ANGELA B. PAN

Days have been going by so fast lately. Don’t you think? Or is it just me? Even though the days are longer, I swear I wake up in the morning and the next thing I know it’s 2p. If I really thought about it I think I took this image this past weekend but when I looked at my calendar, it was really from three weeks ago! That’s so crazy.

I captured this image at the IGDC sunrise meet up. It was a super cold morning and with no clouds in the sky. Usually those are the kind of days that I would rather sleep in (and by sleeping in I mean sleeping until 7a on a weekend) but I knew I would have had a great time shooting with my friends. I left my camera in my backpack for the most part. I was enjoying the conversations more than anything else. But as everyone was wrapping up and leaving, I noticed the sun burst peaking out of the US Capitol building.  So I shot it and didn’t really think much of it. It wasn’t until I got home and looked at the images on my computer did I realize I captured the reflection of the sun burst. How freakin’ cool is that?

Now that I think about it, I think it would be even cooler if I got some seagulls or something flying in the image and got a reflection of that as well. It would be really nice to have some kind of foreground element to this image. Oh well, there’s always next time. I’ll just have to keep that in my to-shoot list.

The camera settings for this image is F/22 at 1/50th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.

Yesterday’s sunrise was amazing. I checked my weather app the night before and it looked very promising. So I was excited to get out to the Tidal Basin, shoot sunrise and check on the status of the cherry blossoms.

You can see in this image that they are budding. I may have seen one or two trees that had a couple of blossoms on them but for the most part they looked like this. They definietly won’t be blooming this week. Hopefully by the end of next week. However the color in the sky and the cherry blossoms were not my main focus once I arrived. It was all the flooding that was on the sidewalks! There was so much water everywhere. A lot of the southern part of the Tidal Basin, close to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, had large puddles and some were so big that they were impassable. It had got to the point where I really regretted my decision of wearing sneakers instead of rain boots. It made the grass all muddy and overall a really swampy situation.

I’ve seen the Tidal Basin flood before, but there had always been a reason. This day for example was right after we had a huge thunderstorm so obviously it was flooded. This day was crazy foggy and there was a lot of moisture in the air so I’m assuming that’s why it flooded. But we haven’t had any rain or snow in almost a week. There really is no reason why the sidewalks should have been flooded like they were. It’s bananas.

So if you’re like me and want to do something about it, check out the Trust for the National Mall’s website so we can help protect the Tidal Basin and Cherry Blossoms.

The camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/40th of a second and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

This image! This image was taken just a few minutes before I took this one. Do you see how the yellow glow from the fog just made us walk down that path? It kinda felt like you were in the movie, ‘Ghost’ where that light shines on you and you know it’s your time to go. LOL. But definitely not as serious.

Fun fact about Ghost: My mom used to sing Unchained Melody  ALL THE TIME on the karaoke machine while I was growing up. I could probably sing you the whole song without even listening to the music because she sang it that much. And it will sound almost the same as the Righteous Brothers. LOL JK. It will be better.

Obviously my favorite part of this image is the fog that is coming out of the trees. I love looking at that one section of the image and then it leads my eye to the person walking next to the reflecting pool. I don’t know why but it just makes everything seem so big, especially compared to that person. The 70-200mm lens that I was using definietly helped with the compression and made the scale look that exaggerated.

This winter has been great for fog and crazy gloomy weather like that. I wonder what it will bring for spring. So far it’s been so cold that it doesn’t feel like the seasons have changed at all. The cherry blossoms have now been pushed back to expected peak date 8-12th of April. Hopefully it will actually bloom at that time but who really knows with this crazy weather. In all honesty though, spring can’t come soon enough.

My settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/640th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm lens handheld.

I’m happy to report that the Magnolia trees have been saved! The snow that we had last week didn’t seem to phase them much. I captured this image Friday morning behind the Smithsonian Castle at the Enid A Haupt Garden. I arrived a little bit after sunrise so I could get that beautiful early morning glow happening on the flowers. It was like walking in paradise. The birds were chirping, the wind was soft but nothing beats that early morning light.

In order to capture this image, I had to be patient. For some reason there were not a lot of people walking by or in the gardens. I stood there for a good 10 minutes before I even saw anyone else but I already had this vision in my head so I had to wait. There I was, standing in the trees looking like a flower monkey. LOL. Standing with my camera close to my face. I left my ear phones at home so I was blasting music by Drake from my phone in my pocket. This guy must have liked Drake too because he crept up behind me and scared the living sh*t out of me. I turned around and gave him a half smile and half ‘what are you doing?’ face. He just smiled back and went on his way shooting.

Obviously I had to stare him down for a little bit. LOL. And then I saw him walking to the the spot that I was waiting for someone to walk past. So I took advantage of the opportunity and finally captured the image I was looking for. Thank you fellow photographer so being so still.

My camera settings for this image is F10 at 1/125th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.

Although the peak bloom dates that everyone watches out for are for the cherry blossoms by the Tidal Basin, there have been some other random cherry blossom spottings around the city. This particular tree can be found at the corner of the Library of Congress. They weren’t all fully bloomed yet but I feel like they were late enough in the growing stage that they may be effected by the cold and snow. They were fun to photograph but its kind of sad at the same time. Who knows how long these flowers will hold on with all the snow that’s covering them.

But I have some good news. I heard that the Magnolia trees may actually be ok from the snow. If you’re interested in keeping up to date with the Smithsonian gardens and the DC blooms in general, I recommend following James, the horticultureguy on instagram. He’s a new follow for me but he seems to update almost daily on the gardens and it’s awesome! He was even able to capture the Enid A Haupt garden in the snow and the images are so beautiful. I tried to go, but the gates were closed 🙁  Anyways, he said that they spent the day knocking the snow off the trees and he’s thinks the flowers will be fine. Guess where I’ll be this weekend? LOL

Hope you have a great weekend! As of now, we’re expecting more snow Saturday evening to Sunday morning. You can’t see me but I’m rolling my eyes at the computer screen right now. I really hope that it doesn’t happen. I’m so ready for spring, spring flowers, warm weather, and cute spring dresses. No more snow!

The settings for this image is F11 at 1/160th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.

The second day of spring and we finally get some snow. So funny how that happened. But I welcome you, snow with open arms although you should have come last week. But it’s whatever. I’ll take what I can get.

I was so excited to get out there and shoot. I’ve been waiting for this day for about 3 months now and it finally happened. I met up with my friend, Paul, and we decided to head over to the US Capitol and check out the scene around there. I had seen some people posting images of the Capitol dome and cherry blossoms so I wanted to see if we could find them to see what they looked like in the snow. Mission accomplished. I’ll post an image of them soon.

After walking around for a while, Paul and I headed to the Rayburn House Office Building to warm up a bit and use the facilities since the US Capitol was closed. While walking around I noticed a whole bunch of men in suits looking at me. Then I realized, oh, they must be looking at my sweater that said “Mo’ Money Mo’ Puppies”. Which I feel like is a great motto to live by.

So as we were walking out I spotted this beautiful puddle right outside of the building. I knew I had to capture this image quickly because I really wanted to have a pop of color and the red taxi cab was driving by. I love how it turned out and it was totally by luck.

One good thing about this snow is that it should not effect the cherry blossoms. One bad thing about the snow is that it may kill off the magnolias that were already starting to bloom 🙁 That makes me so sad. I didn’t get a really good opportunity to photograph them.

Next year, magnolias. For sure.

My camera settings for this image is F11 at 1/125th of a second at ISO 200 with my 16-35mm wide angle lens and Sony A7II.