ANGELA B. PAN

Finally! That time of year again 🙂 It’s finally starting to feel like autumn in the DC area with the crispy air. Morning walks with Frankie are requiring a light jacket and I couldn’t be more excited. It’s got me thinking about Shenandoah National Park and surrounding areas to go on the hunt for some color and I’ve already started a to-do list. But in the meantime, I’ve been checking things out locally. Right now, it’s still looking kinda green with a little color but I’m keeping a close eye on it.

This image isn’t technically fall color because these were just yellow plants in front of Netherlands Carillon and I photographed them in 80-degree weather but it reminds me of the type of images the season will bring 🙂 To be completely honest, this reminds of the yellow brick road leading to the Emerald City. LOL.

Either way, autumn color here I come! I’m hyped!

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/1000th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm

This past weekend, I had planned on meeting up with my friend, Larry for sunrise at Netherlands Carillion. But when I actually got to the location, it turned out Larry was already there with a whole group of photographers. It was a nice surprise so early in the morning and great to catch up with Larry, my friend, Frithjov and other photographers.

The sunrise itself was pretty unique. It was a cloudless day but as the sun was rising it was really bright and red. It made the whole sky glow. I think I got some pretty interesting shots, but I think this one is my favorite. It was after the sun had risen and we were all walking back to our cars. I noticed the Iwo Jima Marine Corps War Memorial poking out through the trees and thought it was an interesting perspective that I hadn’t really captured before. At the right moment, this runner came out of the trees and I loved how it added some scale. You can don’t even realize how big this memorial is until you compare it to something you can relate to like this person.

Also, looking at this image makes me excited for fall. I can’t wait for those leaves to change color. I’m going to keep this image in mind for the next few weeks and see if I can come up with a whole new perspective.

My camera settings for this image are F8 at 1/80th sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and my 70-200mm zoom lens.

Ok, enough chit chat. This was my FAVORITE part of the night. It was the “segment” when Waldnilso brought out his drone, attached some lume cubes to the bottom of it and started flying when it was crazy dark outside. This was the first time I’ve ever witnessed anyone flying at night and it was so cool. To be honest, I didn’t even know you could do it.

But the lights were surprisingly bright. The kind of bright that if you stared at them too long, you’ll start seeing stars. Even hovering over a president’s head for a little bit of time was enough to light them up for an exposure and it created some very interesting/creepy images.

But the best was when Waldnilso would circle around the presidents’ heads. At first, he did these circles which were really cool. He told us to hit our shutter when the drone was behind the head and then release it when it came back around for a very clean looking circle. Those images turned out cool but then he suggested spiraling around the heads. OMG! I moved my camera and tripod over to the side so I wouldn’t get a similar-looking image and I love the way that it turned out. I can’t even imagine what it takes to fly a drone at night but it was the coolest thing ever.

PS that light coming from the right-hand side of the image is the moonlight.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 83 seconds and ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

So the story behind these heads is that they were originally apart of a Williamsburg attraction called President’s Park. It started in the early 2000s and these busts were in an open-air museum type thing for people to pay to see. Unfortunately, people did not want to pay to see it so in 2010, the park closed and the heads were left to be trashed.

A man named Howard Hankins happened to help build the park but also did not want to see the busts go to waste. He bid and won them at an auction and ended up moving them to his property. I don’t think he had any real plans for them, he just didn’t want to see them destroyed. So they’re basically just sitting on his property and this is what they look like after sitting around for 9 years without any maintenance.

It’s pretty cool to see how decayed they are. I mean the details on some of these heads were incredible. I wanted to add an image here to give you a sense of scale and to sort of see how they are laid out. To the right of the image is my friend, Zack taking pictures of one of the presidents. You can see how an average height person comes to almost the shoulder of the presidents.

Most of them are lined up in rows like this. There were 3 long rows, a few shorter rows and even fewer that just stood out. Please don’t ask me to name all of them because I definitely can’t. LOL. But I was surprised to see President Clinton and both of the Bushs’.

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

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I went somewhere that I’ve been wanting to go to for FOREVER! The President Heads in Williamsburg, Virginia! I’ve been seeing images of these busts for years but never had the opportunity to visit.

Actually, I take that back. About 2 years ago, Andrew, Frankie and I actually drove down to Williamsburg for the weekend and tried to look for them. At that time, the address was very vague and every time I tried googling them, the address would lead us to the middle of nowhere. We would drive back and forth on the highway and just around the general vicinity of Croaker, VA but never found it. We ended up giving up and just spent the weekend hanging out. At that point, I was sure I wouldn’t see them.

But it wasn’t until my friend, Jeremy posted images from the President Head last month and said that he was on a photo tour that really sparked my interest in them again. So in case you’re interested in seeing them, click here for the event details. We signed up for the sunset and night tour which I’d highly recommend.

Since I’ll be in Oregon this whole week, I figured I’d post images from this event this entire week. Hope you don’t mind 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F5 at 1/13th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

Over the weekend, I had the best time spending a day on the lake with my cousins. We went wake surfing at Lake Anna and it was a blast. I have gone one time before but wasn’t able to capture as many images as I would have liked.

This time, I came prepared with memory cards and great weather. I sat on the back of the boat for most of the day. I loved getting that low angle perspective to make the water and waves look huge. At the end of the day, I came out with over 1,000 images. Obviously, I could have shared some of the really good images of my cousins doing jumps and cool tricks on the board but I think the more entertaining ones are these. The ones of them falling. HAHAHAHA.

Too bad I was the one taking the pics or else I could have added an image into this collage. *sarcasm* hehe

I know it may make some people nervous to take pictures on the back of the boat. Especially with the water splashing on to the camera and lens but I really had no issues at all except for the occasional water smudge. In that case, I would just wipe off my lens with my shirt and kept on clicking away. In the future, I will know to keep a lens cloth close by.

Can’t wait for more summer fun. Thanks again for the fun day, fam!