ANGELA B. PAN

If you turned around from Bass Harbor Head Light and looked onto the water, this is the sunrise you would have seen. Heart eyes emoji!

It was the best sunrise we had seen all week! And again, I did not use my tripod to capture this, I was balancing my camera on the rocks. I really like doing that because it makes everything in the foreground look super big. A play on proportions if you will and a way to see things that you usually wouldn’t be able to see just with your naked eye.

And in the center of the water is a boui that had a bell in it. I loved it. It was so peaceful and calming to hear the bell ring whenever the wind blew it. At first I had no idea what was making the noise but once we figured it out it was like listening to church bells on a peaceful morning.

But we weren’t the only ones on the rocks savoring this sunrise. There were a few other photographers who were there and as morning went on, more and more people started to show up. At one point this guy screamed, “look a seal” and pointed to something that looked like it could have been a seal’s back sticking out of the water. I was so excited to see it because Sue and I had been looking for seals the whole week. I even pulled out my vlog camera to try to capture it. But when the “seal” didn’t move for 2 minutes and its back was still sticking out of the water, I could only assume that I was staring at a rock and missed the seal completely. Crying face emoji!

The settings for this image is 15 seconds at F5.6 ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

As mentioned in a past blog post, Sue and I spent our last sunrise in Maine at Bass Harbor Head Light of Acadia National Park. It was super fun. To get down to this spot to take this image, you had to climb down some seriously steep rocks. It was a little shady at some points. Another photographer who was already there before we arrived suggested I just leave my backpack at the top and just climb down with my wide angle and tripod. Ummm no thanks sir. I got this.

So with my backpack, tripod and jacket (that I didn’t need), I carefully got down to this very cool puddle. It was the best spot to see as much of the lighthouse as you could without having to stand on slippery rock. Seeing the reflection in the water was definietly an added bonus. Then the sun rose. It was an amazing sunrise that made everything turn a reddish orange. My favorite was seeing the light casted onto the lighthouse and making the rocks in the foreground look like massive boulders.

Thankfully, I had my camera bag and all my camera equipment with me and I was able to pull out my neutral density filter to  shoot this long exposure. With the light getting bright, it was harder to capture the color without a filter. The neutral density filter really allowed me to get that saturated color, especially in the reflection. Love how that turned out!

My camera settings for this image is 6 seconds at F4 and ISO 1000 with my 16-35mm wide angle lens and Sony A7II. Although I had my tripod with me, I did not use it for this image. My camera was stabilized on a rock so I could get as low as possible to get as much of the reflection as possible.

H O M E!

Arrived into Dulles airport real late last night and went straight to bed. Today I plan on catching up on a lot of emails, laundry and image editing. Any image or place you want to see in particular? I’m taking requests. LOL. Can’t wait to start diving in to these photos. Only problem is that I took so many pictures that it’s hard to figure out where to start! Its a good problem I guess 🙂 More stories about our road trip as the blog posts start rolling out and there will be a youtube video!

But it feels so good to be home.

In general, many people ask me for my secret shooting location or favorite spot to shoot in DC. It’s hard to say. But what’s easy to say is my favorite parking spot. It’s 100% the paddle boat parking lot at the Tidal Basin, as seen on this map. It is by far the most centrally located parking space to all the monuments, but for some reason hardly anyone parks here. Theres always plenty of parking whenever I go. Plus it’s freeeee! The only down side to this parking lot is that it’s closed during Cherry Blossom season. 2 weeks out of the year? No big deal. I’ll take it!

Even if you’re feeling a bit lazy and don’t want to leave the parking lot, you get some beautiful views like this one. I love these new swan paddle boats. They make things so much more interesting.

I shot this with my fav, Ice Neutral Density Filter 10stop to get that silky smoother water. My camera settings for this image was F7.1 at 25 seconds at ISO 500 on a tripod on a super cloudy but beautiful evening.

Starting tomorrow will be images from our trip! Can’t wait to share with you! EEEKKKKKKKK.

Shout out to my friend, Zack who had been texting me to meet up for sunset on this day. Although we were on two very different sides of the national mall shooting (I was by the reflecting pool and he was at the US Capitol), I would of never have gone out on this day if it weren’t for him. It’s funny because we were texting each other pictures of what we were seeing in the sky the entire time. Once the color actually broke through the clouds, it was dead silent between the both of us until it was all over. LOL.

So I was sitting by the reflecting pool, mostly concentrating on the sky. But it was awesome because these little kids came up next to me with crackers and were feeding the ducks. *note to self, always bring crackers when taking pictures* So my attention went from the sky to getting the ducks in the foreground of the reflecting pool and Lincoln Memorial. I got some pretty cool shots which I’ll post later. Next, I’m not sure what happened but I turned around to see that the sky behind had really blown up. I mean you usually see the sunset colors behind the Lincoln Memorial, but all the action was behind the Washington Monument right at the WWII Memorial. Luckily, I had some time to set up a shot. But it didn’t last long. I’m glad I was able to capture what I did.

Camera settings for this shot was F5 with a 15 second exposure at ISO500. I was using my Ice neutral density filter for this one so I was able to capture the saturated colors and any people who were in my way were blurred out. The only people you see were the ones who were standing there for longer than 15seconds.

What’s crazy about Rock Creek Park is that you can’t believe this place is actually in DC. Growing up, I always thought it was dangerous. I think it’s because anytime you saw anyone going to Rock Creek Park in the movies it was always to do something bad. Like a dangerous drug deal or the exchange of some top secret government information (thanks House of Cards). To be honest, I’ve never felt like I was in danger while I was there. Its probably one of the most beautiful places you can be inside of the city. Obviously the best time to go is in the fall time but even in the middle of the hot, humid summer, you can find a some peace.

To take this image, I did not use a tripod. I just used my Ice 10 stop neutral density filter and balanced myself on some rocks in the middle of the stream. I then held my breath for as long as I could so I could create these streaks in the water. It’s super important to stay as still as you can while capturing these long exposures. If you move, then the image may turn out blurry. The water flows pretty fast so I didn’t have to wait long. I believe this is about a 10 second exposure.

Getting down low and changing my perspective really adds a lot of interest into these kinds of images. The streaks in the water turned out to be one of the most predominate parts of this image. It probably wouldn’t of been the same if I were higher and on a tripod. Another one of my favorite parts is the reflection of the trees. Love it.

By the way, when is House Cards coming back on? I can’t wait to see what happens with Claire.

Isn’t it weird how when you look at a picture and you can automatically remember when, where, how you were shooting it? I so remember this day like it was yesterday but it wasn’t. It was in June 2016. It had been a super hot and humid day. I remember specifically going out to the city because it was supposed to storm later that night and was I hoping that the sunset clouds would look cool. In real life they were beautiful, but it wasn’t until I looked at my LCD screen did I notice the kind of zig zag shape they were creating. It was even more noticeable in the reflection in the reflecting pool water. The clouds were moving kind of fast so I slapped on my Ice neutral density filter to slow down the shutter speed and it created this cool motion effect in the image. Also, there weren’t a lot of people out walking around so it made everything so clean and easy. The quote “If you can’t handle the heat, then get out of the kitchen” comes to mind because I also remember just sitting there with my tripod sweating, wishing I could just into the reflecting pool. All those memories from one 30 second exposure. Pretty cool.

In other news, Happy Valentines day!!! Hope you are spending this beautiful Tuesday with someone you love. Andrew and I are keepin’ it low key this year. After work, we’ll probably grab a pizza and watch some netflix. A heart shape pizza, obviously 🙂 I found the perfect card for him from Target over the weekend. It’s of this couple holding hands. On the woman’s shirt it says “Artsy” and on the man’s shirt it says “Fartsy”. LOL. Its like the card company knew our relationship. Just Kidding. Not really. HAHA.