ANGELA B. PAN

Flashback Friday to spring time in Washington DC. It is my favorite time to be in the city. The whole place just sparkles.

But to be honest, I’m not sure which one I like better, the Chinese saucer magnolias or the Japanese cherry blossoms. Both are beautiful in their own way and pop up everywhere around the city. The magnolias are just bigger and easier to see. They also fall like leaves when they’re ready and it makes for the most beautiful dusting of pink. But then there are the cherry blossoms… I’m gonna have to say that flowers in general make me so happy.

Now keeping them alive when they’re in my home… that’s a different story.

I captured this scene while exploring the Enid A Haupt Garden behind the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall. I was walking out of the Moongate Garden and felt such an overwhelming amount of flowers and branches surrounding me. I knew I had to capture it with that early morning light. At first I was trying this composition out with no one in it. It was cool, but it needed to be better. Then a bus most have let people off or a metro just arrived because all of the sudden there were quite a few people walking past. Luckily, I had my camera ready and waiting for the perfect person to enter my frame. I really enjoy the way that this turned out. I showed it to my dad once and he said it looks like it was taken in Japan rather than Washington DC. I thought that was pretty cool for him to say that.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/1000 of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens shot handheld.

This one was fun to shoot. My intention was to photograph the Washington Monument and cherry blossoms through the puddle and get a really cool reflection shot out of it.  I didn’t use my tripod because it doesn’t go as low as I’d want and  I couldn’t get the right angle. So I bent down to get low. I figured out the composition using the live view function on my LCD screen.  The lens was hovering right over the puddle.

While I was getting all of that sorted, I didn’t realize I was holding up people behind me. They were being nice and was  trying to avoid getting in my shot by waiting but I figured I’d let them pass because it’d be faster that way. As they were passing and without even thinking, I pressed the shutter. There was no real plan for people to walk through this shot or anything like that but I’m so glad they did. It turned out way better than anticipated.

I then posted this image Saturday night on instagram and almost immediately got a message from the girl in this image! She was saying how after they walked passed the puddle, her and her husband were talking about how cool of a shot that would of been. It’s so funny how all of these things come full circle. I love that they found themselves and I’m even more happy that they like this image.

I’d say my favorite part is the sun burst on the guy’s leg. My eyes keep on drifting to that part of the image and am super grateful how everything lined up so nicely. It looks like I had my own little cherry blossom parade but without all the balloons and streamers. Just some beautiful cherry blossoms and very nice people.