ANGELA B. PAN

Getting ready to head out to Utah again. 2 more weeks! Unfortunately, we won’t be visiting Zion National Park but other amazing places in Utah that I’ve never been. Actually, we’re flying in to Denver first then driving to Moab. How cool is that? I’m really looking forward to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. I also heard theres a lot of cool stops in between Denver and Moab that are fun to see too. Have you ever been there? If so, give me some tips. Good hiking trails, cool photo spots, and where to get some good food. After Moab, Andrew and I will be spending the rest of the trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. A place I heard that you can get some serious altitude sickness. Really not looking forward to that. So if you have medicine recommendations for that, let me know too. I did a quick amazon search and was a little overwhelmed by how many options there were.

This image of Zion was taken in October 2014 at the Watchman. It seemed like just yesterday that we were there but we were lucky enough to hit the tail end of the autumn colors. It’s also one of the easiest sunset spots there is. Plenty of parking and a really short walk to get to this spot. It’s easy to find too. Just look for the huge group of photographers with tripods. You can’t miss it 🙂

The camera settings for this image is F22  at 1.6 seconds ISO 100 on the tripod. While the sun was still up when I shot this, I still wanted to try to make the Virgin River as smooth as possible. If I had the chance to shoot this again, I’d probably use my ICE Neutral Density filter to get an even longer exposure.

I found this in my computer trash bin the other day. LOL. Sometimes I can be so dramatic. I have no idea why I threw it out. I think I can get frustrated by my own work sometimes and without thinking, I’ll immediately dismiss it. I also think it’s the time of day that I chose to edit this image too. It was late (and by late I mean 9pm) and I had nothing better to do so I decided to edit some images. I feel images never really turns out the way I want to that late at night. I don’t even know why I bother sometimes. So I tossed it. But looking back at it now, I kinda like it. I also remember shooting this and thinking that man purposely stood there because he saw me setting up the shot to get low and he just wanted his picture taken.

What about you? Do you have a most productive hour? Mine is definietly in the morning. Probably between 10a – 1p. I usually don’t even eat lunch until 2pm because I want to make sure I get everything done that I wanted to get done in that amount of time. In the afternoon is usually the time where I’ll do the mindless things- check emails, go to the grocery store, etc. Then my second wind will come back at around 5pm. Too much info? Ok, I’ll stop now.

My camera settings for this image was F8 at 1/50th of a second ISO 1000. Yes, 1000. I had to double check to make sure I was counting all the zeros correctly. I have no idea why my ISO was so high. The only reason I could come up with was that I must of bumped it up that during sunrise and forgot to change it back when the sun was actually up. I hope the rest of the images from this day wasn’t that high.

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.