ANGELA B. PAN

As far as photography goes, summer is my favorite because of the storms. We can get some pretty serious storm rain here in the DC area but the great part about them is that they don’t last too long. Usually about 30 minutes which is perfect! The best is when they end right around sunset. Man the skies open up and all this light comes through. It’s so beautiful.

Last week was no exception. Not only did we have amazing fog, but we got a crazy down pour of rain that ended right before sunset. It was everything that I wish for. But for some reason, I could not figure out where I wanted to go shoot. I was being indecisive driving around when I finally saw the back of the Lincoln Memorial. Skrrrch. Stop right there. The light that was being casted on the columns was so pretty and warm. Luckily I found the very first parking spot open on the Arlington Memorial bridge and rushed toward the memorial. Then I got stopped in my tracks when I noticed this puddle on the sidewalk. It was a perfect reflection of the memorial as well as the light that was being casted. I’m pretty sure I got a lot of crazy looks by the cars that were driving past, but it doesn’t matter. I was so excited to capture one. And on my first try! I was so surprised how well everything lined up.

My camera settings for this image was F/4.0 at 5 seconds ISO 160 handheld. The only reason I shot this handheld was because I couldn’t get low enough on my tripod to get the majority of the reflection. Plus with my really right stuff tripod bracket, it made it easy to hold it up without my camera getting wet.

Taken just 10 minutes before I captured this image. I had really high hopes of a colorful sky but it didn’t turn out as planned. It’s all good though. You win some and loose some. Although I wouldn’t actually call this loosing. The purple in the clouds was an unexpected surprise. The light bursts in the street lamps make this image twinkle and the subtle car light trails on the road makes your eye travel right along the image.

When I’m really happy with a shot, I usually take it a few times. Maybe like 2 or 3 times just to make sure I got everything in focus and exposed correctly before moving on. But for some reason, right after I was done shooting this I just kept it moving. I didn’t think it turned out the way I wanted at that moment in time. Looking at it again though, I enjoy it. I feel like I see a new twinkle of light or a new reflection along the statue with every glance. Or something like that. Bahh can you tell I’m having a love/hate relationship with this image. Let me know what you think of it. Do you like it or am I just going crazy?

For all you photographers out there who are interested, here are my camera settings: F/18 at 15 seconds ISO 50. Not sure why it was shot at F/18. I usually would set my camera to F/22 for images like this but I was still able to capture the image the way I wanted it. Definietly shot on a tripod for this 15 second exposure.

Hope you all have a great weekend! Not much planned for me except a girls night in with some of my closest girlfriends tonight. Other than that, I’ll be here and there like the wind. HAHA.

This is kind of a funny story. So lately when I’ll go to shoot the Lincoln Memorial at sunrise, I’ll park on the Arlington Memorial Bridge. It’s as close as you can get so early in the morning but you usually have to park kind of far down the bridge because there will always be cars that got there before you. So I’m walking along the bridge. I’ll stop and take some pictures of the water or something like that. You know, just takin’ my time and enjoying the morning views. Then at the very beginning of the bridge, I see this amazing puddle by the curb. I immediately crotched down to the sidewalk to to see if could get a better reflection of the Lincoln Memorial and see this beautiful shot of the memorial and Washington Monument all in one. Then I looked to make sure no cars were coming so I could stand in the street for a better view point. Luckily the parked cars were there to block me from the oncoming cars and I was able to capture the composition I was looking for. So I’m still crouching down and contorting my body in all these weird angles so that my tripod could balance on the sidewalk/road, I take the shot. I was really happy and so excited to have captured it because it was timed perfectly with oncoming cars providing these amazing light trails. But then when I was finally done, I stood up, turned around and looked in the parked car that was right behind me. There was someone sitting there the whole time! OMG He got a fabulous view of my butt the entire time. LOL. Who knows what he thought I was doing. But I can imagine the weird looks he was giving me the whole time while I was trying to set up.

Saturday night, I went out with Andrew and Frankie to take sunset pictures. Unfortunately, it was way too cloudy to see any kind of color so we packed up and headed home. Andrew was driving and I gave him the wrong directions by mistake. We ended up near the Memorial Bridge and saw this huge storm cloud. I immediately told him to pull over so I could run out with my camera and tripod.

My second vlog! Please let me know what you guys think and if you’d like to see any other kinds of videos. Frankie, my puppy, makes a guest appearance in this one.

If you like it, please subscribe to my channel. Here’s how my image turned out, The Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and the Arlington Memorial Bridge.

To see more pics, visit my gallery.
Tweet Tweet
‘Like’ me on Facebook
‘Subscribe’ to my YouTube