ANGELA B. PAN

I love La Jolla. Out of all the places that we have visited in San Diego, La Jolla is my favorite place to be. I love the beaches, the views and how photogenic that little part of SoCal is. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it also seems a bit quieter than the neighboring Pacific Beach and just an overall cool place to hang out.

This image was taken after a night of rain. It actually rained a couple of times while we were out there which was so weird because I thought it never rained in southern California? Anyways, Vincent was taking another surf lesson at sunrise so Andrew and I decided to tag along. We figured we could bring Frankie and let him run around on the beach before a lot of people got there and I could also take some early morning shots too. It turned out to such a quiet and beautiful morning of just walking in the sand and flying the drone. But after awhile both Andrew and I got a little hungry. We found a cafe close by that we could walk to but along the way we had to walk across the parking lot. It was like hitting the puddle jacket pot. I also distinctly remember saying out loud “oh snap, reflections ahead”. LOL. Who does that? It must have been my way of warning Andrew that we were going to be in the parking lot for a little while.

But honestly, if I had to pick one place with the best palm trees in San Diego, La Jolla Shores has to be it. There’s nothing special or different about them. The only difference is that there’s a lot of them on area.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/5000th sec at ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN 

It’s the last day of 2018 and I thought it would be fun to look back on the past year and relive some of my favorite travel moments from the year. It’s interesting because I do something similar to this every year and every year my favorite images are almost always different from others. I try not to let emotions play into the selection but it can be difficult. You’ll see what I mean 🙂

I had a fantastic year of travel and so blessed to be able to experience everything that I did. I’m lucky enough to have visited the Europe, Caribbean and of course different parts of America. So let me know what you think. Click on each image to read the original blog post:

One of my very first drone images from San Diego. Taken around this time last year, I loved being in Southern California in the winter time. I got my drone at the end of 2017 so I was just practicing flying when I took this image. I really didn’t think much of it until I saw that bird fly below close to the water. With the placement of where I’m sitting and that bird, I love how everything lines up. Definitely expect more drone images from me in 2019. I’m hooked!

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Ok a little break from the moody weather pics in Washington DC and onto a moody weather pic in Aruba. LOL.

While in Aruba, if we wanted to go anywhere, we’d most likely be traveling by foot or taxi. I love taking taxis because you’re able to talk to the driver and get some local information that only they know. For example, one of our taxi drivers told us that they don’t have weathermen in Aruba. Isn’t that crazy? It’s because the weather is pretty much the same everyday and there would really be no need for him or her. It’s consistently 85 degrees with no humidity and a slight breeze all the time. It’s like a dream. If it does rain, it will only rain for a 20 minutes and it’s back to sunny skies. The really nice part about Aruba is that it’s right outside of hurricane belt so that’s not even really a concern either.

But then why did it rain on our trip? LOL 2 out of the 3 full days that we were there, there was some crazy down pour. It was sunny at some points in the day but overall, it was pretty overcast like it is in this image. Oh well, you can’t win them all…

I love looking at this image. It totally reminds me of what it’s like in Aruba. Palm trees everywhere and I can just imagine them flowing in the wind with that amazing breeze. It’s like I have been transported back. Which reminds me, I’ve been working on the Aruba vlog. Expect that to be coming out very soon! At least before the end of the month. Pinky promise!

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/500th of a second at ISO 64 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

As you’re reading this, I’m on a plane to Aruba with my closest girlfriends! I can not waitttt to do nothing but lay out on the beach and get a tan. But you know that will only last for 30 minutes before I bust out with the GoPro! or even my drone.

I’m also really looking forward to seeing the flamingos! If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you’ll know how I feel about birds. But I feel like flamingos are kinda different. First of all, they’re pink <3 Plus I feel like they’re so slow moving that if they wanted to attack you, you have time to run away and I can’t imagine those stick legs being that fast. Which leads to my question… do flamingos fly? Either way, I love the combo of pink feathers with blue water. But I may be sticking with my new 70-200mm to capture it all. Can’t get too close now. LOL.

This image was taken earlier this year in San Diego. I thought it was appropriate since theres an airplane flying over palm trees. I captured it one day after Andrew and I left the Little Italy farmer’s market and needed to go somewhere to walk off all the food we just ate. We ended up by the marina. I think my favorite part about this image is the big open space on top. It make everything seem so small, especially the palm trees. There was only a quick moment to capture it and I’m glad I was able to pull it off 🙂

So if you’ve been to Aruba, let me know what’s fun. Places to go or places to eat.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/1000th of a second ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom lens.

Can you believe half the year has already past? That’s crazy! How are your New Years goals going?

This image was actually taken on January 1st, 2018. I remember not setting my alarm clock to wake up for sunrise but since I was still jet lagged, I was up early anyways. These line of palm trees were right around the corner from the Airbnb that we were staying at in North Park on Utah Street. But the best part was that since it was New Years Day there was no one around at all! I loved the fog that was rolling in and the line of pam trees but felt like there needed to be one more element. So I set my camera on my tripod and hit the 10 second timer and ran as fast as I could in front of the camera to just casually walk along the road. I think it turned out so cool. Just the way I had envisioned it.

But if you’re ever in planning on staying in San Diego, Andrew and I really enjoyed North Park. Obviously staying by the beach would have been nice but if you want to go a little more inland, then I highly suggest North Park/University Heights. It was super convient to everywhere we wanted to go in San Diego, about a 15 minute drive anywhere but we were also walking distance to so many great restaurants. Highly recommended. 10/10. I wish I could link you with the Airbnb we stayed at but they sold it a week after we left. We were their very last airbnb tenants. I would have totally stayed there again for our next trip to SoCal.

The settings for this image is F10 at 1/30th of a second and ISO 100 on my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens on a tripod.

Being a photographer, I’ve learned a lot of really random things. For example, did you know that the Washington Monument in Washington DC was built to sway with the wind? Yea, that’s just in case we get a really windy day and the tallest structure in our Nation’s Capitol won’t snap in half. Isn’t that crazy?

Well, staying in San Diego for two weeks was no different. I learned so much about the environment I was in. For example, tides. Living in Virginia, I’ve never had to be concerned with how high or low the water is but in California, this information is so crucial. After the first one or two sunsets, I found myself looking at tide charts and figuring out how all of this stuff works. To generalize, I found that low tide occurs around sunset. I don’t know if that’s true all year around, but it was true in January. So I planned all my photo ops knowing that if I wanted to capture full strength waves, it had to be at sunrise.

This image was captured right at sunset. The tide was low but there was still a whole bunch of water still on the beach from earlier in the day. It made for the perfect beach reflections. My favorite part of this image is the tallest palm tree on the right hand side. The top of the tree looks like it’s standing on a toothpick. It’s crazy because when I came here the next day at sunrise, the water was all the way up to the wall. There would have been no way I could have walked on the beach unless I had plans of getting wet in the water.

My settings for this image is F11 at 0.3 seconds at ISO 125 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.