ANGELA B. PAN

Taken around the same time as this image. I really love those moody, rainstorm clouds. I remember it had been raining on and off all day that day. This happened to be during one of those off periods. What had actually inspired me to take this image was that cartoon you see on the right hand side. In particular that one with the green background and cute little bunny screaming on it. I recognized those characters from our trip to Japan 2 years ago. I believe the cartoon is called ‘Line Town’ and I thought they were so kawaii. They even had their own store near Harajuku and I believe Andrew and I bought a couple of tshirts there for our nieces and nephews. I was so excited to see Line Town come to America that I had to take a cool reflection shot of it. Duhhh! I didn’t make it into the Times Square store but at least I’ll have more opportunities to go than I did when it was only in Japan.

So I started to set up my shot but then that guy who’s covering it saw me trying to look for my composition. I know I was taking taking my time but it may have been too long. Because when I first saw this scene, there was no one there! But that’s New York for you, there are people EVERYWHERE and at any given moment, one of them could walk right into you composition. Right when I was ready to click, there he was, in front of the green bunny. I could have waited to see if he would move but there were more people behind me on their way. Oh well. I still think it turned out pretty cool.

My settings for this image is F8 at 1/50th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens. At first I was surprised that the shutter speed was so fast at ISO 400 on such a gloomy day, but then I realized it’s times square. It’s always so bright there so you really don’t need a high ISO to shoot fast. LOL.

When we first arrived in New York, Brooklyn Bridge Park was one of our first stops. We originally went to go get ice cream but ended up walking across the Brooklyn bridge. Kind of.

But I did not have a tripod with me. Andrew and I were just planning on taking it easy and not really do much that evening since we were both tired from travel. No problem at all. As long as I have my camera, charged batteries and my memory card, I’m down for whatever and not having a tripod pushed me to find creative ways around that. So as Andrew was finishing up my ice cream (they gave me wayyyy too much), I was trying to find different ways to keep my camera sturdy in this evening light. I took quite a few shots. Some from the ground, some from leaning against trees, etc. This image turned out to be my favorite composition.

If you look towards the left of this image on the pier, you can see how there’s a fence there, right? Well that same thing was going on right in front of me so I kneeled down and put my camera on the ground, in between the wood from the pier and the iron fence. So thats what the foreground texture is. The wood grain. I love how it turned out and how it’s so noticeable. I also think it adds a different element to the image having the bottom half so dark. For some reason it kind of reminds me of Gotham City from Batman.

The settings for this image is 1.6 seconds at F7/1 ISO 800 with my Sony A7II 16-35mm.

Have a great weekend everyone! Hope you all have something fun planned and if you do, let me know in the comments. Stay safe! I can’t believe September is almost over….

On the same day that I was looking down at times square, I was also looking up. I took this image about 30 minutes before that other one from the rooftop bar and I was actually on solid ground for this one. HAHA.

I’ve always wanted an image like this from times square. The buildings are just so massive all around you that I knew there was a way. For some reason, I’ve found it really difficult to capture in the past. I guess all I needed were just some dark cloudy skies and birds flying above me all at the right moment. Patiences is obviously key in photography. But I really like this image because it just feels like a big hug from the buildings. Everyone all at once, “awwwww”.

Without my 16-35mm wide angle lens, I would not have been able to capture all of it. But now that I’m looking at the image again, I wish I would have gotten lower to capture it. If I was kneeling down on the ground, I think I would have been able to capture much more of the buildings on the edges and maybe would have been able to fill in some of the spaces in between? Who knows. Either way, I’m happy with the way this one turned out. There was a fair amount of lens correcting that went into this. I also like how the cloudy skies give the buildings a mood of darkness. Usually when you visit times square, all you see are the lights. It’s like a totally different view.

Which makes me think, if I didn’t tell you that this was times square, would you have been able to guess the location?

My camera settings for this image are F/8 at 1/60th of a second ISO 400.

And this is the same place as Monday’s blog post, but looking down. How freaky is this view? Right?

I don’t know why, but I find myself trying to get a closer look in to all the windows and trying to see if I can see anyone else on these rooftops. Is that creepy? Yes, but I can’t help it. For some reason, this image just brings me in closer and closer to look at all the details. I love how some lights are on, some are off. You can even see some furniture and.. OK I’ll stop. But I think my favorite part is looking at the roof top fans. LOL. I guess I don’t see things like that everyday so they interest me even more so in this image. Just another crazy view of how busy New York City really is. How everyone’s lives are so different but all in the same little area. On the top left hand corner is a perfect view of times square. Congested with all the sparkling lights. And this image was taken on a random Tuesday night. Can you imagine what it’d be like on a Saturday night? Woah.

Funny story: this particular evening was super cloudy and dark. Rain was off and on and Andrew and I were in a taxi on our way to dinner. We drove right through times square and I was busy looking at my phone. All of the sudden it got really light and I was like ‘OMG the sun came out!” I was super excited because I dunno, I guess I like the sun. But when I looked up it was actually just the lights from times square! Isn’t that nuts! It’s so bright that I thought the sun came out. HAHA

The settings for this image was F7.1 for 0.4 seconds at ISO 800.

So all my dreams came true on this trip. Everything that I wanted to do, we did. I guess that’s why they call it a birthday trip, right? HAHA.

For this trip, we stayed in Brooklyn which turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought it would be. It was great because every morning we would take Frankie out to a park or something and wear him out. Then we’d spend the rest of the afternoon/evening exploring on our own. I’d definietly stay in Brooklyn again. It was so much quieter than Manhattan but still really easy to get into the city.

On the actual day of my birthday it rained. But the good kind of rain. It didn’t start until the middle of the afternoon so we were still able to explore in the morning with Frankie. Then when it was raining the hardest, we were already inside the MoMA. The perfect escape. Out of coincidence, Andrew made dinner reservations near Times Square. It was perfect because I really wanted to check out this rootop bar on top of the Hyatt Centric afterwards. It’s the tallest rooftop in Times Square and you get these amazing views of lower Manhattan while sippin’ on some adult beverages. It was still a little wet when we got up there but I didn’t even care. The rain clouds were still hovering over the city and I was having a blast. I think my favorite part of this image (besides the clouds) have to be the reflection in the tall H&M building. So crazy to see how big this city is and this is only a little piece of it.

The settings for this image was F/8 at 1/30th of a second ISO 1000. It was so dark that I had to bump up my ISO up even though I was also leaning against the railing.

Afraid of heights? Yea, me neither. I actually think heights can be fun. Sometimes.

This was taken looking down from a rooftop in Ginza, Tokyo during a fun photo tour I had with Eyexplore Tokyo. I joined them for one of their Vertigo tours and it was definietly a different view of the city than I was expecting. In this image, we were looking down at 3 or 4 different buildings. Hard to tell how many there really are because all them are so close to each other. But most of the time we were confined to really tight spaces on top of these buildings. So, I’m the one wearing black shoes and the tour leader, Axel is wearing the brown ones. Andrew was directly behind me so he didn’t make it into the shot but that was basically as much room we were given on this rooftop. Just goes to show you how smushed we really were and how super jammed pack the city is. There was definietly not enough room for tripods at all. Good thing the Sony a7ii is so great in low light situations. I was using the balcony for camera support during the longer exposure times.

The camera settings for this image was f/4 at .5 sec at ISO 500. The ISO definietly had to be bumped up to compensate for the lack of tripod. But I’m glad I was still able to capture the colors and angle so nicely. For sure a difficult shot and if I had the opportunity, I’d love to do something similar in DC. But I’m not sure how rooftop-hopping would go in these government secured buildings. LOL.

If you ever find yourself in Toyko, consider joining one of their tours. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot, like I did 🙂 Tell them Angela sent you.