ANGELA B. PAN

Just going through some older images of the US Capitol building, I ran across this one. Most of the time when I look at these images, I remember EXACTLY when I captured them, what I was feeling, etc. But for some reason, I don’t remember with this one. Did I even capture this images? LOL of course but I’m not sure what happened. Maybe I was just busy that day or something and didn’t have time to go through them all and eventually I just forgot about them? OR maybe I’ve just been to the US Capitol so much that all my memories are starting to mush together into one? I know it had to have been a sunrise. Either way, I’m glad found this image.

This is actually the original.

I really like the way that it came out but as I was waiting for my computer to save the image, I thought about what it would look like with a vertical crop. I tested it out. Which do you like better?

Either way, I love the two bright colors right next to each other. It’s so unexpected but very interesting to me. And the most unexpected part about the image is being able to see the inside of the dome! Look in the windows. You can see a little bit of the interior. So COOL!

PS. I’m still trying to get a tour of the interior of the US Capitol dome. Those shots would be AH-Mazing. I think I’ve written to my representative at least 3 times and still no answer. If anyone knows how I can get in, let me know the time and place and I’ll be there.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/50 sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

I captured this image earlier in the summer. I remember being out taking pictures just because I wanted to, not because I knew it was going to be a good sunrise. In fact, I think I remember it raining a little bit after I created this image and being surprised that there was even any color at all. The whole mood was very dark and grey. I was grateful to have gotten this 10 minutes of color because it turned out AMAZING!

My favorite part of the image is that little cloudy-ness you see on the bottom of the image. I don’t remember what that’s from? Is it a hard core cloud reflection? Or some moldy-ness from the reflecting pool? I dunno. Either way, I think it looks really cool and I love how it’s breaking up the reflection to make it look a little different.

Also the birds! They’re so teeny tiny in the image. Can you even see them? At first I thought it was a whole bunch of dust spots that I would have to get rid of, but when I zoomed in on them it was actually it’s just a whole bunch of birds 🙂 A photo trip that lasted only 20 minutes but totally worth the early morning wake up call 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/125th sec at ISO 1600 with my Sony A7II 70-200mm zoom lens. I did not have my tripod with me this morning so the ISO had to be bumped up to help compensate. I’ve also noticed that shooting with a long lens may cause some extra shake. So just to be sure I can capture a super sharp image, I’ll usually bump up my ISO a lot. Plus it was super cloudy, so you know… Gotta do what you gotta do to get the shot!

I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this at least 100 times since we’ve been back from Norway, but my favorite part of our whole trip was our stay in Geiranger. It seriously took my breath away and every time I think of our trip, Dalsnibba pops straight into my head.

I know if I had to do it all over again, I would have wanted to cut out a few things just so we could have stayed in Geiranger an extra night. The cabin, the scenery, the atmosphere was absolutely perfect. I even found myself thinking about Norway the other day and being amazed how a place like this even exists in the world. It was truly breathtaking and I’d highly recommend anyone visiting.

After driving up the long, windy road to the top of the mountain, Andrew and I were greeted by snow and lots of wind. It was an unexpected surprise but in some ways it felt more like “Norway”. I loved it. We got to see the mountain tops in a whole new way. The sky was dramatic so I thought I would take advantage of the textures in the clouds by making them more than half of the image. I love how it’s blue monochromatic and in some ways the clouds are sort of imitating the mountain tops. I don’t have too many images printed of mine that are hanging in our house but I’d definietly consider it for this one. I feel like I could stare at it for hours and it bring back so many great memories of our trip.

Other photographers reading the blog- do you print out your images and hang them in your house?

My camera settings for this image is f4.0 at 1/1000th sec at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

So this is the type of weather I would expect for October. When it’s cool and crisp outside but still indecisive enough so you can get these really moody sunrise/blue hour type images. Not the 80 degree weather we have been getting.

I took this image last year with my friend, Larry. Pretty much ever since we’ve met, we’ve made it an appoint to go to Shenandoah National Park to check out the fall foliage. I think last year was our third year in a row. But I remember this day VERY clearly. It was crazy, crazy foggy. So foggy to the point where we could not see much of the mountains. It was all just fog. It was even difficult to drive at some points. Obviously Larry and I got out of the car to capture a few images here and there but we soon decided that we needed to have a second trip in order to actually capture the type of images we wanted.

This particular image was taken along side of skyline drive. We parked the car and were pretty much the only ones in the park that early in the morning so it was easy to just get out and walk in the middle of the road. It could have been a little dangerous considering how foggy it actually was and the visibility was basically zero. But luckily, I was with Larry and we would look out for each other in case a car was coming. The yellow and red leaves in this image just make me so happy.

Looking forward to the leaves changing this year in the park and hopefully visiting again sometime soon with Larry.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/30th sec at ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and my 16-35mm wide angle zoom lens.

It’s October and it still feels like it is summer in the Washington DC area. The average temperatures have been high 70s and I still find myself walking around in shorts but believe me I’m ok with it! Totally not the cool temps that I’m used to for this time of year but my favorite part about it is that we’ve been waking up to some amazing fog these past few days.

For me, fog is a little more difficult to capture than a beautiful sunrise. I have apps and things to help me figure out if the sunrise is going to be nice but fog seems to be more elusive. It just seems to pop out of nowhere and it’s a huge surprise. So obviously, the past few times that I woke up to try to capture it, it wasn’t there. But the days I decide to “sleep in” (sleeping-in to me is waking up at 6a), it shows up when I’m out for our morning walk with Frankie. Its ok though because I actually have quite a few images of fog from earlier this year and even from a few years back.

This particular image was taken on Christmas day in 2015. It’s an image that I had wanted to capture for a while. I love how the fog is covering the bottom half of the Jefferson Memorial but you can still see the reflection in the water. It just gives off this creepy, halloween vibe and I love it.

Hopefully these foggy mornings will stay for a while so I have more opportunities to capture it in a different ways. By the way, this image is in color. It was just THAT grey out with all that fog.

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/50th sec at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom lens.

There are scenic views EVERYWHERE in Norway. It’s hard not to fall in love with the country. If you haven’t already, check out my road trip guide and everything we did on our getaway. If you remember I mention the fact that there’s always a bench somewhere scenic in the country. I forgot to mention one big difference difference between Norway and Iceland.

Iceland is great because just like Norway, its an amazingly beautiful country. But it was a little easier to take pictures there because the roads are a little bigger with pull off areas anywhere you want to go. In Norway, the roads are way smaller and it would be dangerous to pull over just to take a picture in a lot of places. So for that reason alone, I found it a little more difficult to take all the pictures I wanted while in Norway.

Luckily, there was a huge pull off area on the way down from Dalsnibba where we were able to park the car and get out to take a few pictures. It’s hard not to feel like the king of the world from this viewpoint.  What really attracted me to this scene was the yellow/green grass compared to the blue mountains. I just loved the natural color contrast.

In order to create this image, I asked Andrew to walk over and stand on that rock. I think by this point he was used to be the subject of many of my images and just naturally stretched his arms out like that. It made for a way more interesting photograph however can someone please get this man a red tshirt or something? LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/2000th sec at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm. 

PS: I updated my gear page. Click here to check it out 🙂