ANGELA B. PAN

You know what’s funny? As I was shooting this, I noticed I was the only one who was getting up close to the US Capitol building. There were quite a few tourists out there with me. I think a bus pulled up while I was there and so many of them were taking selfies in front of the Capitol. But no one would even get near the fountain. Weird, right? Maybe it was the Capitol police with their guns that looked so intimidating. Or maybe they were just not trying to get into my shot. Either way, I was all alone taking this picture. I’m not complaining though. It was really nice to be the only one. Who knows how many people got pictures of my back side though. HAHA.

On this evening, it looked like it was going to storm but I don’t think it actually did. The clouds were super dark. I couldn’t tell with my eyes if they were moving but once I slapped on the Ice Neutral density filter 10 stop, I could see that they were making this really cool effect. Like they were all racing out of the Capitol dome. I really liked it so I tried different angles and came out with this one. This one came out particularly awesome because you can see some reflection in the water and may I add the symmetry of the building’s architecture is probably the coolest part of the image.

For some reason seeing dark and moody images of the Capitol always reminds me of President Underwood. So now that House of Cards season 5 is officially back on Netflix, I think you know what Andrew and I will be doing on our flight back home from our trip. Oh man, can’t waitttt. This season is really going to be good!

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.

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Even though The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the newest museum in the National Mall and Washington DC area, it’s quickly becoming one of my favorites. I’ve only been inside once but I’ve admired it from the outside numerous times. It’s so exciting to have this new space because there are so many new angles to explore. Like this one made possible by the enormous and beautiful reflecting windows that surround the museum.

Now that summer time is on us, I also think it’d be interesting to see what people do with the fireworks in this space. I was lucky enough to have special access to shoot the Independence Day fireworks on the grounds last year but it was sort of a bust. All day it had been rainy with super low clouds so it was sort of difficult to see the fireworks. And it was crazy because the fireworks that were super high in the sky were only heard, not seen. So this year I think it’d be interesting to see if fireworks would be able to reflect off the windows or even some of the outdoor features surrounding the museum. Weather permitting of course.

The camera settings for this image was F7.1 at 1/30th of a second at ISO 400. I shot this at sunset while being smushed up against the windows. A high ISO was needed to be sure everything stayed sharp and in focus. It was only afterwards, in post processing, where I thought this image would look even cooler in black and white. I think it really brings out the the drama and makes the angles look even sharper.

Can’t wait to go inside the museum again to capture the ‘cleansing fountain’. The first time I was there, it wasn’t up and running.

Rarely do I shoot night time images. I love them for the same reasons as I love shooting sunrise. It’s the time of day that you’re usually by yourself. You feel the freedom to just wonder (with a good flashlight). Everything is usually so still and quite. But there’s one good reason that I don’t shoot it that often. It’s because I’m such a morning person now that staying up late is so difficult for me. LOL. For the same reasons of why I hear people who never shoot sunrise, is the same reason why I hardly shoot nigh time. Especially the time of night where you can really see the stars shining bright, usually around 2 or 3am. Man, oh man do I wish you could sleep all during the day, wake up in time for sunset and stay up all night til sunrise and be able to function like a normal human being that way. In other words, why can’t the world just revolve around my photography schedule? Just kidding. Not really, but kind of.

This was shot in Davenport, California at Shark Fin Cove. A beautiful location in the middle of the night or during the day. Now that Andrew and I are on our trip together, I’m hoping to shoot some more night time images. Nothing is guaranteed because we are planning on some cool stuff during the day too. Hopefully I can squeeze in a cat nap so we can take some night images like this. Nothing like sitting in the middle of no where with a whole bunch of stars lighting your path.

Since I shot this on a Rokinon 14mm lens, I am not able to see what my aperture setting was. I’m assuming it was as wide as I could get it at 2.8 but I know for sure that it was 8 seconds long at ISO 2000.

Happy Memorial Day!!! Going through some of my older images, I found this one. Can you guess what it’s of? It took me a while to figure out too. I even showed it to Andrew and he had no idea what it was of and he was standing right next to me while I was taking the picture. But to be fair, I took it in 2011 so it’s been a while. At first I thought the flags were hung together by string or that it might of been kites or something like that but it’s not… they are….

Skydivers!!!

How fun is that? I completely forgot about this but I thought it was very appropriate for Memorial Day.

Thank you so much for all those who have served our country. You have made it a better and safer place for all of us to live today. And a special thank you to all those families who have lost loved ones for our country. I will be thinking of you today.

On another note, Andrew and I have arrived safely in Colorado and had a great time exploring Denver. Today we’re taking the drive down to Moab, Utah. This is the part of the trip that I’m looking forward to the most. Just driving around and making stops along the way to see more of our beautiful country. I’ve never been to Colorado or this part of Utah so if you want to see some behind the scenes stuff of our trip, check out my instagram story. I’ll be posting a lot on there.

This image was taken on my 5d Mark II at f10 at 1/30th of a second ISO 100. I remember it being close to sunset time so that’s why the light from the clouds aren’t too harsh. Just right to really show off the American Flags.