ANGELA B. PAN

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love shooting the fog. *but knowing me, I’ll probably tell you a 100 more times so just pretend it’s like your first time hearing it each time I tell you. You know that scene in Cinderella when all the birds and mice dress her up for the ball? It’s like a whirlwind of magic and then all of the sudden, she’s ready? That’s what it’s like shooting in the fog for me except I really hope there are no mice circling me and I pretty much look exactly the same as I did before it got all foggy. But what I mean by the Cinderella reference is that I feel like I’m being wrapped up in this warm magical cloud whenever I’m walking through the fog. It’s absolutely amazing. But what it does to the scenery is even better. Everything is so muted and reduced down to the bare minimum. If I could wake up everyday to fog, I’d be a happy photographer.

That’s why I was super excited when I saw the Jefferson Memorial like this. Just a tiny hint of reflection in the Tidal Basin water with a bit more of the top of the Jefferson Memorial and cherry blossom trees peaking through. You have just enough information to know where this is. You may think this is black and white, but it’s not. Just the way the scene presented itself. I was standing on Kutz Bridge literally in awe of it all.

This was shot on my tripod with camera settings F/9 at 1/30th of a second with ISO 200. Not much photoshop editing with this one either. The hardest part was getting rid of all those dust spots! Man am I the only one who can never keep a clean sensor?

When you’re having a good hair day and you want everyone to see it so you pose for the camera. LOL

Another one from one of my favorite places in the whole world, Höfn, Iceland. When I plan my next trip to this tiny island, I definietly want to spend more time in Stokksnes. One morning was not enough. Ideally, I’d like to spend a couple of days. What’s weird though is that it was the hardest place to book a hotel room. One minute we looked at a place and the next minute the same place blew up in prices. When I say blew up, I mean it went up by $500USD in less than 5 minutes. Sooo crazy! And then there were a lot of other places that weren’t even open for business at the time. Its such a small little town but I can see why the demand is so high. It’s amazingly beautiful here. And the horses were seriously an added bonus. They weren’t behind any kind of fence. They were just out here roaming. Next time I need to bring carrots and lure some of them on to the beach. How amazing would that be?

For this image, I was so happy to have my Sony a7ii. Its just so light and compact that it was easy to try out different points of views. The peak design hand strap made it even easier. Most of the time I had my camera down low like at my waist so I could get the horses to look very large and the background a little smaller. Especially with that huge mountain range, a lower point of view is ideal for this look. The thing that made the hand strap so great was that my camera was able to securely get down low, but my body didn’t have to. I was not about to kneel down into that grass. Do you know how much horse poop there was?

It’s been soooo long since I’ve been to Great Falls Park. If you have been following me for a while then you’ll know that I used to go to Great Falls Park a lot. Like more than I ever went to the National Mall. Which is a little crazy because everyone always assumes that I have a little bed right under Lincoln’s chair in the Lincoln Memorial. When in fact, I don’t! I sleep in my bed, in my bedroom, in my house in Fairfax, VA. LOL

But I love Great Falls Park. I have so many great memories there. Its the place I used to go to all the time to practice my photography skills that I learned in school. It’s also the place where my cousin got so sick she had to throw up in one of the bathrooms but later found out that she wasn’t sick at all. She was pregnant! It’s also the place where Andrew and I had one of our first dates together and the place where we’d take Frankie and our nephews to play soccer. So many great memories from this place.

I think what changed it all for me was that they started closing the gate at night. Before I felt like I could come in and out as I pleased. But there have been so many times where I tried to go at sunrise and the gates were closed. I was even there one time at sunset and was there for so long that they closed the gates on me. I had to call for someone to pick me up because there was no way to get my car out that day. So to say that this place is special to me would be an understatement. I love coming here and seeing beautiful views like this one.

Doesn’t it seem like the days are going by so quickly now a days? It seems like it was just yesterday that I was at the Holocaust Museum but it was actually 2 weeks ago. I guess what they say is true. Time flies when you’re having fun. And when I think of it even more, I can’t believe almost half the year is already gone! Nuts-o.

Anyways, this image was taken on that day we visited the Holocaust Museum. It was an architectural tour which I really enjoyed. It was just a whole new way of looking at the museum. So we got divided up into small groups and were lead around 4 different parts of the museum as we talked about how the architecture represented different parts of the Holocaust. This particular image was taken outside at the 14th street entrance. Even if you google mapped it, you can see there’s a slight curvature that comes out of the building. Although that’s very cool all on it’s own, I thought showing it in the window reflection was even cooler. A whole new way of looking at it. I can imagine this to be a neat way to frame things if the sky was really dramatic.

The lesson that I learned from this image is to take your time and really exam the space that you’re in. You’ll be surprised by what you may find. Thanks to my friend, Zack who helped me out with this. So in recent photoshoots, I’ve been really trying to practice that. Also practicing the art of being present. I’m really resisting the urge to look at my cell phone while I’m out shooting, especially if I’m out with other people. Being present and aware of your surroundings can only help improve your images and quality of life.

During cherry blossom season, I was obsessed with finding puddles. I made it a mission to find whatever reflection I could get and try to make it work. So I figured after Monday’s rain that there would be tons of puddles. Wrong! There were hardly any. Even the ones that I knew that had to be here, were not even there. It was so strange. It was almost like it didn’t even rain. Oh well. So I was happy when I saw this one itty bitty little piece of reflection.

At one point while I was shooting other potential reflections, this couple from Panama came up to me. They told me that they owned a camera store and were desperately trying to get their kids in to photography. I must of looked like I had the biggest question mark on my face because I think they were trying to ask me for advice. I dunno? Give them a kick-ass camera and tell them to go play? That’d definietly motivate me to get more into photography. They were also super impressed by the fact that I’d get down low for my shot. So I showed them some of my images on my camera and for some reason I felt like they were really happy for me. The kind of look that only parents give. They were so sweet. I think it’s awesome that they were pushing their kids toward the creative side. At the end of the conversation they invited me to go Panama to eat sea food with them and visit their camera store. I have no idea what their names were or even where they live in Panama but it was so kind of them to stop and say such nice things. It really made my night that much better.

I’m really hoping this marks the beginning of storms here in DC. Summer is my favorite just because we can get some really dramatic skies and this past Monday was no exception. It was super hot over the weekend and finally a cold front came in bringing this storm that created the most amazing skies right at sunset. The storm itself was a little disappointing. We were expecting lightning and only saw a few really far away. But the clouds, the rainbow, the light soooo made up for it.

I met up with my friends Dave and Zack at the Lincoln Memorial. We figured that while it was raining, it’d be a great spot to take cover and still take pics at the same time. It was so fun running back and forth on the outer perimeter of the memorial. At first we were in the front capturing the dramatic skies. All of the sudden I turned around and saw this amazing glow coming from the back of the Lincoln. We ran back there to check it out and take pics. Then we get a message from Zack saying there was a rainbow at the monument. We ran over and started shooting that. It was so fun and exciting. I know we weren’t the only ones doing going back and forth. So many tourists were running along with us. LOL.

My camera settings for this image was F14 at 5 seconds and ISO 50. I chose to shoot this as a long exposure so I could blur out some of the people in the foreground. *What were they all doing there standing in the rain anyways? This was definietly shot on a tripod but somehow I left my remote at home 🙁 Oh well. There better be more storms in next few months.