ANGELA B. PAN

Going back through my older images, I found this one from a trip to New York. I love going to New York. Mostly for eating, but it also has some great places to shoot. For example the Oculus. This place is incredible! I can’t believe it’s now a shopping mall. Anyways, I LOVE the lines and how clean everything looks. It kind looks like it’s something from outer space, doesn’t it? I know I must have gotten really low for this image. I can tell by the reflections on the floor, but other than that, I don’t remember anything else about it. I don’t even remember shooting it. But that’s the fun part about revisiting old images. It’s like seeing pictures with fresh, new eyes. I don’t know if this would of been as successful if I started editing it right when I shot it. Sometimes I like to let images simmer. For this one however, it simmered so long that I forgot about it! Oh well. Thank you reliable hard drives for keeping this beauty safe.

I’ve always wanted to spend an extended amount of time in New York. It’s such a happening city that theres no way that I’d be able to see and do everything that I want to do in a weekend, which is normally how long I visit. Can you believe I still haven’t visited MoMa? That’s one place I’d like to go to next time I travel to the big apple. What other places should I visit while I’m there? Museums, photography hot spots, food? Other than the fried pizza restaurant. OMG!

On a side now if you haven’t already, sign up for my newsletter. Its ready to be sent out tomorrow like it is every first of the month. Have a great weekend everybody! 🙂

In between shooting cherry blossom sunrises, I made my way over to the National Arboretum this past weekend. I met up with a bunch of friends from IGDC . (If you don’t know them, you should check them out on instagram especially if you’re in the DC area.) It was really cool because it also World Wide Instameet weekend and the theme was ‘kindness’. So IGDC and the Humane Rescue Alliance in DC teamed up to show off some adoptable dogs. I had a BALL hanging out with all the dogs. There were so many of them. The best was when one dog would get really excited and then get all the other dogs excited and watching them bark at each other. I don’t know why, but I think its so funny. Taking the group shot at the end was particularly enjoyable to see the dogs “together”. Unfortunately, Frankie couldn’t make it 🙁

This was shot in the middle of the day. I want to say around 11:30. These columns sit on top of a hill in the middle of the arboretum and the first thing I noticed were the shadows they were creating in the grass. I quickly changed my lens to the 16-35mm so I could get it all. That’s when I noticed the sun flare. I really think that sun is there for that extra added bonus. However, I think if I were to redo this shot again, I would of tried to get a dog or a person in the the middle of the columns or in the foreground somewhere. Oh well. I’m still really happy with how this turned out.

The settings for this image were F22 1/25 of a second ISO 100. I had to shoot small just to exaggerate the flares coming out of the sun a little more.

The only way to get an image like this is to wake up super early. Way earlier than you actually want to. Way earlier than your body wants to. But it’s worth it. Theres no other time where you’ll get that amazing purple glow or find the stillness in the water or sidewalks. Nobody’s there rushing by you or getting in your way because there’s hardly anyone else there. Ive said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s such a beautiful way to start your day.

And don’t get me started with that fog. That fog just made the morning so much more enjoyable. It really fills the air with warmth like you’re walking through a  big puffy cloud. Its  hard to say, but I really do think my favorite weather to shoot in is dense fog. It just simplifies everything and your limited to what’s right in front of you. There are so many more ways to see things when you’re limited by the fog. I don’t know, did that make sense? I mean that everything is just so simplified that you have no other option but to see and think of objects you see everyday differently.

This image was shot at F/8 2.5 seconds ISO 160 with my 16-35mm on my tripod. My intention was to get the water silky smooth so you can really see the reflections of the cherry blossom trees and to get more color saturation from the fog. It was shot looking onto the the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial while standing close to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. What do you think of it? Do you like the lights from the memorial shining through the cherry blossom trees or no? I’m still on the fence but I think the colors made for a cool, slightly noticeable contrast.

It finally happened! The cherry blossoms peaked! And they are so much better than expected. They actually look like what they’re supposed to. Fluffy white/pink clouds on trees. It’s what I’ve been waiting for all year long. Previous weather reports said that only 50% would blossom. I’d disagree and say there’s at least 75% going strong. Obviously there are some trees here and there that didn’t quite make it through the spring-winter, but the ones that actually did are so worth it.

Yesterday morning I woke up, pulled out of my drive way and the first thing I saw was the fog. For some reason my first reaction was a malicious laugh. I was so excited to check out how the fog affected the Tidal Basin. The water levels were high, the fog was amazing and I had a blast walking around all morning. I felt like the more the day went on, the better it got. Eventually the fog was was dense that you couldn’t even see the Washington Monument or the Jefferson Memorial. It was nuts. (But so perfect at the same time). I shot this image right before the Jefferson got totally covered.

I shot this at F9 1/20th of a second ISO 200 with my 28-70mm. If your camera has live preview, I’d highly recommend shooting with that feature. I feel like I can compose my images so much better when I’m in live preview as opposed to using the eye piece. I think it’s because you can see EVERYTHING plus its just an easier perspective to see. I don’t think I would of been able to see this image without live preview.

The end of the morning was a bit crazy however. I was taking some final images when I ran into my friend, Alana. I said “hi” to her and my tripod fell into the the Tidal Basin!!! How CRAZY IS THAT?! I still can’t believe it. I think I’m going to have to make a youtube video to tell you the whole story.

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend. So glad it finally warmed up in the DC area so the cherry blossoms could really bloom. So guess I did over the weekend? I’ve been out shooting the blossoms 🙂 But this one was actually taken on Friday morning just after sunrise and just before it started to rain. The morning started off really cold. So cold that when I checked the weather app on my phone and it said “feels like 22 degrees”. *shaking my head* I can still feel the chill in my bones. My first reaction was to just stay in my warm, cozy bed, but I knew I’d regret it. I met up with my friend, Larry and had a great morning just walking around, talking and taking pictures of the flowers. They were looking a lot better than previous days so I’m glad I got my butt outta bed.

My camera settings for this image was F13 1/80th of a second ISO 250 with my 28-70mm. I was trying to get as much as I could in focus but the cherry blossoms were so close to me and the Jefferson Memorial was so far that it was difficult to get both. So I chose the cherry blossoms to be really sharp. When shooting the cherry blossoms, I try to use them to frame the memorials or as leading lines to them.

I hope you’re not getting bored of these. My blog posts have been pretty cherry blossom heavy lately. But tis the season 🙂 They’ll get back to a normal travel/DC images soon. Maybe in like a week-ish or so. But not right now, I’ve got cherry blossoms fever. Even my dad has been asking me to text him cherry blossom pics. Obviously, he doesn’t read my blog or follow me on my social media. *shaking my head again*

On my quest to take more cherry blossom images this year, I thought I’d leave this one for you for the weekend. This image was taken in 2012.  This is what the cherry blossoms should look like. Beautiful puffy white clouds along these delicate, windy branches. A glorious morning only shared by those who didn’t mind waking up before the sun. Ripples along the water created by a bird, a duck or slight gust of wind.

LOL I can’t keep a straight face anymore. I tried to be poetic. I’ll stop now.

Yea… So I took this in 2012, I have another version of this here but this one is a brand new one. I did not process it until now. The first time I processed the original image it was in HDR. For some reason it created all these unnecessary lines and colors along the branches called chromatic aberration. Trust me it is a pain in the B-U-T-T to get rid of. Man. I think it took me almost 3 days of fixing before I could get it just right for a client to print. So this version is vertical and it’s a little bit of a different point of view. The colors are definietly not as saturated but I much prefer this version. What about you? Which one do you prefer? Here’s the link again to the first one. 

If you’re wondering, I stopped processing my images using HDR a while ago. I just realized I was spending all this unnecessary time processing and editing that I didn’t have to be. I am really enjoying my workflow now which is only photoshop. Nothing else. If you’re interested in learning more about it, check out my video here.

Have a great weekend everyone. May the flowers be dancing above your head like the cherry blossoms in 2012 were. LOL.