ANGELA B. PAN

Yesterday I spent the morning going through some older images from Tokyo, Japan. Andrew and I went there in March of 2016 and it was probably one of my favorite places we’ve ever visited together. Not only is the food amazing but the way of living is just so different. It’s interesting to see the old temples mixed in with the crazy, fast paced city. But even with so many people living in the area, everything is so neat and orderly.

I went to Toyko with the intentions of practicing my street photography but I don’t think I’ve ever posted any of these images or anything like them. So please let me know what you think.

With so many people living in the city, everyone still walks in straight lines. It was fascinating!

I remember seeing this while walking to breakfest one morning. I imagine this is what I’d look like if I were an older Japanese woman living in Tokyo working on my next project.
*those are my legs 🙂

Nothing to really do with street photography except the fact that there were Hello Kitty signage everywhere! I don’t know how people still remained orderly with all this cuteness everywhere. I definietly had to stop and take some pictures!

Looking up on the streets of Shinjuku.

Even the gravel gets a good sweep down

From the Meiji Shrine in Harajuku. I remember it just being so peaceful and quiet.

Just stumbled upon these mirrors but thought they were SOO cool. At the top of these escalators was just a shopping plaza in Harajuku.

I don’t remember which train station this was, but I do remember Andrew and I were on the way to the Tsukiji fish market when I captured this. I love all the lines in this image.

Hope you enjoyed these Japan images and let me know what you think!

Speaking of Tokyo… 🙂 Looking at this image makes me want to go back! I would love to go to Japan again although next time I would want to spend less time in Tokyo and spend more time in other parts of the country like Hokkiaido. One day I was looking at pictures and saw this amazing one of rows and rows of flowers just lining the country side. Man it was beautiful. Japanese people really know how to do it big over there! Lol.

This particular image was taken on my vertigo tour with Eyexplore. I’m a huge fan of signing up for these kind of photo tours while visiting other places. You can’t beat a local photographer’s knowledge of their area. They know all the best spots to take images and when, plus you can ask them about other travel related questions like what’s your favorite kitkat flavor? You know, important questions. LOL.

PS, if you’re ever in the DC area and looking for something similar, let me know!

Roof topping is amazing, but I think it’s especially different in Tokyo. There are so many buildings crammed into this little space. It’s really unbelievable if you think about it. Imagine one person occupying each of those windows. That’s a whole lot of people! And all the buildings look so different. I don’t know I think it’s so cool just to slowly move my eye around the picture. Not one spot looks like the other!

PS about 10 more days til the Cherry Blossom predicted peak and I’m so excited! Thank you again, Japan!

The settings for this image is F4.0 at  .8 seconds and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens. The A7II was particularly great at this time because it’s so good in low light situations and I was not able to use my tripod because a lot of the time it wouldn’t even fit on those tiny rooftops.

Afraid of heights? Yea, me neither. I actually think heights can be fun. Sometimes.

This was taken looking down from a rooftop in Ginza, Tokyo during a fun photo tour I had with Eyexplore Tokyo. I joined them for one of their Vertigo tours and it was definietly a different view of the city than I was expecting. In this image, we were looking down at 3 or 4 different buildings. Hard to tell how many there really are because all them are so close to each other. But most of the time we were confined to really tight spaces on top of these buildings. So, I’m the one wearing black shoes and the tour leader, Axel is wearing the brown ones. Andrew was directly behind me so he didn’t make it into the shot but that was basically as much room we were given on this rooftop. Just goes to show you how smushed we really were and how super jammed pack the city is. There was definietly not enough room for tripods at all. Good thing the Sony a7ii is so great in low light situations. I was using the balcony for camera support during the longer exposure times.

The camera settings for this image was f/4 at .5 sec at ISO 500. The ISO definietly had to be bumped up to compensate for the lack of tripod. But I’m glad I was still able to capture the colors and angle so nicely. For sure a difficult shot and if I had the opportunity, I’d love to do something similar in DC. But I’m not sure how rooftop-hopping would go in these government secured buildings. LOL.

If you ever find yourself in Toyko, consider joining one of their tours. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot, like I did 🙂 Tell them Angela sent you.

Now that the snow has fallen, it’s crazy cold outside and it’s official that the cherry blossoms will not peak this year, it made me think about our trip to Japan around this time last year. Unfortunately while we were on our trip, I missed the peak bloom of blossoms in DC. Double unfortunate that we also missed the peak in Tokyo. We did see some cherry blossoms, but if we really wanted to see it, we should of stayed for a week longer. Oh well. I still loved our visit and was still able to see some beautiful flowers including this one. Do any of you guys know what this one is called? I have no clue and would not even know where to beginning to find out.

I took it in Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. The perfect place to go if you want to catch any kind of blooms. When you walk through the park, you almost forget you are in a major city. You don’t hear any honking horns or busy streets. You’re in your own little world, walking down paths of diverse garden areas and scenic views. If I had the opportunity, I would of loved to spend sunrise walking around by myself like I do in DC. The best part is that people come here not just to walk around and enjoy the flowers, but they will bring a blanket with a picnic baskets and hangout for a couple of hours. Kinda like what they do at the tidal basin for the cherry blossoms but it’s definietly not as crowded. I feel like when you can sit down and relax like that, you’ll get the full experience of the beautiful sakuras and these unnamed flower I photographed 🙂

By the way, if you missed it, I made a Tokyo guide. Click here if you’d like to see it.

Views from the top of the world. Love this perspective that a lot of tourists don’t get to see. If you’re interested in something like this and visiting Tokyo, definietly definietly check out EYExplore. I highly recommend them and tell them I sent you 🙂

In other news, today is a travel day. I’m going somewhere veryyyy icey. Can you guess?

This is going to be a 3 part series that will be going on my blog for the next 3 days. Why 3 days? Because I shot so many images this year and I love them all but I can’t choose one absolute favorite. I think I ended up with at least 30 absolute favorites. It’s like how do you choose your favorite pizza delivery place? Who knows! They’re all so great, delicious and you like them all for different reasons. That’s the same thing with this!

Part 1: Travel

So here are my 10 favorite images from travel in 2016. I am SO lucky that I was able to travel to Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean this past year. Like is this really my life?

In order of when I visited these amazing places, here are my favorite travel images of 2016. Woop Woop!
Click the image to find the original blog post and the story behind it.

The electronic Super Store in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan. You could spend hours in this one place and I think I did. Obviously, most of my time was spent on the photography floor. Yes, that’s right. A whole floor devoted to photography!

One of my favorite places in the city of Tokyo, Shinjuku Gyoen. I love all the variations of green in this image.

This image definietly took a lot of patience. It was that decisive moment that Henri Cartier-Bresson talks about.

The contrast of these two bikes in Tokyo cracks me up. I can imagine these two riding down the road together having the best time.

OMG Can we please go back? St John was like heaven on earth.

This was taken at the resort we were staying at, Margaritaville. I didn’t have any margaritas but I had plenty of vodka. They should change the name to Vodkaville 🙂

YES to all the above

In August, Andrew and I spent a long weekend in Ft Lauderdale. It was a great end of summer get away.

Oh Snap! Don’t you love it when big buses pass you by while taking a long exposure. They always create the coolest lines with their lights.

La Sagrada Familia: The most awe-inspiring interior I’ve ever seen. My girlfriends and I made a pact to come back to Barcelona in 10 years when to see this place when  it’s all complete.

So there it is. My top 10 travel images for 2016. What did you guys think? Come back to the blog for the next two days for more of my favorites.