ANGELA B. PAN

I’d like to visit the tidal basin as much as I can this week. Cherry blossoms are no where near what they were like in previous years but regardless they’re still beautiful. With the cold weather, only about 50% have survived and will be peaking. As of right now, the flowers are almost there. Some trees are really beautiful and have some great blooms on them. Some are just completely dead. The others are half and half and it’s hard to tell which direction they’re going. I’d say if you were planning on a trip to go, I’d go towards the end of the week or even the weekend.  That is if you want to battle the craziness of the crowds and the actual cherry blossom festival.

This was taken yesterday morning around sunrise. The sunrise itself wasn’t too impressive since it was too cloudy but it made for the perfect backdrop for a moody cherry blossom shoot. I ran into my friend, Jarrett again. We always seem to run into each other during sunrise but especially during cherry blossom season. It’s sort of become a running joke with us. Regardless, he’s great company to walk around the basin with. We’ll talk about anything from photography to social media to creepin’ on other people’s engagement photoshoots. You’ll have to watch his instagram stories to understand. LOL.

My settings on this image was F8 at 1/80th of a second ISO 500 with my 28-70mm. I intentionally set my aperture around f/8 so I can get most things in focus. I definietly wanted the flowers to be seen and the Washington Monument. Another grey day means another high ISO image to make sure the wind wouldn’t make this image blurry.

But there will be more of these updates throughout this week and maybe even next week. Please let me know if you like them because I like posting them 🙂

So funny story. Remember how yesterday I said that the cherry blossom won’t be peaking this year? I was wrong. I wrote that post way to soon because guess what?! Only half the cherry blossoms were really effected by the snow last week. It’s like a huge sigh of relief. I really look forward to this time of year every year and I really didn’t want to miss out on it this time. So for the last 50% of the cherry blossoms remaining, they’re expected peak date is now March 22-25th which is only a few days from now!!!

I went out Sunday morning to meet up with a local instagram group called, Walk with Locals. I had been to some of their events before but this was their one year birthday so I had to go. I hate missin’ out on a good time. Even though it was wet, rainy, and snowing, there was an impressive amount of people who showed up at sunrise. We walked around the tidal basin but I kind of stayed in the back of the crowd. Eventually I was the only one walking by myself when I saw this duck.

Its not uncommon to see ducks in DC, especially around the water. But this one was actually on the sidewalk. So I approached him slowly and calmly and he didn’t seem to mind me at all. We then started having our own little photoshoot. I intentionally got low so I could try to get the “cherry blossoms”, Washington Monument, and duck all in one frame. My settings were  F6.3 1/100th of a second ISO 400 with my 16-35mm wide angle lens. I had to bump up my ISO high even though we were outdoors because I didn’t want any motion from the duck. It was so very grey and dark, it was difficult to get a fast enough shutter speed to make sure everything was sharp.

Anyways, Happy Birthday Walk with Locals! You guys are awesome.

And you know what else is awesome? Cherry Blossoms! I’ll be out there shooting. And if you are too, come say hi!

Here’s one more from the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room exhibit: All the Eternal Love I Have for Pumpkins, currently at the Hirshhorn Museum.

This has got to be my favorite room out of all of them. The first time I visited the Kusama exhibit, it was closed. Someone was trying to take a selfie and things got out of hand and smashed one of the pumpkins. I’m so glad everything got fixed and I was able to see the room in person on my second trip. Don’t get me wrong, all the rooms are AMAZINGLY beautiful, but theres something special about this one. First of all, the pumpkins themselves are soo cool. If I could have a pumpkin like that for Halloween, I’d have the most popular trick-or-treat house on the block. I love how they are in all different sizes and shapes. But I think the coolest part of the room is being able to see the reflection of the pumpkins on the ceilings. Seriously theres so much attention to detail in these rooms, it’s unbelievable.

To get this shot, I was in the room by myself and I immediately sat on the floor. The change of perspective really showcases the size of these pumpkins. BUT THAT GLOW THOUGH! Obviously the ISO was cranked really high for this one. My settings were: F/4 1/400th sec ISO 5000.

By the way, the music video I linked above was my absolute favorite from when I was in middle school. LOL. It reminds me so much of when I’d come home from school, turn on MTV’s Total Request Live and eat a hot pocket. Even to this day, if I hear Smashing Pumpkins on the radio, I’ll turn it up. Andrew’s always impressed that I know all the words to their songs. Don’t get me started on “1979”.