ANGELA B. PAN

Happy Valentine’s Day! <3 I’ve been holding on to this image since last summer a for a day like today. I wanted to wait for the right time to share it because I love the way that it turned out. I captured it when I first got my 70-200mm lens and was just walking around the reflecting pool to try to capture some different types of images. The purple tones of the sky and environment goes so nicely with the outfits these gentlemen are wearing. It’s as if I planned the photoshoot myself. LOL.

Anyways, hope you all have a great day today. Andrew and I will be having a quiet night in. We never really go all out for Valentine’s day. Just an evening together is the best way to celebrate. And chocolate. I hope there will be chocolate tonight. LOL. What are your plans?

Be sure to check out the blog tomorrow. I have some really exciting news that I’ll be sharing and I hope some of you guys will be as excited about it as I am.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/200th sec at ISO 1600 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

Love is Love.

Just an early morning view of some surfers at La Jolla Shores in San Diego, California. Is it me or if you glance at it real quick, it just looks like some little bits of rice that has fallen down? LOL. This was my only successful attempt of actually getting footage of my cousin, Vincent surfing. All other times he was already in the water and I tried using my drone to find him but with everyone in all black wet suits with white surfboards, it can be really difficult to find the person you’re looking for. It finally worked out that I had my drone ready to go when he was getting into the water and followed him while flying. I told Andrew to also keep a lookout just in case. But I’m so glad I was actually able to find him this time.

While trying to capture him, I had it on video for a majority of the time. But this image was taken in the part of the ocean where it is a bit calmer. You can sit on the board and relax a little bit before swimming out deeper to get the big waves. So while they were taking a break, I took a few pics. I loved the really calm water with the gradient of blues. I purposely waited for a little wave to come up so that it looked more like ocean water and I could highlight Vincent a little more. He’s the guy on the green surfboard kicking up towards the top of the image. The whole time I was editing this image I was channeling my inner Mark Rothko and imagining what he would do. Either way, I love the way it turned out. It just oozes with calmness.

My camera settings for this image is F2.2 at 1/100th sec and ISO 196 with my DJI Mavic Pro.

I could not sleep Friday night. For some reason I woke up in the middle of the night so hot and of course I couldn’t fall back to sleep. So I decided to make my way over to the Reflecting Pool for sunrise. If was going to be up, I may as well as make it productive, right?

Turns out the sunrise on Saturday morning was a beautiful one. This image was taken when I first arrived at the pool. I was there about 30 minutes before the actual sunrise and as the sun was coming up, it created these beautiful tones and colors in the sky. I particularly like how the streaks in the sky match the streaks in the water. It makes for an interesting reflection and sort of reminds me of a line painting. As the morning went on, the colors in the sky became more and more vibrant.

So glad I didn’t miss it but the best surprise part about it was running into a whole bunch of photography friends so early in the morning. It was the best way to start the day with so many hugs and smiling faces.  Aww it makes me so happy to just think about it.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/8th sec at ISO 2500 with my Canon 5D Mark II with my 17-40mm wide angle lens.

PS some people have been asking why I’ve been shooting with my Canon. Well it’s because my Sony is back in the shot. Long story but it got wet again while we were in San Diego. For the most part it was working fine but I just wanted to send it in for little tune up before more travel. Hope to get it back by the end of this week 🙂

This image was taken a week ago at the DCTography photo walk at sunset. It was one of the only images I was able to capture because I was having too much fun catching up with friends to actually take pictures. LOL.

It looks deceiving but the day was actually really nice – weatherwise. It had snowed all day the day before but the day of our walk felt like summer compared to the cold weather we had during the week prior. I think it worked out great because the icey Tidal Basin made for some really cool images plus the sunset itself was fantastic!

But this image captures one of my favorite trees at the Tidal Basin. I photograph it every year, but I don’t think I’ve ever put one of the images on the blog until now. This one tree is special. I think it got hit by a lightning bolt or something like that years ago. Please correct me if I’m wrong. But if you compared it to the other trees around the Basin, it doesn’t even look like it should still be alive because it’s so small. But every year it sprouts the beautiful cherry blossoms on it’s little branches and it makes me so happy that it’s still doing so well.

To be honest, I usually wouldn’t post something like this. My preference is to have clean, untouched snow but there was something about all the footprints that are circling this tree that makes me feel like I’m not the only one who loves it. Other people must be walking around it admiring it from every angle just like me. I also like how you can barely tell where the sidewalk ends and where the water begins just because there’s that much snow on the ground.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/30th sec ISO 1000 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 70-200mm zoom.

Like I said in my last post, I have never actually crossed the Roosevelt Island bridge. Crazy, right? I’ve always just parked in the parking lot and headed straight to the trail just to capture images of the monuments. I had no idea what I was missing out on. So if you’re like me and haven’t explored this great place, it’s this open area with what look like great pieces of art and architecture around. It doesn’t seem very big and it was a little difficult to imagine what the water features looked like while they were covered in snow but I’m sure they could be really cool to capture in warmer climate. Already getting ideas for reflection images!

But it was the sculpture of President Roosevelt that really captured my attention. He’s right in the center when you arrive at the island so I tried to find different ways to photograph it. I really liked how he was covered in the snow (almost that white on white that I was looking for) but still looked like he was waving “hello”. LOL. After circling it a little bit, I found that I really liked the look of putting him a little further back but having a blurred out foreground element to make it look a little more interesting and to give that depth. I remember trying to stoop down a little so that the curvature of the bush matched the implied curvature of his body matched. So I would say that this was a successful first trip out to Roosevelt Island!

Even with all these great snow opportunities, I still can’t enough. Here’s to hoping we get a little bit more snow this season. Fingers crossed!

My camera settings for this image is F11 at 1/160 sec at ISO 200 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 70-200mm.

I’m pretty sure it was my lucky week last week because we ended up having 2 snow days! The second came totally unexpected to me. I think I was so concentrated on the getting news updates about the polar vortex and how cold it was going to be on Thursday that I did not even see the snow on Friday coming.

From what I saw the day of, it was only going to snow a little bit for a few hours in the morning. I think the weather people were estimating an inch or less. But it ended up snow pretty much all day. I’m so glad because I was busy in the morning which left the afternoon for me to play in the snow with my friend, Birch.

We first met up at the View of DC so we could capture the whole city in a blanket of snow. But it was snowing so much that the visibility of everything was really low. While we were up there, we decided that we wanted to get back onto ground level and see what it looked like from Roosevelt Island, in particular the bridge. There was something that bridge that Birch really wanted to capture so we went for it.

Out of all the times I’ve been to Roosevelt Island, I’ve never actually crossed that bridge. Weird, right? So glad Birch suggested going out there because I love this image of her. I love the ice in the water that formed during the polar vortex, I love how you can see the snow falling but I also love capturing Birch in her natural state. LOL. Also having that extra snowflake blur on her is very interesting to me. A happy accident that brings just a little bit more attention to her and her camera 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F11 at 1/125 sec at ISO 200 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 70-200mm zoom.