate you spending your Saturday evening with me. I hope you had a great time but most importantly felt inspired to take more pictures around the National Mall.

Snap DC is officially released on Amazon. If you haven’t already, check it out. It’s available in paperback or kindle and I hope you love it!

A couple of weeks ago, I announced the first photowalk that I’ll be hosting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still on and would love to see you all out there but now there’s another photowalk opportunity that’s coming up even sooner. This Saturday evening!

Thank you so much to my friends at IGDC for helping me put this photowalk together. It will be Saturday, May 19th at 6p and we meet on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial. Everyone is welcome! I’ll also be giving away a few copies of Snap DC for the first to arrive. If you’ve never been to a photowalk before I encourage you to say hello to someone you’ve never met. It’s such a great way to meet like-minded people and do something you both enjoy doing. I’ve met so many great friends through the IGDC community. I’m so grateful for their support and can’t be more honored to be photowalk-ing with them. The photowalk is free, super casual, and we’ll be walking around the Tidal Basin until about sunset. Hope you can make it!

This image was taken last week at sunset. The same day as the epic rainbow but about 30 minutes afterward that image was made. Hopefully we’ll get another beautiful sky like this one on the walk. You know one of my favorite things about shooting the Tidal Basin is definietly the reflection that you get in the water. I love how in this image the Jefferson Memorial columns look so wavy. Well definitely be talking about reflections and other photo ideas on the walk so please join us if you can!

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/50th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II handheld. As a side note, this is definietly cherry blossom inspired 🙂

Days have been going by so fast lately. Don’t you think? Or is it just me? Even though the days are longer, I swear I wake up in the morning and the next thing I know it’s 2p. If I really thought about it I think I took this image this past weekend but when I looked at my calendar, it was really from three weeks ago! That’s so crazy.

I captured this image at the IGDC sunrise meet up. It was a super cold morning and with no clouds in the sky. Usually those are the kind of days that I would rather sleep in (and by sleeping in I mean sleeping until 7a on a weekend) but I knew I would have had a great time shooting with my friends. I left my camera in my backpack for the most part. I was enjoying the conversations more than anything else. But as everyone was wrapping up and leaving, I noticed the sun burst peaking out of the US Capitol building.  So I shot it and didn’t really think much of it. It wasn’t until I got home and looked at the images on my computer did I realize I captured the reflection of the sun burst. How freakin’ cool is that?

Now that I think about it, I think it would be even cooler if I got some seagulls or something flying in the image and got a reflection of that as well. It would be really nice to have some kind of foreground element to this image. Oh well, there’s always next time. I’ll just have to keep that in my to-shoot list.

The camera settings for this image is F/22 at 1/50th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.

Day three of gratitude and I could not be more grateful for the DC photo community. When I first started out in photography, I thought I was the only one. I honestly thought that I was the only one from this area who enjoyed walking around and taking pictures. Obviously I had seen other photographs of DC before, but I had no idea who these people were or how to connect with them. So I spent the first 3 or 4 years all by myself.

After a while, I think I just got bored…

so I signed up for Instagram. My eyes seriously exploded. This is where all the people were hiding! I had no idea there was such a large community of local photographers and all their images were amazing! I decided to go on my first photo walk with IGDC and soon after that, Walk with Locals. It’s hard to describe the energy around these walks but I have nothing but positive things to say about them. And it’s so great because even if you don’t know anybody on the walk, you know you at least have one thing in common, a passion for photography. It’s so fun to spend a few hours with like-minded people creating. Ugh, I love it.

Now I love going out to take pictures with people, I’m no longer bored, and somehow I see things in a different perspective each time I go out. It has opened my world to new people and new places and I’m so grateful to the DC photo community for helping me do this.

This image is of my friend, Laurie one morning at the National Gallery of Art. She’s just one of the awesome people I’ve met through Instagram and thrilled every time we get to hang out.

The settings for this image is F/8 at 1/800th of a second and ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.