ANGELA B. PAN

It all started when I saw a photograph similar to this one. I had never seen anything like it before.

I feel in love with the way it was so mysterious and the way it made the Jefferson Memorial look so obscure. Even though I had photographed a little bit of fog in 2012, I didn’t know it could get this foggy in the city until I saw that particular image.

I’m sorry I don’t have a link to the original image anymore, but I studied that picture. I wanted to know exactly where the photographer was standing and tried to figure out different ways I could have potentially captured it.

It finally happened to me on Christmas Day 2015. I woke up early for sunrise since my family doesn’t celebrate until later in the evening. I figured the best way to start off the day would be to take a quick morning walk around the National Mall. I checked the weather and it said it was going to be unseasonably warm, so why not.

I don’t remember how long the fog took to appear but I do remember it was quite a bit after sunrise. When it first started forming, I was over by the Potomac River. I had never seen fog just appear out of nowhere but something triggered in my head that if it was starting to form on the river, maybe it was forming at the Tidal Basin. I walked over as quickly as I could and there it was! It was the white Christmas I never knew I wanted.

After that, I became obsessed with finding out more about fog. How to capture it, when it was going to happen and all the best places in the Washington DC area to photograph it.

The Lincoln Memorial on a foggy morning. (L) Predawn (R) 20 minutes after sunrise

So here’s what I learned:

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After a rainy day (or night) in the Washington DC area, you can count on finding a lot of puddles in the National Mall. In grassy areas and things, I think that is expected, but this image was taken on the steps on the way down the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. There is a landing in the middle of the steps that almost always has a puddle. The questionable part is that sometimes it doesn’t even have to rain for there to be a puddle either. Regardless, this puddle is great for reflections.

The sunrise this day wasn’t the best. It was very blue with overcast skies. So to make it a little more interesting, I thought the puddle could create some interesting symmetry. I purposely left that gap in the middle so that you can see that this was not taken at the actual reflecting pool.

But on a side note, I got a new tripod! I received the new Peak Design tripod a little bit before the holidays. It’s been so much more convenient to carry this travel tripod around then my previous Gitzo tripod. I plan on doing a review on it soon so if you have any questions, let me know in the comments!

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/160th sec and ISO 1600 and my Sony A7II and 16-36mm wide-angle lens.

This image was captured almost 2 years ago but it is still one of my favorite mornings in Washington DC. I remember it like it was yesterday. The day before we were supposed to get snow but ended up getting a few flurries. So I just assumed that the following morning weather was going to be a good sunrise. It ended up being too cloudy with no color, so pretty much two disappointments in a row.

But when the sun actually rose and started to shine the light down on to the National Mall, it warmed up the air so much that it actually started to get a little foggy. And somehow all that fog was got captured within this walking path in between the two rows of trees. As a result, the light was so warm and yellow and I couldn’t help but notice all the shadows the sun was creating as well.

It was honestly like walking through a dream. I had never seen this walking path like this before and ever since that day, I always find myself looking to see if it will happen again.

Plus I love how the trees at the end of the pathway form a little heart <3

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/320th sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle.

Sunrise has been pretty rough these days. A 4 am wake-up alarm is not my ideal time to be woken up, especially in the summertime but sometimes it’s necessary. Like last week when I finally made my way to the Lincoln Memorial for sunrise after what seemed like forever. The sunrise itself wasn’t that great but the early morning glow was what made it all worth it.

I met up with my friend, Birch who I haven’t seen in what feels like even longer than my last Lincoln Memorial photo walk. We mostly caught up with life while chasing the light around the reflecting pool. This image was taken from the Lincoln Memorial looking towards the National Mall. We were kinda standing around with cameras in hand when this guy on the bike just showed up. The perfect silhouette to the Monument.

The scene itself seemed a little off balance with most of the interesting elements on the left-hand side, so I solved it by cutting off the right-hand side with a column from the Lincoln Memorial. I love how it framed all the necessary elements of the image but also created some interesting layers.

BTW, when is the Washington Monument finally going to open? I’m ready to go back!

My camera settings for this image is F5 at 1/5000 and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm.

Day 3 of reflections. Check out day 1 and day 2.

Obviously an image of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool had to be a part of the week long series of reflections. I took this one a couple weeks ago with my friend, Chris. We met up for sunrise and it was forecasted to be a clear day but the predawn colors in the sky were amazing. Usually I hope for clouds for any sunrise image but I feel like the orange color was so vibrant all on their own that it didn’t even need them.

And as I arrived at the reflecting pool I was excited to see that I had got there early enough for them to still have the US Capitol lights on. About 10 minutes later, they were all turned off and it was a lot harder to see it back there. Anyone know what the light schedule to the monuments are like? Next time I’d like to plan for it instead of guessing.

But this same composition has a special place in my heart. It always reminds me of when I first started waking up for sunrise to take pictures. I would make Andrew go with me at first just because I didn’t know what the situation was going to be like. Being a female with expensive camera equipment could be a potentially dangerous situation. But as time went on, I decided that I didn’t need him to go with me anymore. I got comfortable waking up and doing what I needed to do all by myself. So the first time I went by myself to DC, I shot this same exact image and felt super proud of myself.

Now look at me. Sometimes I’ll even wake up before I need to just because I’m so excited to go out to shoot.

The settings for this image is F5.6 for 10 seconds at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

In between helping tourists taking pictures of themselves in front of the monument and the AMAZING sunset, I managed to capture a few of my own. At one point I had to start turning some down. I think people just assume that I know how to take pics just because I have a SLR and tripod… but that’s just my guess.