ANGELA B. PAN

I feel in love with Oregon. I loved every minute we were there. I felt so at peace and calm during our whole road trip across the state, I would highly recommend it to anyone who’s considering visiting the Pacific Northwest.

The real reason we went was to celebrate my birthday and to visit a place we had never been to. Portland was a city that both Andrew and I had heard was a fun place to be but never been. But we also knew it was the place to be if you like good food and weird things. Both did not disappoint!

Since this was our first time visiting Oregon, we didn’t really know what to expect. We’ve been back for less than a month, I already know of somethings that I would do differently. With that said, we will be back again. Both Andrew and I left with the feeling of wanting to see and do more. But I think that’s the sign of an amazing trip. Prior to the trip, I did tons of research on the Oregon coast on Pinterest and asked some friends who I knew had visited before. Through my research, I quickly realized that Oregon is a very dog-friendly state. Minus Crater Lake that doesn’t allow dogs in most areas of the park, Frankie was allowed everywhere else we wanted to go. So we booked 3 plane tickets off we went!

Here is a recap of everything we did and the things I would do differently next time:

Day 1: Fly into Portland

We arrived early in the afternoon, grabbed our rental car and went straight to pick up the essentials: Blue Star Donuts. I know I don’t normally give food recommendations but if you like fancy donuts, then Blue Star is where you want to be. I’ll have another donut recommendation later on our trip that ended up being our favorite.

Click here to read more

Confused by what sights to see on your short visit to Washington DC?

There are so many monuments, memorials, and museums. Where do you even start?

If want to know the absolute best of the best things to see in Washington DC, keep on scrolling. This guide is for you!

I’ve lived in the Washington DC area my entire life and in that time I’ve gotten to know the city very well. It has changed so much in the past few years that it may be hard to keep up with all the new and fun things to see. Sometimes I even think it’s hard to keep up with all that is going on. There have been new museums, memorials and points of interest that would be fun for a solo traveler as well as families all at the same time.

So in this guide, I will share some highlights of my favorite sights as a Washington DC native and photographer.

My 7 Favorite Must-See Sights in Washington DC:

Click here to read more

With all the cherry blossom excitement this season, it took me a while to go through my Austin road trip images. As soon as I got home I hit the ground pretty hard with the pink flowers and kind of forgot about the Austin pictures.

To be honest though, I wasn’t able to capture as much as I would have liked. The reason we went on the trip was to move my friend, Sue there so that took up a lot of time and energy. But that also means that I need to go back soon. I fell in love with the city and am so looking forward to bringing Andrew there. I haven’t stopped talking about it since I’ve been back.

Fortunately, we had one day where we were able to just chill out and relax a little bit. We were pretty tired from all that driving and moving that we decided to go to Hamilton Pool Preserve and take some time to be outdoors. This place was amazingly beautiful. The water is just so blue and I loved being able to hike all around. Although, the water was really cold so I have no idea how this lady is just standing in the water like that. LOL. Regardless, I thought her swimsuit went so well with the environment. I love the way she’s standing and just taking it all in.

This is definietly the place to be on a hot summer day in Austin Texas.

And I just completed a youtube video from our trip. Click here if you want to see more from our week long adventure. To be honest though, I showed Sue this video before I published it and she said I should have put food in the video. She’s right though because the food – bbq and tacos were so good. OMG.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/2000th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm

The original intent of Snap DC: Your Guide to Taking Extraordinary Photos of the National Mall and Beyond was to help fellow photographers capture amazing images around the National Mall. I wanted to take all the knowledge that I have and put it all in one place to help anyone who wanted to photograph my favorite city. The first thing I did was mind map all of my favorite locations and quickly realized that I had a dilemma. All of my favorite places to shoot in Washington DC were not just in the National Mall. They were located in and around the city, including this place, Great Falls National Park which is technically located in Maryland and Virginia.

I had to decide if I wanted to narrow the focus to just the National Mall or keep it real and include all the other places. So I kept it real. I love Great Falls. Its such a great getaway from the busyness of the city. Who would have imagined that this magical waterfall is just 20 miles outside of the city. This was taken from the Virginia side and if you go to the Maryland side, it’s a totally different ballpark.

So if you were interested in learning more about Great Falls National Park, The National Mall or all of my other favorite places in the DC area to shoot, then check out Snap DC! It is finally going to be released THIS SUNDAY May 20th on Amazon as a paperback and kindle version. Also don’t forget that we’re photowalk-ing it out on Saturday, May 19th with IGDC to celebrate the launch of the guide book. This weekend is going to be so awesome. I can’t waittttt!

My settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/2500th of a second at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle handheld.

Happy Happy New Year!!! YAYAYAYAY!!!! 2018!

In 2017, I set a goal to travel for photo at least once a season. Mission accomplished. Here are my favorite travel images from 2017 in chronological order.

Click on the pictures to read my original blog post.

Iceland, you beautiful country. I love you. I’ll see you again soon, k?

Captured in the middle of the day with my 10-stop neutral density filter. I love that thing. I keep it in my camera bag at all times.

Took this one just a few hours after the previous image but on the other side of the sea stacks. Crazy how the different point of view changes so much.

One of my favorite parts about Iceland, the horses! They’re so sweet.

I’m not sure if you noticed or not but once I got back from Iceland, I decided to work on my blog even more. Yes, I still post new images every weekday, but I’m taking the time out to write longer and more thoughtful blog posts. I just thought that an interesting change from this trip that I wanted to note.

I captured this image in Virginia at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. That counts as travel, right? My favorite part of this image is that little ripple the fish on top is making with his tail.

Arches National Park in Utah. This was one of the first images I captured at sunrise. I just love how the sun burst balances out the red rocks on the right hand side.

I fell in love in the spring and it was with Colorado. Man o man, I gotta go back in 2018.

Rocky National Park is one of my favorites. It’s so hard to take a bad picture.

The beginning of our epic cross country road trip. That was one adventure that I’ll never forget.

Taken on a tripod and a 10 second timer. I must have looked crazy constantly running back and forth in my flip flops. LOL oh well. Wasn’t the first time.

My first time seeing saguaro cactuses in real life. They are amazingly beautiful and so big. Now that I think of it, I should of taken another self portrait like I did in the previous image here.

Visited Maine for the first time in October. I love how spacious and airy this image is.

It was hard to find this perspective but once I did, it was totally worth the early morning wake up call and the climb down slippery rocks.

That’s it. Those were my favorite travel images of 2017. Can’t wait to capture even more in the new year.
In case you missed it, I did the same thing with just Washington DC photos. Click here to check them out.

We had our very first snow fall of the season over the weekend! It was perfect. It snowed all day Saturday, just one or two inches. Enough to stick on cars and the grass a bit but nothing on the roads. No mess to clean up, no fuss to worry about. Just the way I like it!

My friend, Larry and I went out to Great Falls Park to check it out. It’s been a while since I’ve photographed the park and was really looking forward to shooting it in the snow. It reminded me of my high school days when I first got interested in photo. At that time, I didn’t know how to drive so my sweet mom drove me in the snow so I could get the shots that I wanted. And wait for me in the cold to photograph the trees and water. It’s crazy how things come full circle. I remember being really proud of those Great Falls shots in high school. LOL how time flies. I bet if you asked her today, she’d still remember doing that. SHOUT OUT TO MY MOM! I LOVE YOU AND APPRECIATE YOU! Even though you know I blog every day but still don’t read them.

I am really looking to photographing more snow this season. I heard we’re going to get a lot this year. I was sort of looking at this Great Falls Park photoshoot as the prequel. So many possibilities to shoot. And I’m really hoping for some drone shots thrown in there too! Let me know, what’s your favorite weather to shoot? Mine is fog but snow could be a close second. Similar effects but more cold.

The settings for this image is F4.5 at 4 seconds and ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm lens.