ANGELA B. PAN

It finally happened! We finally got some decent snow in the Washington DC area. I originally thought we were going to get pounded by 8-12″ of snow and I was jumping up and down from excitement. But in the end we may have gotten about 3″ if that. I’m just happy it was enough to cover the grass. I hope there will be more opportunities later on in the month for snow, but until then, I’m happy with what we got.

I don’t think he wanted his picture taken so as soon as he saw me lift my camera to my eye, he made a sharp turn for inside the Lincoln Memorial

The snow started in the middle of the night so I set my alarm clock to wake up for sunrise. I knew there wasn’t actually going to be a sunrise, but I just wanted to get out as early as I could because I love the look of fresh, untouched snow. I knew if I waited later in the day, there would be more people out and I just wanted to have a quiet morning to myself and my camera.

I started at the Lincoln Memorial, walked along the side of the reflecting pool, past the WWII memorial, and then back down the other side of the reflection pool with one last stop at the Korean War Memorial.

The path leading to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

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On particularly sunny days, just after the sunrises be sure to look at the Lincoln Memorial. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but the way that the sun glows on the memorial is probably one of the best things in DC.

And there aren’t too many people who are out at that time of day either. Usually, you will see a few photographers, some Park Police but even more runners. I’ve never actually run on the National Mall but I see a lot of them sprinting up the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial for a final push. This is one of those runners. After running up the stairs, he put his arms behind his head to get a breath of air. I love how his shadow was perfectly aligned with the Lincoln Memorial wall.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/8000th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm.

Now that I’ve been waking up early for years and basically track the weather every single day, I have kinda given myself the title of junior meteorologist 🙂 LOL. Meaning, I can look at a weather report and look up in the sky at the clouds and get a good idea of what the weather is going to be like. So over the weekend we had pretty cool, mild weather with lots of clouds but I kept on hearing reports that the weather was going to warm up. So with the cold air mixing with the warmer air, I knew there was going to be fog.

And I was right! I love when that happens. I’ve been wanting this fog for a while now, spending almost every morning that I go out by the reflecting pool because I had envisioned some shots that I wanted to take. So glad it finally happened. The field to the right of the reflecting pool is a great place to capture fog but I especially like how it lingers into the trees. With Washington DC being such an active city, I knew having runners through the fog would look pretty cool. I had my 70-200mm on for every one of these shots and patiently waited for people to run/walk past. I tried my best to capture people wearing more colorful clothing but much like me, a lot of people wear black.

The last two images were taken after the sun had come up. I thought it was really interesting with the warm tones mixing in with the fog. It sort of gave off that halloween vibe. LOL

Well, I hope you all enjoyed the images and have a great weekend! I’m off to Thanksgiving number 2 today with hopefully a lot of leftovers <3

Shot on the same puddle as this image. Even on a super cold, windy day there will always be people running around the tidal basin. I don’t know how they do it, especially in shorts. Anyways, I saw him running from 100 ft away. I immediately got into position where I thought I could get him and the Washington Monument in the same shot, squatted down low and hoped that it would work out. Luckily it did. This was probably about 20 minutes after the first image was shot though. Thats why this one is way more moodier and darker than the other one. I really like how the guy is almost silhouetted.

In other news, Andrew and I have booked our next trip! We’re going to be flying into Denver and road tripping it to Moab, UT and Rocky Mountain National Park. If you’ve been there, please let me know if you have any recommendations. Hotel, food, photography, whatever. Neither of us have ever been and I’m super excited to explore the mile high city and for our road trip. I know its going to be amazingly beautiful. One of my friends just came back from there and he was telling me that the altitude sickness is real while in Denver. After a quick amazon search, I’m not sure which medicine would be the best for us. So if you have any experience with that, please let me know as well. I never thought I’d get motion sickness but recently there have been times when I’m on a boat and will get pretty ill. I’d like to prevent anything like that from happening on our trip so I can maximize my photography time. Oh YEA!

This is going to be an awesome experience. I’ve always felt like I’ve only been to the coasts and edges of the United States but never anywhere in the middle. Really looking forward to the adventure 🙂

So glad it’s Friday! I had a busy week of meetings and appointments and currently listening to a lot of hammer banging because we’re getting repairs done to the house. It’s not the funnest thing to listen to while you’re working, but I’m glad our shower is finally getting fixed.

What are your plans for the holiday weekend?

Here are three things that I’m grateful for this week:

1. Theres nothing like seeing your work blown up and center stage in a law office right next to the White House! So exciting to see this in person.

2. Starting to work with interns. I have Nia who’s a film student at Howard U and Jon who’s a freshmen at American U. I’m excited to see what will come out of these two 🙂

3. Booked my trip to San Francisco.

In alphabetical order of how I named the digital files, I present to you my personal favorite images of 2013!

These may not be everyone’s favorites but when I think back on 2013, these are the images I think of. Comparing my images from this year to last year, I can really tell that I’ve grown as a photographer. My style has become more distinct and clean looking.

I’ve also decided to divide up the 10 images into 2 blog posts. For no other reason than making it more suspenseful so you’ll have to wait til tomorrow to see the rest of the images 🙂

Hope you enjoy! and Happy New Year!

In March, I traveled to Northern California to practice some of my water scenes. This was a big trip for me because of two reasons. 1. It was the first time I ever traveled by myself. 2. I spent most of the time practicing waterscapes and working more on my post processing.
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This was the first I was ever allowed to use my tripod at the Capitol. I think it may be because this image was taken in August and congress is out of session then. But either way, I was super happy to be able to use it 🙂
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The cherry blossoms are always a beautiful time of the year in DC. What you may or may not know that it’s also one of the craziest times of the year too. This image isn’t even half of it.
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I love this image of the cherry blossoms close up. I think the rain makes it look so delicate and the colors from the leaves really pop.
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This image taught me a big lesson. I can take pictures all times of the day. Not just sunrise and sunset.
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