ANGELA B. PAN

When I went to bed the night before, I wasn’t expecting much out of the sunrise. The weather apps said it was going to be cloudy, and so I just thought it was going to be a grey day. Luckily, I was meeting up with friends who came up with the great idea of capturing the sunrise from Freedom Plaza at sunrise. Having that accountability of meeting with people was definitely the motivation to get out of bed.

As I was driving into the city I saw very faint hints of pink and it got me excited. I immediately parked the car, grabbed my tripod and got to this beautiful spot along Pennsylvania Avenue as fast as I could. There wasn’t a lot of traffic going on so I thought for this image I would try to crop the street a bit and focus mainly on the sky. I really like how the street lights are acting as lines towards the US Capitol.

My camera settings for this image are F8 at 1/30th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

Most of my time in Taiwan was actually spent in a suburb of Taipei called Tamsui. It’s about a 45 minute MRT (metro) ride from the capital city but it still gives you the big city feelings. It’s bustling with people at all hours of the day which was good for me because I usually woke up every morning around 4 am. It was so nice because I really enjoyed photographing Tamsui as the city was waking up. I never really had a real plan during my morning walks, I would just wander the streets and see where each corner would take me. Some of the streets would be so small that I’d get so lost. Luckily, I had internet service on my phone or else, I’d probably still be wandering the streets not knowing where I was going right now.

This image was captured on the main road close to our hotel. I loved it because it was one of the only sunny mornings we had while we were there and I just love seeing those palm trees glow in the sun. Scooters and pedestrians were everywhere, on their way to work and school. Looking at this image, I can still hear all the scooters racing by. At some points, it seriously was like a game of chance because they would pop out of nowhere. LOL.

My camera settings for this image are F4.5 at 1/3200th sec and ISO 2500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

For me, Thanksgiving is really about family and friends being together and celebrating all the blessings we have in life. In no particular order here are a few things that I’m grateful for:

• Family, friends, Andrew and Frankie
• My health
• My warm bed
• The kindness of people I’ve never met before
• The internet for connecting people all over the world.

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I hope you have a wonderful day however you are celebrating and I’m so grateful for you.
<3 Angela

Ok enough with the puddles in the sidewalk, here’s one in the road. LOL. We won’t make any comments about DC potholes.

I knew the Tidal Basin was going to be a madhouse over the weekend, so to avoid the crowd a bit I spent Saturday morning at Haines Point. It is just west of the Tidal Basin but they have beautiful cherry blossoms all along the way. This image was actually taken while I was walking back to my car.

I found this puddle by accident. I loved the way that the cherry blossoms were lined up along the other side of the road and the reflection was perfect. So I just patiently waited for something to pass by to add a little foreground interest. At first, a person walked by on the sidewalk and they were way too small to even notice. Then a car drove by and it was way too big, covering most of the cherry blossom trees. I knew it had to be a bicycle to complete this image.

So I just stood there and waited. It was a good 5 minutes before I saw one coming. He was on the road closest to me and I snapped a few pictures but thought he was too big. So I knew I had to wait for someone to come on the other side. Turns out that bicycle made a U-turn and went back the other direction.

In my head I screamed “Now that’s a 2-for-1 special” LOL. This one bike gave me so many different angles, it was awesome! Then I went on my way back to my car with a smile on my face.

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/200th of a sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

One really cool thing that Norway does is that they build these skywalks at really cool places. For example they had one in Flåm at Sognefjord, Dalsnibba in Geiranger, and a few other spots that we got to visit. It’s cool because sometimes they’re built so that there is just glass underneath you and when you look down it looks like you’re floating above a valley. If I had a fear of heights, this would  not work for me. Luckily I don’t so I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

This image was taken along the walkway to the Trollstigen skywalk. I was so excited to see the views from the skywalk but I got stopped in my tracks when I saw these orange/yellow wearing people. They’re jackets are so bright and colorful, I loved the way they stood out from the mountain behind them. Also the perspective here is kind of crazy.

PS this is the view.

After I took this picture I showed Andrew what it looked like on my camera. He thought it was really cool, especially since the jackets were so bright. I immediately told him that’s why I wanted him to wear bright colors so that when I photographed him, he would stand out more in the landscape. But to be honest, neither one of us are bright color wearing people. You can mostly find either one of us in a dark black tee shirt and be totally comfortable. I tend to take it a step further and wear all black… all the time. Blah, I dunno. I’m posting this in hopes that it will change my mind about colors. Or at least influence others to wear color so that if I see on you the street wearing something that stands out, I’ll want to take your pic 🙂

My settings for this image is F10 at 1/80 sec ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

I remember exactly how this moment happened. My friend Sue and I spent our first morning in Oranjestad walking around the city to explore. We’re both earlier risers so we were doing it to kill time until the rest of our friends woke up so we could all go to the beach together.

Walking around the capital city made me realize just how peaceful, colorful and safe Aruba really is. We were walking around so early in the morning that none of the stores had opened and we looked like the only tourist around. No one bothered us or even said a word. I loved how there were so many locals hanging around just sitting on the benches, soaking in the sun. The only place that was open was The Pastechi House which had some amazingly fresh Pastechis. And when I say fresh, I mean they grew the spinach behind the store!

So after a quick breakfest, Sue and I continued to wonder. I had my 70-200mm lens on most of the time while I was shooting the colorful buildings when I saw this green one across the street from us. I was really drawn to it because I noticed how there were little plants growing out of the roof. I don’t think it was supposed to do that but I thought it made for an interesting play on color. I started photographing it when Sue told me there was someone over there waiting for me to finish taking pictures. I brought my camera down and waved my hand in the universal sign of “Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t see you, you may pass.” LOL. But as I was giving him the hand signal I thought about how great it would be to include him in this image. So here he is rushing by so I could continue taking pictures. But I really like how everything lined up. My favorite is the reflection in the car window. It’s so subtle but I think it really adds the image.

After he passed he continued to walk slowly on his way 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/1000th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm lens.