ANGELA B. PAN

I try to go to events and things with no expectations. That way you won’t be disappointed when it doesn’t turn out the way you want. But I knew from the very beginning that Ball for the Mall was going to be an evening that would be hard to forget. In the end, Andrew and I had the best time ever.

I know my words won’t do it justice but the evening was magical. Andrew and I ubered to the Mall and as soon as we walked up to the tent, I saw one of my images greeting all the guests at the front door. If that was the only place my image was displayed, I would have been the happiest girl in the world. Before I could do anything else, I pulled out my phone so we could take pictures.

The event was held on 12th and Madison Dr, right in front of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The weather was absolutely perfect. I didn’t even need a jacket. Which was amazing because they also had an area blocked off for a special monument viewing station.

As Andrew describes it, the interior of the tents was as if it were a gallery showing of my work. There was a huge blown up piece behind the band, an ever bigger piece behind the bar and all throughout the dinner a slideshow of my work. Little signage and even printouts of my work made it feel even more special.

Obviously I had to take pictures of the delicious food we had. I really wish I had taken pictures of the appetizers that were being passed around. My favorite was this lobster bite drenched in butter. YUMMM.

In between speeches and dinner being served, I asked Andrew if we could sneak to the front of the venue to try to take some pictures of the displays without people around. Not sure how this even ended up happening but it is so awesome. LOL. The image behind me was definietly my favorite out of all the ones that were displayed.

Thank you so so much, Trust for the National Mall for an unbelievable evening. It’s something that I’m going to treasure for a long, long time. It was an absolute honor to be there and an even bigger honor to have had my work featured at such a spectacular event. Thank you xoxo

So yesterday was one of the best days ever! I’m still trying to comedown from the high.  Andrew and I attended the Ball for the Mall and it was the most beautiful, exciting, and inspiring evening ever. Thanks again to the Trust of the National Mall for the invitation and using my images throughout the entire event. Everything was absolutely incredible. Promise I’ll share some images from the evening soon. I’m still trying to gather all my thoughts about the night.

In the meaning time, here’s a pretty picture of the cherry blossoms 🙂 LOL. Like I said yesterday, I didn’t create too many images with the Jefferson Memorial and the cherry blossoms this year. I feel like it’s been done so many times that it’s difficult to make it different. So on that same day that I managed to shoot with very low battery, I grabbed this image. Initially it was the sun burst that caught my attention, but I’m a sucker for using the cherry trees to frame subjects. My favorite is the light that’s coming through the flowers. Doesn’t it make you feel all warm inside?

This is why we need to help preserve the National Mall and other national parks across the country. So that people can appreciate beautiful scenes like this forever and ever. Government funding only goes so far. We need additional resources that will help keep the cherry blossom trees healthy and all of our monuments and memorials safe and clean. The National Mall is a unique national park because it’s located within a city. We get so much foot traffic that eventually things are going to wear and tear. Please click here to find out how you can help.

My camera settings for this image is F22 at 1/100th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 27-70mm handheld. 

Ok, back to more cherry blossoms images 🙂

Another one of my goals this season was to capture the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial with the cherry blossoms. If I was going to be at the Tidal Basin, I wanted to try different things from what I typically do. Going back and looking at my images, I barely have any of the Jefferson Memorial and the cherry blossoms. So weird, right? Last year they were like peanut butter and jelly. This year it was like the Jefferson Memorial didn’t even show up to the party.

I also realized that I don’t have very many images of the Martin Luther King Jr memorial in general, let alone with the cherry blossoms. So anytime I was close or even from far away, I was trying out different compositions. I was determined to get something I liked.

This one was taken about 30 minute before sunrise. As you can see, another windy morning but I love the color combination of the pink flowers with the blueish looking sky. We got real lucky this year. We had almost two solid weeks of cherry blossoms, compared to last year when we didn’t even have a week. So I had time to play with compositions. I still haven’t gone through all the images yet, but this one stood out to me. I like how he still looks very powerful and determined with the cherry blossom framing him. Like nothing can distract him, not even pretty flowers. On the other hand, I’m the one who’s driving around and will break for pretty flowers growing in people’s yards and point them out to all my passengers. Ask Andrew. He’s not a fan of when I do that. LOL

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 0.6 seconds and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens on my gitzo tripod.

Special Announcement! I’m hosting my very first photowalk and I’m so excited!!!

It’s happening on Saturday June 9th at 5:20a meeting at the Lincoln Memorial. Mark yo calendars. Super early, I know, but it will be so fun. I’m teaming up with the Focus on the Story International Photo Festival for a super cool Saturday morning. Don’t quote me on this but I heard they’re bringing Krispe Kremes too. So what could be better than the National Mall, sunrise, donuts and ME?! LOL.

Click here to sign up for the free event. And while you’re at it, check out some of the other events that will be going on that weekend. I’ve signed up for a couple myself and really looking forward to learning from other photographers.

This image was taken in August 2016 but I still remember the details of taking it. It was a super humid summer evening and we were expecting thunderstorms that night. So with weather conditions like that, I thought the sunset would be super colorful. It was, but only along the bottom of the sky, right above the horizon. So I decided to crop the top part and focus more on the water ripples. I don’t know if this image would have been as successful as it is without the water because I think the best part of it was catching the color reflection. It makes it seem a lot more colorful and dramatic than it really was. The most interesting part to me is that little line that flows down the center left hand side of the reflecting pool. I love the way that it bounces from one side to another so subtly.

So that’s our meeting spot! The Lincoln Memorial! Don’t forget to register for the sunrise photowalk and see ya there!

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/10th of a second at ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

A little break from cherry blossoms for a photo of me 🙂 LOL

I was with my family at the National Museum of Natural history the other day when I decided to take a little breather and go for a quick walk around the National Gallery of Art. I love how these two museums are right next to each other because they are my favorites at the National Mall. It’s so easy to hop from one beautiful museum to the next.

I love the purple wisteria that grow along side of NGA and I had every intention of capturing them on my walk. I only saw a couple of them so I think I was a bit too early for that this year. But in a surprising turn of events it was the glass pyramids outside the east building that caught my attention. I’ve never paid too much attention to them before but when I got closer up to them, I noticed how they are the windows that bring in so much light to the cafeteria part of the gallery. Right next to them are water fountains that trail down to the interior of the building. It was so cool. So as I was kneeling down low to try to capture different angles, I noticed my reflection in the pyramids and decided to take a quick selfie.

I was really surprised by the way that it turned out. First of all, I had no idea that there were so many water stains on the glass. LOL. But for being such a quick click, I really like how it turned out. I imagine this is what I look like to most people when I’m out shooting so it was a very different perspective to see me like this. Pretty, pretty interesting. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/80th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony a7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

I have a huge list of things I still want to do and photograph in Washington DC. Crazy right? You would think by now that I’ve accomplished them all but this city is so lively and growing so much that I feel like the list gets longer and longer everyday. Well, a couple of Fridays ago, my friend Birch and I met up to cross one of those things off the list. It had been something I’ve been wanting to do for forever and I’m so glad Birch was awesome enough to accompany me in doing so.

We spent a beautiful hour on the tidal basin in a paddle boat!!! OMG it was so much fun. We picked the perfect day to do it too. That whole week had crazy cold wind but the day we were actually able to go, the weather was beautiful! The best part was that we went on a swan paddle boat which was battery operated so we didn’t even have to paddle at all! We just let the swan do all the work. But we did have to steer the boat. Which may or not have been the easiest thing to do… LOL We seriously spent the whole time talking, laughing and making sure we didn’t run into any of the walls. There were some photos involved too. Either way, I’m doing it again next year! Swan paddle boat or bust.

This image is not from the paddle boat though. This was on the way down to the tidal basin from our cars. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a perspective like this before and I love the way that it turned out. I was just super lucky to have been able to capture that airplane too!

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/5000th of a second and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.