ANGELA B. PAN

If you know me, I love a good road trip. Especially the ones that make you feel like you’ve hopped on an airplane and you’re miles away from home but in actuality, you just jumped into your car. So if you’re like me, I created a list of my favorite summer destination that are 3 hours or less from Washington DC with a variety of adventures waiting for you. So if you like being in the outdoors, this list is for you:

Great Falls Park:

Great Falls Park from the Virginia side

I’ve mentioned this place a hundred times on my blog so it’s definitely a favorite. Less than 20 miles outside of Washington DC, find some peace in Great Falls Park. From the roaring falls, to plenty of space to roam or have a picnic, Great Falls is kind of an unexpected gem outside a major US city. The great part about Great Falls is that there’s a Virginia and Maryland side. You can see actually see the Maryland side while in Virginia and vice versa but they are very different.

Virginia has a better view of the falls and in my personal opinion, the park just feels a little bit more open with wider fields and more viewing spots of the falls. It’s a great place to have a picnic or go on a hike with friends.

Maryland allows you to be closer to the rocks but I personally enjoy the views on the hike on the Maryland side much more.

Don’t be surprised if you see kayakers navigating the rough waters or blue herons fishing for the dinner on either side of the park.

Alexandria, Virginia

Old Town Alexandria at sunrise

Specifically, Old Town Alexandria. Old Town Alexandria is just 8 miles away from Washington where you can enjoy a day by the Potomac River. Surrounded by cute shops and even better restaurants, it’s shouldn’t be a surprise if you find yourself smiling while walking around the neighborhood. If you of age, The BRÜT Wine Bar is a personal favorite if you like bubbly adult drinks. Waterfront Park is a fantastic place for kids to run around and to experience free outdoor art. I can’t express how much I enjoy this cute little town every time I visit.

But Alexandria is also a great central point for many other excursions. Hop on a scenic water taxi that will take you the National Harbor in Maryland or to DC destinations such as the Wharf, Georgetown, the National Mall, and Nats Stadium. It is also along the Mount Vernon trail that gives you access to Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve and Huntly Meadows Park, both wetland areas with boardwalks that make it fun for birdwatchers and photographers to enjoy the views.

Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park along Skyline Drive on a foggy early morning

Shenandoah National Park is beautiful summer, fall, spring, winter, whenever! Just 70 miles outside of the District, it’s the best place to get a great hike in. My personal favorite is Old Rag Mountain Trail and Hawksbill Mountain Trail. Both give you an unbelievable view of the mountains and surrounding areas. Just know that both of these hikes are steep but Hawksbill Mountain Trail is significantly shorter, so plan accordingly with the time you have in the mountains.

If hiking isn’t your thing, I highly suggest finding a rental company where they’ll take you down to the river. You can rent canoes, rafts or tubes to float your way down the river. It’s so relaxing.

But if you just want an easy way to enjoy the views, Skyline Drive has stunning views from multiple overlooks along the way.

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Going through some images I took earlier in the year, I found this gem. I had no idea I captured the lightning because the exposure was actually pretty dark. I thought maybe a lightning strike hit behind the clouds or something but it was the bright light on the left-hand corner that caught my eye where I thought it could be something. So in Lightroom, I brought up the exposure and found the lightning strike! It was so exciting. Probably almost as exciting as capturing it, even though I didn’t know I had captured it at all.

It brought back all these memories of that evening. Obviously, I knew I captured this one and waiting out the rain on the west side of the Capitol was awesome because we didn’t actually get wet. But it’s always a good time storm chasing with friends. It makes the time go by so much faster.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/5th sec and ISO 2000 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm.

Happy Friday! I’m really looking forward to this weekend because I’ll be going to a place that I’ve been wanting to go to for a VERY long time. I’m talking years. I’ll tell you all more about it soon but be sure to follow along on my Instagram if you’re interested in knowing beforehand. It’s not far from the DC metro area, so we’ll just be there on Sunday evening. I’m so excited!

In the meantime, here’s an image I captured a couple of weeks ago at McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area in Poolesville, Maryland. These sunflower fields are unfortunately gone for the season, but I heard Burnside Farms in Nokesville, Virginia may be looking good. I’ve personally never been to that one but have been to the McKee Beshers sunflower fields a whole bunch. What’s great about the sunflower field in Maryland is that there are multiple fields. So if one field hasn’t peaked, you could drive to the next field and hopefully get a different result.

This particular image was taken in the first field, right before they were about to peak. I love how all the sunflowers are facing the camera.

But this image is deceiving, they were actually taller than me. The tallest ones were at least 6ft. So easy to get lost in the fields. Lost in a good way though 🙂

Have a great weekend!

My camera settings for this image is f5.6 at 1/2000th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm

We had a couple of thunderstorm warnings last week but for some reason, none of them really came to be. I’m still on the hunt to capture a lightning strike this summer so I tried my best to get out there to try to capture the weather. But when the actual rain didn’t happen, I was fortunate enough to still be able to at least capture this beautiful sunset.

I love how the colors in the sky are in line with the trees and it just looks like a band of color stretched across the entire image. I will be honest and say that I got rid of some of the people on the left-hand side. Just one small group of people because they were wearing really bright clothes and it was distracting to see them in the dark trees. I wanted to make sure that the focus was entirely on the Lincoln Memorial and the amazing sunset.

Hopefully, the storm warnings we have this week will actually come to be.

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My camera settings for this image is F16 at 1/4th sec and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

I captured this image while I was on my way to photograph this image.

This image of the Lincoln Memorial was taken first and I was so surprised when I saw it on the LCD screen. I was walking towards the reflecting pool when I thought it may be cool to see some grass blades as tall as the Lincoln Memorial. So I put my camera on the ground, tilted it a little bit up and this is what I came out with.

What I didn’t realize was all the morning dew that would turn into these cool little bokeh textures in the grass and somehow turned this image to look magical. In order to capture it, I had to focus the image on just Lincoln Memorial. It’s a shame I almost forgot about it. To be honest, I was more excited about the duck capture than this one on the day I captured them. But I love the way that this image turned out. I also love that little hint of purple coming, which you can really see in the duck image.

Just goes to show you never know what you’ll find unless you try 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1.6 sec and ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

The third best thing about summer- sunflower fields!

The first is obviously the beach, the second being fireworks, and then comes sunflowers. LOL.

But if you’re in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area, I highly recommend stopping by McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area. There are rows and rows of sunflowers, at times it can feel endless. Plus they have multiple fields, so if one isn’t looking it’s best or too crowded, it’s really simple just to hop to the next field. But there aren’t really any signs for the fields so be sure to check out this map before you go.

On this visit, I decided to try to get a little bit closer to the sunflowers. Not necessarily macro shots like I have done in the past, but using one flower to frame the other. This particular flower caught my attention because I liked how some of the pedals were folded in. I thought I’d use the flower in the foreground to sort of fill in that spot.

But while I was out photographing the sunflowers last week, I was just reflecting on all the times I’ve photographed these summer flowers. It’s crazy to think how many times I’ve been to this sunflower fields. Check out this video from 8 years ago! Talk about a blast from the past:

Yes, I miss my long hair too.

Yes, I still feel like running through the fields every time I go. LOL

I definitely want to go back at least one more time this season to try to capture some more of these yellow beauties.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/1000th second and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom.