ANGELA B. PAN

It’s been a while since I’ve visited the Air Force Memorial in Arlington, VA. I think the last time I was there almost 2 years ago when I went with my friend, Navin to shoot lightning. I ended up with some pretty cool images like this one but I haven’t been back since. So last Monday I was checking the weather and it looked like it was going to be a pretty good sunset. I literally looked through Snap DC to see where I could go and decided on the Air Force Memorial. LOL I love that I have the resource now. I texted my friend, Birch and off we went.

As soon as I pulled up, I was shocked by how many people were there. I thought that by going to the Air Force Memorial, we would have avoided the summer crowd that’s at the National Mall. I was wrong. There was at least 2 bus loads of kids running around the memorial. It wasn’t too bad though because they all left within 10 minutes and then had another good 10 minutes in between before another bus load of kids came by. So I think that’s the secret. You have to wait for the waves of people to leave.

So while we were waiting, I thought a really close up image of the Air Force Memorial would be cool. I like the way that this one turned out. I love the symmetry and the blue sky definietly worked in my favor. It wasn’t a colorful sunset like I had expected, but I really would not have known that unless I got out there and tried so it was all worth it.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/80th of a second at ISO 160 with my A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Man oh Man what a week. A freakin’ awesome week to be more specific! At one point in time Snap DC was #1 on the charts for best selling travel book in the Mid atlantic region! Does that make me a best selling author? AHHH!!!! So crazy. But I believe it’s still number one in new releases in the same category. I seriously can’t say thank you enough! I’m so excited!

This image was taken last Saturday evening after the photowalk. My friend, Zack and I stuck around the Tidal Basin for a little while to see what blue hour would look like and it did not disappoint! At one point in time the sky was doing this thing where you were able to see the shadow of the Washington Monument in the clouds! It was awesome. And in turn you were able to see all of that reflecting in the water.

But the CRAZIEST part about it all was that there were bats flying above us the entire time. WHO KNEW THERE WERE BATS IN WASHINGTON DC? Definietly not me. That was the first time I’d ever seen any. At one point in time I swear there were like 6 flying above us. It was absolutely nuts. I could not stop staring. It was like I was shooting the Washington Monument and holding my camera steady with my hand but my eyes were in the sky following the bats (making sure they weren’t coming close to us). It’s seriously something new everyday at the National Mall. I swear!

Anyways, hope you all have a wonderful Memorial day weekend! Thanks again for all the support with Snap DC. If you have received your copy already, hope you can get out there and take some awesome pictures.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/4th of a second and ISO 1600 handheld with my A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Now that Snap DC is out and people are starting to receive it in the mail *super excited face*, I felt the need to share this image. This image is in the photo guide but I’ve never shared it online before. One of a few images that are in the book that have never been seen before.

I took it last fall when the flowers in front of the Netherlands Carillon were looking lush and beautiful. In the book I took about how I placed the camera on the ground to make the flowers look larger than life. It’s a technique I practice a lot. Yesterday’s blog post included. LOL. But my favorite part about Netherlands Carillon is that you get the beautiful flowers in the spring, summer and fall but you also get an almost one of a kind view of the big three landmarks-  Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and US Capitol building.  The only other place that you can get a similar view to this is close to the Arlington Memorial Bridge from Roosevelt island which is also discussed in Snap DC.

I know I’ve been talking about the book a lot but I’m just super excited for it. I spent the last 9 months obsessing over it and I can’t believe that other people besides me are now seeing it! So even if you’re a novice, mobile, or advance photographer, I think you will get something out of it. I don’t talk about how to use your camera or anything like that, it’s strictly for composition ideas and where to go shoot around the Nation’s Capitol. Although technically Netherlands Carillon is in Arlington, I mention just a couple of my favorite places to shoot in Northern Virginia.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/15th of a second at ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

I know it’s not obvious in this picture but I am loving life right here! LOL.

It’s true. The skies were moody and cloudy, I’m in my favorite place in the whole wide world and I have my airpods in listening to an audible book. What could be better?

Maybe a tripod… but meh.

I like the perspective though. It was another one of those, put your backpack down and hope that the image comes out well. At first I envisioned the dandelions to be as tall as the Washington Monument. When that didn’t work out, I just set my timer to see what it would look like if there was a human element in it. I liked it! So I started posing as if I didn’t know I was taking my own picture. LOL.

I remember I took this on a Sunday evening. I knew the sunset wasn’t going to be great, color wise, but I just wanted to get out there and go for a walk with my camera. It could have been the 4 slices of pizza I ate prior to the photowalk, but it was just so nice to be out in fresh air and doing what I love doing.

And PS Thank you Thank you Thank you to everyone who has ordered Snap DC so far. I am LOVING all the pictures you’re sending and all the feedback. You seriously made my whole year already. I don’t know how long this is going to last for but Amazon actually dropped the price of the book. I had no idea that they were going to do that so the original price was $29.69 and now its on sale for $24.78. So if you haven’t already, I’d get your copy of the guide now.

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/320th of a second and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

So after my lightning practice last week at the Jefferson Memorial aiming at the Washington Monument, I had another opportunity to shoot lightning the very next day. This time I was at the Artechouse, which you should definietly go visit. Their latest exhibit is probably my favorite so far. It’s a celebration of lights that really can not be missed. Anyways, I was about to leave the exhibit when I got an alert on my phone saying that lightning struck 3 miles away from my current location. So you know what that means right? Leave asap so you can go storm chasing!

I figured that the US Capitol was the closest, cool looking building to me. Luckily it hadn’t started raining yet and I always have my tripod in my car so I parked as close as I could to the Capitol and made my way over. I had a blast! The wind was blowing and the lightning strikes were crazy big. While I was at the Jefferson Memorial, I had to wait some time between each strike maybe a 2-3 minutes but this time they were coming every 15-20 seconds. It was AWESOMEEEE. I was out there for only 30 minutes or so before the real big rain hit but I’m super happy with the way that this turned out.

Every time the lighting struck it would light up the sky to this amazing blue/purple color. It was such a beautiful show. There were even people who were leaving the Capitol that couldn’t help but to stop and take selfies. Such an exiting night to say the least. I ran back to the car as soon as the rain really started to pick up and it was all good in the neighborhood.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/13th of a second ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm.

This past weekend was absolutely amazing for so many reasons. But most of all it was for the photowalk that happened Saturday at the Tidal Basin. Thank you so much to IGDC for hosting. I had the time of my life! Thank you to my friends who came out but also the new ones I met that evening. The weather was cloudy, the water levels were extremely high (the highest I’ve ever seen), but it seemed like everyone came out with amazing pictures. So before I share some of my own, I wanted to highlight some of my favorites from the walk. If you’d like to see more of what everyone created, check out #igdcsnapdc on instagram.

There were so many great images to choose from but here are a few of my favorites:

The beginning of our walk started at the Jefferson Memorial and we were greeted by prom! I love the way you captured this, @ciarasandborg

@pootie_ting, the framing in this is incredible!

@jane_connors, I’m so glad you captured the heron under the cherry blossom trees. This turned out fantastic!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi_5HH_Al5y/?taken-by=jane_connors

So many birds! But I love how they are framing the Jefferson Memorial. Stunning capture, @virginia.cheng

LOL talk about perfect timing, @mica4life. This makes me smile 🙂

The sky turned moody very quickly after sunset. This is so great, @dcrooks_us

And after the photowalk officially ended, the Washington Monument decided to light up the sky. This is AH-MAZING @zackowicz

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjAmY4sAh1S/?taken-by=zackowicz

Thanks again for those who walked! I appreciate you spending your Saturday evening with me. I hope you had a great time but most importantly felt inspired to take more pictures around the National Mall.

Snap DC is officially released on Amazon. If you haven’t already, check it out. It’s available in paperback or kindle and I hope you love it!