ANGELA B. PAN

I did it. I went back to the sunflower fields again. But this time, I went with IGDC. I was a little reluctant to go last weekend because it was just so hot and humid out but I’m so glad I did.

It was so great to see so many of my friends and going out and taking pictures with them. It made the whole experience so different. I felt like I was able to see the sunflowers in a different light. Instead of just concentrating on the blooms, I was more interested in the interactions of my friends with the sunflowers. While some people brought ladders and drones, others had props like picture frames and colorful umbrellas. It was pretty interesting to see the kind of shots everyone was trying to take.

At one point, I was asked to go out into the middle of the field with the umbrella to pose for some images. I agreed and my friend, Birch said that she would go in the middle with me. After my job as “model” was done, Birch and I took some time to just stay in the middle of the field to take some pictures of our own. Luckily, we brought out this ladder so we had an elevated view of the field.

But when it was Birch’s turn on the ladder, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could get a sun flair or something coming from her shoulder. I got some shots but then I ducked down a little bit and loved the way this super tall sunflower was framing her. I love how you’re able to get the sunflower petals on top of the image but also see sunflowers in the distance. A shot I probably would have never gotten if I kept on going to the sunflowers by myself 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F22 and 1/60th of a sec and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

PS: click here to see this image on the Washingtonian

You may or may not have noticed that I had a busy week last week trying to capture the fall colors. Is it me or did they just pop out of nowhere. Literally one day it was all green and the next was so amazingly beautiful everywhere you went. So I’ve been busy trying to capture them all before they all fell. It must be all my cherry blossom training that I knew I needed to take advantage of the colorful trees as much as I could or you never know. Especially with Washington DC weather, you never know. Here one day and the next will be incredibly rainy and windy and they’re all gone.

So last week my friend, Birch and I met up at the Tidal Basin. It was a super cloudy morning and there was no real sunrise. We actually ended up just walking back and forth waiting for some light to appear before we felt like we were really able to capture the leaves in all its colorful glory. Also, it was a great way for us to just catch up on life 🙂

I know this image is a little different for me but I love the way it turned out. It was inspired by an image that I have seen from Brandon Woelfel where he captured something similar but during the springtime with flowers instead of leaves. Small little details like this is something I would like to work on more in the future. Often times I think big and wide but there’s something so simple about this image that I just love. Plus I love all the layers of the yellow leaves too.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/80th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

I have a huge list of things I still want to do and photograph in Washington DC. Crazy right? You would think by now that I’ve accomplished them all but this city is so lively and growing so much that I feel like the list gets longer and longer everyday. Well, a couple of Fridays ago, my friend Birch and I met up to cross one of those things off the list. It had been something I’ve been wanting to do for forever and I’m so glad Birch was awesome enough to accompany me in doing so.

We spent a beautiful hour on the tidal basin in a paddle boat!!! OMG it was so much fun. We picked the perfect day to do it too. That whole week had crazy cold wind but the day we were actually able to go, the weather was beautiful! The best part was that we went on a swan paddle boat which was battery operated so we didn’t even have to paddle at all! We just let the swan do all the work. But we did have to steer the boat. Which may or not have been the easiest thing to do… LOL We seriously spent the whole time talking, laughing and making sure we didn’t run into any of the walls. There were some photos involved too. Either way, I’m doing it again next year! Swan paddle boat or bust.

This image is not from the paddle boat though. This was on the way down to the tidal basin from our cars. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a perspective like this before and I love the way that it turned out. I was just super lucky to have been able to capture that airplane too!

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/5000th of a second and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.