ANGELA B. PAN

We arrived at the rooftop about 30 minutes before sunset. It turned out to be an amazing sunset which I’ll share more images from later, but what I was really looking forward to was the night time views. I knew that once the city lit up a bit, the car trails were going to be so fun to capture. In particular, the ones leading straight to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. The road looks like it’s driving right into it.

I had never seen a view like this before. I only wish the other side of 395 going towards the city wasn’t blocked off so there can be red lights going on on the other side. Oh well.

But I purposely made my shutter time a little bit shorter. I envisioned little streaks of light rather than the long drag. Sometimes I think those lines can be distracting from the total image. I personally think these shorter lines are more interesting because you can see exactly how many cars are actually in the image without a lot of chaos. Just personal preference I guess.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 and 0.8 seconds with my Sony A7II and 100-400mm ultra zoom lens. Thanks again to my friend, Larry who let me borrow his lens for this shot. The compression is unreal at 400mm! This was shot at 376mm.

Last week I got invited to go to Altaire’s rooftop. If you don’t know Altaire, it is a luxury apartment complex right off 395 in Crystal City.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia but I’ve always known it for the Pentagon and a few good restaurants. It has actually come up in conversation recently because Amazon has decided to build an office there. But other than that, I’ve never really spent that much time there.

So I was excited to get the invite. I was wondering what kind of views I could get from Crystal City since I’ve never actually photographed anything there. HOLY COW! My jaw dropped. The views are stunning. I’m pretty sure I’ll be sharing images from here for a while because I was literally like a kid in a candy store just snapping away. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to live in one of these apartments and waking up with a view like this. I don’t think I would ever leave my house. Either that or set up a tripod on my balcony and just time lapse it all day. LOL.

This image was taken just after sunset. I was waiting for the sun to go down so that I could get these car trails along the highway. I think it’s so interesting to look at all the different layers of this image and try to figure out where everything is located. For example, I think those purple lights in front of the US Capitol building is the Wharf, right?

Thanks again to the good people at Altaire for having Larry and I there. I had a B-L-A-S-T!

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 0.8 seconds and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

Another one from this past weekend’s fog. I took this one around 6:15a while walking to the Lincoln Memorial. It was about 30-ish minutes before the sun was supposed to rise and I purposely parked my car in a spot that I usually don’t. The only reason why I did that was so I could walk to the memorial in a different direction that I usually do. I was sure I was going to see some different, interesting composition and I did! I love the way this one turned out. In order to capture it, I was standing in the middle of the road on a median but that early in the morning it didn’t really matter. There were no cars anywhere in sight. I probably stood there for a good 20 minutes waiting for some light trails or something but none showed up. I mean, it was Saturday morning at 6:15a. Where did everyone go?! LOL

I love how the fog plays with the street lights in this image. At first I was trying to shoot it at F22 so I could get some interesting starbursts coming out of them but it wasn’t really working out. I think the fog was spreading the light out too much in order to get anything. Maybe if you look at the center most one on the left hand side you can see it a little bit going on over there, but otherwise, they’re pretty much little balls of light.

Note to self: shoot this same spot on a really good sunset day and try to get some light trails in it too. That’d look so awesome. Hopefully there will be more cars at that time 🙂

The camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 2 seconds with ISO 200 and my Sony A7II with my 16-35mm wide angle lens shot on a tripod 🙂

Flip flopping between Washington and California images. I hope that’s ok. Even though I still have so many images to go through from California, I still get the urge to go out and shoot. Especially when we get snow like we did last week! It wasn’t much and to be honest it was kind of disappointing. It was pretty patchy and kind of weird. I think we just needed more. Somehow we ended up in a snow hole where everyone around us got snow and we barely got an inch 🙁

But I was still able to make it out with my friend, Paul. We walked all around the National Mall and I was trying to find some new, interesting compositions that you can only see in the snow. I love how snow changes a scene. For this image, I was all the way tucked into a little tree cove but I think the most interesting part of this image are the lights coming from the street. It sort of reminds me of morse code. Like the cars and street lights are saying, “more snow, more snow”.

My only wish for the rest of winter is that we get one really good day of snow and I’d be happy. Then it can all melt away and I will run with my arms wide open to welcome in spring. Cherry Blossoms, where you at?

My settings for this image is F8 at 1/5th of a second at ISO 1000 on my Sony A7II with my 16-35mm lens on a tripod. To be honest, I think I was shooting handheld for a little bit before I set my camera on the tripod. I must have forgotten to change the ISO so that’s the only reason why my ISO is so high. Oh well, it still works 🙂

Taken just 10 minutes before I captured this image. I had really high hopes of a colorful sky but it didn’t turn out as planned. It’s all good though. You win some and loose some. Although I wouldn’t actually call this loosing. The purple in the clouds was an unexpected surprise. The light bursts in the street lamps make this image twinkle and the subtle car light trails on the road makes your eye travel right along the image.

When I’m really happy with a shot, I usually take it a few times. Maybe like 2 or 3 times just to make sure I got everything in focus and exposed correctly before moving on. But for some reason, right after I was done shooting this I just kept it moving. I didn’t think it turned out the way I wanted at that moment in time. Looking at it again though, I enjoy it. I feel like I see a new twinkle of light or a new reflection along the statue with every glance. Or something like that. Bahh can you tell I’m having a love/hate relationship with this image. Let me know what you think of it. Do you like it or am I just going crazy?

For all you photographers out there who are interested, here are my camera settings: F/18 at 15 seconds ISO 50. Not sure why it was shot at F/18. I usually would set my camera to F/22 for images like this but I was still able to capture the image the way I wanted it. Definietly shot on a tripod for this 15 second exposure.

Hope you all have a great weekend! Not much planned for me except a girls night in with some of my closest girlfriends tonight. Other than that, I’ll be here and there like the wind. HAHA.

Surprisingly, not a lot of cars around at 6a on a Saturday morning 🙂 I had to wait a while in order to get the light trails but it was worth the wait. Next time I try this, it will be on a weekday.