ANGELA B. PAN

Since the new year has started, I’ve been trying to go out with my camera as much as I can. I’m not sure what kicked my butt into high gear like this, but I’m grateful to live in a place where I can never get tired of exploring and documenting. In the past two weeks, I may have visited the Lincoln Memorial at least 5 times. Each time is different and I am still not tired of it.

But over the weekend, we had surprisingly beautiful weather. For the middle of January, I will take temps in the high 60s any day! So I was even more excited to be out with my camera. On Sunday morning, as I was walking towards the Lincoln Memorial, I got a text from my friend, Jarrett asking if I was out shooting. He had already been there for a while so he had already scoped out the scene. The rain we got Saturday evening left a huge puddle inside the Lincoln Memorial. After catching up a bit, Jarrett took me inside and my mind was blown by how clear and reflective the puddle was. I took a few shots and then had to ask Jarrett to step in for a few.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/4th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

I took this image at the same time I captured this one. Except at this time I did not know my batteries were dying. I was too busy enjoying the beautiful light that was peaking through the Japanese cherry blossom trees and kept on shooting and shooting away.

This whole cherry blossom season has been very cloudy. I think there may have been just 1 or 2 days that I was out that we actually had some sun out of the 2 weeks that they were here. So I was super excited to see the blossoms glowing.

You can’t tell, but I was standing next to my friend, Jarrett while capturing it. He’s the kind of friend that we never make plans to see each other but we always run into each other while taking pics. I always enjoy running into him, especially around the tidal basin because we have so much in common. He’s the type of person that you can say anything to him and he’ll have a funny story to tell you about that. So if you ever run in to Jarrett while taking pics, just ask him if he likes fried chicken. LOL.

So now that the cherry blossom season is pretty much done for this year, I some how forgot to mention this everywhere but on my newsletter that I updated my cherry blossom guide. LOL. I was in the shower the other day and realized I hadn’t put it on social media or anything! It was definietly a doh moment! So better late than never? At least you can use these tips for next year? Sorry about that. Here’s the link if you still have any interest.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/160th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens handheld.