ANGELA B. PAN

I can just taste the lobster rolls when looking at this image. I’m 90% sure that I actually ate a lobster roll everyday that we were in Maine. You know how the saying goes, when in Maine… LOL. But seriously the lobster rolls were always so packed with so much meat and the bread was so buttery, I couldn’t help myself. I may just take a trip to Maine just for the seafood! Just joking. I do want to go back to Maine, but not just for the food. I want to go back because it seems like a really chill place to be. Like a very easy going, port town with a lot of super friendly people.

Oh and all the Maine puns! You know, how I only mainely wanted lobster rolls while there. LOL

My friend, Sue and I visited in October 2017. Neither one of had been there and we were on the hunt for some fall foliage color in the NorthEast. Our intention was to visit Acadia National Park so we only ended up staying one night in Portland. This image was taken early morning, just after sunrise at Portland Head Lighthouse. It was a great place to catch the sunrise because it was right by the city and it was super easy to get to. There weren’t a lot of people there so I felt comfortable enough to climb around on the rocks until I found my shot. To be honest, I’m not sure if that’s allowed or not but I did it anyways. Anything for the shot right? I do remember purposely making the foreground rocks out of focus and a little in your face. I feel like it creates a bit more interest, framing and dept to the entire image.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 8 seconds and ISO 640 with a neutral density filter and my Sony A7II with 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Oh yea, and then there was that time Sue and I went to Spain. That was an amazing trip. It was my first time in Spain and I loved every minute of it. We were only in Barcelona and it was beautiful but I knew right from the beginning of planning the trip that I had to go to La Sagrada Familia. Just looking up images online, I was blown away. Seeing it in person, with all the detail was incredible. It’s one of those places that’s hard to describe because there are so many details to look at. The best was when the light came pouring into the stained glass windows and basically created a rainbows everywhere. If you ever find yourself anywhere close to Barcelona, you gotta check out La Sagrada Familia and the other buildings created by Gaudi. All of them are so unique and so interesting to look at.

So while we were in Barcelona, Sue, our friend Chonteau’ who was also in Spain with us made a pact to go back again once the completion of the La Sagrada Familia was complete. From that time we were there it was supposed to be 10 more years. So now technically 7 more years to go! LOL I wonder if I’ll still be blogging at that time. If I am, it would be so fun to look back on these images.

The funny part about it is that when we were making the pact, it was over bottle of wine on this rooftop bar we just randomly went to. We started pinkie promising our pact, but our waiter saw us and joined in on our pinkie promise. I know he didn’t know what we were promising to each other but it was funny because he wanted to get in on the action and turned our pinkie promise into a star.

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

If I had to guess Sue’s favorite part of our 2017 road trip, it would either have been Santa Fe, New Mexico or the Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed Saguaro National Park but while we were there, we were in the middle of a huge heat wave. I thought Arizona was hot in previous visits to the state, but it was so HOT when we were there. Even after sunset and the sun went down, it was still so humid and hot. I even remember hearing on the radio that mailboxes were melting. That’s HOT! Holy cow. And how many times can I say hot in a row? LOL

Since it was so humid and hot, we only spent an hour or so around sunset in the national park. The rest of the time was spent in our hotel’s outdoor pool. We wanted to go when the sun was lower and maybe a little bit cooler, but that didn’t make much difference but you better believe there was lots of ice cream afterwards. Out of all the places on our roadtrip, I hope to visit Tucson again sometime soon because I actually enjoyed the time while we were there. It seemed like a super cute city with so much to do and see. We just didn’t get enough time. I just remember waking up the next morning and wanting to get out of the heat wave as soon as possible. The next stop on our trip was Los Angeles and that was nowhere close to being as hot. So we made our way over and spent the rest of our time in California before flying back home.

My camera settings for this image is F3.5 at 1/320th sec at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

In honor of our road trip this past weekend, I thought I would use this week to reflect on all the travel and adventures my friend Sue and I have had together. We have been friends for over 15 years. It’s crazy how long we’ve known each other considering we’re just 16 years old. LOL Just Kidding. But it’s safe to say that we have lots of fun and embarrassing stories about each other. Just because we don’t live within 20 minutes of each other now, doesn’t mean we won’t be friends for life.

So this image is from our very first road trip across the country together. Neither one of us had ever been to New Mexico before so we ended up spending the majority of our trip in the state. We went all over but my absolute favorite place was definietly White Sands National Monument. It had been on my list to visit for forever and this road trip was the perfect opportunity to visit. But we were super lucky. The only night that we had planned on staying in Alamogordo, New Mexico was a night a storm was approaching. It was comin in hot right around sunset and made for the best moody skies. It was like a dream.

I distinctly remember being so excited trying to climb up these white sand hills but being so out of breath because 1. climbing up sand is difficult but also 2. because I was so excited to be there. ESPECIALLY with the storm approaching. I handed my camera off to Sue to ask her to take some pictures of me but I could barely get my sentences out. She looked at me with so much concern like “Are you ok?” And I just screamed, “Yea I’m just excited” and ran to my posing spot. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/10th sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

If you caught my blog post from last week, then you will know that tomorrow I’m headed out on a road trip to Austin, Texas. One of my best friends in the entire world is moving there and asked me to ride along with her. I’m sad that she’s leaving but looking forward to spending just a little bit more time with her.

Similar to the road trip that we did 2 years ago, we’ll be spending our first night in Nashville, Tennessee. It was both of our first time in the city and I am looking forward to going back. I remember having a blast last time just walking down Broadway and checking out the live music and all the colorful lights. I expect to be doing the same this time around. After that it will be just a straight shot from there to Austin. Unfortunately we’re not stopping to go sightseeing or anything along the way because she wants to get down there as soon as possible but looking forward to spending a few extra days in Austin before flying home. So if you have any food or photo recommendations, please let me know!

Luckily we planned this trip after the Cherry Blossom peak bloom announcement so I know I’ll be back home just in time to capture the flowers.

Click here to watch our last road trip together – we drove all the way from Washington DC to San Diego, California.

This image is of the Arlington Memorial bridge on a particularly foggy day. I figured it symbolized our road ahead but also not looking forward to saying goodbye to Sue when I have to catch my flight back to DC.

My camera settings are F5 at 1/500th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

So when I was trying to come up with a blog post idea for today, I actually google previous blog posts I created on this same day but in previous years. The best part about daily blogging is that I had at least 5 other posts I could refer to. The best part was that all of them were flower images too. That just added another check mark to the consistency tracker. LOL.

This blog post is paying an homage to the one I created on March 21st of 2016. Click here to see it. That image and this one were probably taken on the same day behind the Smithsonian Castle at the Enid A Haupt Garden. The best part about it is that in the caption I wrote, “I feel like if I ever had a book about my life, this would be the cover”. Well, the story about my life has yet to be written but little did I know that less than 2 years later, I would actually write a book. CRAZY! That image didn’t end up being the cover but I felt like that was foreshadowing to what really happened.

Fast forward 2 years, swap the magnolia flowers for cherry blossoms and it’s almost been a full year that Snap DC has been published. I still can’t believe it and it’s probably one of the projects I’m most proud of. I still get messages from people about how they’re using my book and feel inspired by it. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. And if you haven’t checked it out already, I definietly talk about my favorite places to capture flowers around the Washington DC area and the Enid A Haupt garden is on that list because of beauties like these.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/400th sec ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.