ANGELA B. PAN

A little more than a week after I returned from Taiwan, I was back on an airplane but this time to Florida. It was a quick weekend trip to celebrate my friends Taz and Fahim’s wedding vow renewal but that doesn’t mean I didn’t bring my camera with me. It was my first time in Destin, Florida and to be honest, it was a lot more scenic than I thought it would be. I never knew the beaches in the panhandle of Florida were so beautiful.

The entire wedding party stayed in a beach house right on the beach. It was so nice to wake up in the morning and walk right out onto the sand before anyone else in the house was awake. Maybe because it was the beginning of December but the beach here was so quite. You barely saw anyone else out so my photo subjects were birds until the rest of my friends woke up. LOL.

My camera settings for this image are F5.6 at 1/100th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

I’ve been to the National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall many times on my visits to Taipei. Each time I go creates a special memory but I wasn’t really planning on going on this trip. For one, I didn’t know what my schedule would be and how much time I would have. But one day when I figured out I had a free afternoon, I started googling things to do in Taipei on rainy days. Yes, I’ve mentioned rain almost every single one of these Taiwan blog posts, but it was a threat every day we were there.

So I found this blog post that had some very good suggestions. I even considered going to the Hello Kitty cafe but that was pretty far out of the way. So I figured I’d just spend the evening at the National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. As soon as I got there, I was so glad I made the decision. There were puddles EVERYWHERE and made for some amazing reflections. To be honest, I had never seen so many people line up to take puddle images before and I felt like I was right at home. LOL.

This is one of the images I captured of Liberty Square. I haven’t had the chance to look at the other images yet, but I’m so excited to share more images I captured from this evening.

My camera settings for this image is F2.2. at 1/200th sec and ISO 1600 with my Sony A7II and 35mm prime lens.

I guess you would call this a day market? I’m not sure, but every morning there are always these street vendors selling produce, cooked food and meats. It’s not an everyday scene that we see in America so I tried to capture it as much as I could. But to be honest, I wasn’t sure about posting it. I didn’t know if everyone would want to see meat hanging from hooks. This is outdoors with no refrigeration or with any kind of packaging but this is how they do it in Taiwan.

I showed this image to Andrew and he really liked it. He said he likes the framing but also how the vendor looks so sharp. I like it because he has such a big smile on his face and it really shows a sense of community. Its everyday scenes like this that I wanted to capture on this trip, so I’m glad this one turned out as well as it did.

What do you think?

My camera settings for this image are F5.0 at 1/160th sec and ISO 80 with my 35 mm prime lens.

While fighting the jetlag in Taiwan, I loved being able to walk around the Tamsui district. There’s something about waking up early and then watching the rest of the city waking up. It’s so relaxing but then you can feel the energy getting higher and higher as the morning goes on. I love it.

This image was taken on one of those early morning walks when not a lot of people were awake except for a few who were fishing. What I think is most interesting about this image is that every single of these people is actually fishing. They just have their own style of it. I especially like the one who has taken a seat on his pink scooter as he waits for the fish to bite.

My camera settings for this image are F7.1 at 1/800th sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 35mm.

Walking around Tamsui near the Zhuwei MRT subway station, I saw this light and waited for someone to either walk or drive past it. But then something even better happened, this lady stopped her scooter to adjust the bags she had in the front and then sped off. This allowed me to frame this image how I wanted and I love the way it turned out.

Another thing about street photography that I love so much is being able to shoot in the middle of the day. If I remember correctly, I captured this around 11 am. For landscape photographers, you would have already been inside, had a snack and watched some tv shows. But for photographers photographing street scenes like this, it’s perfect, especially when you’re in cities with really tall buildings. The buildings act as reflectors and cast amazing light all over the city. You just have to find it. And the best thing about photographing street in Taipei is that it’s so crowded that if you miss your shot of someone, you can just wait another minute and someone totally different will enter your scene.

My camera settings for this image are F5 at 1/640th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 35mm prime lens.

On our third day in Taiwan, we headed to Jiufen. I had heard it’s like no other place in Taiwan with extremely narrow alleys with so many different vendors and places to eat, I really wanted to check it out. Little did I know it would take more than two hours by public transportation to get there from Taipei. From I read online, it didn’t seem like it would take that long. But those two hours made a huge difference.

By the time we got to the top of the mountains to Jiufen, it was pouring rain. And it was that uncomfortable rain where it was cold and splashing everywhere. So much to the point that when you were walking through those narrow alleys, you had to watch out for your eyeballs or else someone may poke you with their umbrella. We went but didn’t get to stay for as long as I would have liked. I really wanted to see what it looked like at night time but it was just way too crowded and wet.

But at least now I can see I went, right? LOL I’ll definitely have to try it again next time.

This image was taken while we were waiting for the bus to come. AT THE BUS STOP. I’ve never seen such a beautiful bus stop in my life!

My camera settings for this image are F6.3 at 1/160th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm.