ANGELA B. PAN

Do you have Amazon Prime? If you do, you definietly have to check out Shorebreak: The Clark Little Story. It was so inspiring.

First of all, I didn’t even know Clark Little had a amazon prime movie out so I was surprised to see it being suggested. Second of all, I’ve never heard Clark Little talk before. It was so fun to hear his Hawaiian accent. And then I had no idea what he was saying when he was talking to other locals in the film. HAHA so cool!

Last but not least, man those shorebreaks are REDONKULOUS! Yes, I’ve been following his work for years but seeing on video of what he has to go through to capture those images takes it to a whole new level. I remember when I first saw his photography, I was so blown away that I couldn’t stop looking at his work all night. I googled everything I could about Clark Little and was just so impressed from the very beginning. If you remember this youtube video I created, I mentioned how he inspired me. But seeing it from his point of view or even seeing it from above with all the drone footage, man I don’t even know. The whole movie was just so inspiring and beautiful. Even if you don’t like photography that much and you have an appreciate for just nature or anything beautiful, you have to watch it. Watch it, then come back to this blog post and tell me how much you loved it because I know you will!

So this image is not of the north shore where Clark takes his photos. It’s in Kauai. When we visited Oahu a couple of years ago, we were there during a surf competition. We tried to go but the beach was so packed and hardly any parking so we skipped it. But after watching that amazon prime movie, it makes me want to go back. Like now.

I took so many pictures on this road trip. There are so many beautiful sights in this country. It’s a little difficult to figure out where to really begin. So, here’s one of the major highlights that happened at the very end of our trip when we arrived in San Diego, California. Before leaving on our road trip, we had a couple of activities in mind for San Diego. That all went out the window as soon as we arrived. We were so tired from the travels that our main objective was to just ‘chill’. No plans, nothing to do but relax and enjoy the beach town. Our first stop on the only full day that we were there was to a farmers market to pick up some breakfast. The farmers markets change locations everyday so luckily we were there for the one in La Jolla. The food is always so good at these farmers markets since they’re so fresh. I loved it. Green juice was callin’ my name.

Once we were full, we walked over to La Jolla Cove in hopes to just sit on the beach and lay out. That too went out the window once we saw the seals and sea lions hanging out on the rocks. There must of be at least 20 of them! Daddy sea lions, Mama sea lions, and the cutest of them all- BABY SEA LIONS!!!! OMG we were freaking out. I’d never seen so many of them at one time.  What started out as a casual walk around the cove ended up being 3 hours with these animals. I loved every minute of it. It was so fun to just watch them sleep, fight, play, and walk around. I’m not sure who squealed more, the sea lions or me.

Stay classy, San Diego.

Rarely do I shoot night time images. I love them for the same reasons as I love shooting sunrise. It’s the time of day that you’re usually by yourself. You feel the freedom to just wonder (with a good flashlight). Everything is usually so still and quite. But there’s one good reason that I don’t shoot it that often. It’s because I’m such a morning person now that staying up late is so difficult for me. LOL. For the same reasons of why I hear people who never shoot sunrise, is the same reason why I hardly shoot nigh time. Especially the time of night where you can really see the stars shining bright, usually around 2 or 3am. Man, oh man do I wish you could sleep all during the day, wake up in time for sunset and stay up all night til sunrise and be able to function like a normal human being that way. In other words, why can’t the world just revolve around my photography schedule? Just kidding. Not really, but kind of.

This was shot in Davenport, California at Shark Fin Cove. A beautiful location in the middle of the night or during the day. Now that Andrew and I are on our trip together, I’m hoping to shoot some more night time images. Nothing is guaranteed because we are planning on some cool stuff during the day too. Hopefully I can squeeze in a cat nap so we can take some night images like this. Nothing like sitting in the middle of no where with a whole bunch of stars lighting your path.

Since I shot this on a Rokinon 14mm lens, I am not able to see what my aperture setting was. I’m assuming it was as wide as I could get it at 2.8 but I know for sure that it was 8 seconds long at ISO 2000.

One of my new years goals this year was to take a photo trip at least once I quarter. I’m telling you all this so you can help keep me accountable. So winter photo trip- check. Iceland was amazing. I don’t know how much more wintery photo experience you could get.

I have a few more places where I’d like to go this year. Nothing is booked or anything yet, so they’re all just ideas right now but I’ve noticed a common theme. They’re all cold weather places!! If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you’ll know that the beach is one of my favorite places to be. As soon as I figured out all the layers I’ll be needing this year, I started questioning all the places that I was excited for. My mind immediately went to Caribbean islands, piña coladas, and flamingos. I had to go back and look at some of my sunny beach photos to make myself feel better.

So this was taken at Cinnamon Bay in St John, USVI. The water is particularly calm in this bay so I felt comfortable going into the water with my camera. I was probably in chest high water when photographing this inflatable raft when I decided it was time to hide the camera in a spare towel I brought. Then this bird flew onto the boat and was posing, waiting for me to take his picture. So back out of the water I went to get my camera and into chest high water for this shot. I think my favorite part of this image is the clarity of the water. You can see all the little lines in the sand on the very bottom. It just looks so peaceful and WARM! Now I gotta make sure that there is some kind of beach trip in 2017.

Shout out to my friend, Sam who told me about Höfn beach while we were planning our trip to Iceland. This little town was definietly a highlight of the whole trip. It’s about 5 hours east from Reykjavik but worth every minute of the drive. I say that because the drive was actually pretty scary. We ended up staying in Vik all afternoon and by the time we were ready to leave to go to Höfn, it was already dark, raining and snowing. The roads are paved and there are little reflectors on the side but its still kind of difficult to see. Especially since there are so many one way bridges. It was hard to gage whether or not the person on the other side of the bridge was coming towards you or stopping to let you go. So if you do go to Höfn, it’s probably best to go while theres still some sun out. Especially since there were so many fantastic views that we missed out on. We had no idea we passed the glacier lagoon until the next day we were driving in the daylight.

So we spent the night in Höfn not really being able to see what was around us but the next day was amazing! We spent the morning at the beach and it was absolutely perfect and beautiful. It was also the only day that it didn’t rain while we were in Iceland. The best part was that the sunrise lasted for sooo long. I’d say we were able to enjoy the sunrise for about an hour, if not more. Of course the colors and the sky changed during the hour, but it really allowed me to go to different parts of the beach and try different angles. I wish all sunrises and sunsets were like this all around the world.

This is also the little town that we saw the horses from my blog post the other day. I would love to spend more time here on my next trip to Iceland.

One travel tip to Iceland. Bring lots of socks! Like way more than you need. I’m so glad I did.

In general, you should wear waterproof clothing from head to toe in Iceland. It was raining everyday but one day while we were there. The waterproof clothing really helped to keep me warm. But even if you’re lucky to have great weather on your trip, you’ll still get wet. The huge waterfalls have lots of cold water spray that will soak you, depending on how long you stand there. And if you’re like me, you’ll want to get close to the water on the black sand beaches to photograph the waves. The waves are so much bigger than you think they are. It kind of reminded me of Hawaii, but definietly not surf-able. Not fun when they come crashing down and into your shoes. So it didn’t even matter if I was wearing waterproof shoes, my socks still managed to get wet.

We spent a fair amount of time in Vik. One whole afternoon to visit two different sides of Reyjnisfjara with a little break in between for lunch. The first stop was a calmer side of the beach. We were the only ones there and the waves weren’t huge. I was also surprised by how soft the sand was. Just like regular sand but black. Thats where I was able to capture this long exposure with my Ice neutral density filter. But then after lunch when we went to the more commonly visited side. This was where the big waves are. I was running back and forth between the tides to try to capture the water. Eventually, the water won and my feet got soaked. They were so uncomfortably cold and wet. I had to dry off immediately in the car. So glad I brought extra socks 🙂