ANGELA B. PAN

Am I the only one who never knows how to pack clothes for New York City? I mean you check the weather and it will say it’s 80 degrees. So obviously I’m going to pack t-shirts and tank tops.  But once you’re there, it actually feels like 65. It’s the most deceiving thing ever. All the tall buildings and walking through the shadows make it feel so much colder than it actually is. But above all else, sneakers is an absolute must. Props to all the women who walk around the city all day in high-heels. You have my respect, big time.

This image was taken en route to Grand Central Terminal from the New York Public Library. One of my favorite parts of walking through the shadows of all the tall buildings is seeing the different kinds of reflections. Reflections in puddles, reflections in glass windows, etc.  It’s almost like a game to find some really cool ones. But I thought this one was particularly cool because you can see so many different building reflections in this one building. The sun burst to the side of it was just an added bonus that I didn’t even notice until I was shooting. No idea what the name of this building is but I believe it was on 42nd street if you wanted to check it out for yourself.

My camera settings for this image was F22 1/15th of a second at ISO 200. The only reason my aperture was so small was because I wanted to make sure I could get the sun flare to be as large as possible.

So while you’re walking around the city, definietly make sure to look up AND down whenever possible. You won’t be disappointed. You may find special treasures like this that make you really happy 🙂

I know I’ve been posting a lot of the Tidal Basin recently, but thats where I’ve been going lately. Every time I go, I am hoping to see some cherry blossoms. More like wishing and praying. There are a few here and there that have bloomed but this particular morning that I went out the main attraction was definietly the cloudy sunrise. There was this amazing glow that was coming from the horizon that you just couldn’t ignore. However my favorite part of this image is being able to see the Jefferson statue right in the middle of the columns. I also really like the elongated reflection in the water.

Days like this one make me so happy to be a photographer living in the DC metro area. I feel really fortunate to be able to visit these monuments on a regular basis and to see the beauty in them in almost any kind of light. Not a lot of people have the same opportunities so I’m really grateful for mine. Even with all the early morning wake up calls and late nights, when I see a sunrise like this, it makes it completely worth it. But it’d be hard to pick which monument is my favorite monument to photograph. It’s like choosing which puppy is the cutest. They’re all so great and you love them all in such different ways. You can’t actually pick just one. (Was that a weird analogy? Comparing monuments to puppies?)

If you’re interested in knowing my settings on this image they were: f5.6 at 1/5 sec. I shot it on my Sony a7ii with my 16-35mm wide angle lens. If you’d like to know my settings for future images, just let me know in the comments below. If I remember, I’ll try to put them in my blog posts for you.

This was taken last year in Tokyo Skytree. When I was researching different places to take pictures in Toyko, Skytree was definietly on top of my list. Not just for the amazing views, but also the possibility of photographing people looking at said views. It sounds a bit weird, I know, but I think that some of the more interesting photos are the ones of that include other people enjoying the same things you are.

So here I was, enjoying the beautiful view from 2080′ in the air, when I heard a lot of little voices laughing and talking. I turned around and saw a bunch of little kids with what looked like to be there teacher. It was so cute because all of them were wearing these yellow hats so it was really easy to spot them in a crowd. It immediately reminded me of when I was in elementary school and we’d always go on class field trips to the Smithsonian museums or to the Washington Monument in matching t-shirts.

Not to sound like a creeper, but I followed these kids around for a little bit. I wanted to find the right time so I could photograph them enjoying the views. They finally stopped and all lined up in front of a window as there teacher was showing them something outside. I started to shoot. These two girls in the back must of heard my camera clicking because they immediately turned around with big smiles and gave the international signal for “I’m ready for my close up” by pulling out the peace fingers. Aren’t they so cute? No words or anything were exchanged. Just a little “Arigatou gozaimasu” (thank you very much) from me and a big smile and they kept on moving with the rest of the yellow-hat kids.

Here’s one more from the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room exhibit: All the Eternal Love I Have for Pumpkins, currently at the Hirshhorn Museum.

This has got to be my favorite room out of all of them. The first time I visited the Kusama exhibit, it was closed. Someone was trying to take a selfie and things got out of hand and smashed one of the pumpkins. I’m so glad everything got fixed and I was able to see the room in person on my second trip. Don’t get me wrong, all the rooms are AMAZINGLY beautiful, but theres something special about this one. First of all, the pumpkins themselves are soo cool. If I could have a pumpkin like that for Halloween, I’d have the most popular trick-or-treat house on the block. I love how they are in all different sizes and shapes. But I think the coolest part of the room is being able to see the reflection of the pumpkins on the ceilings. Seriously theres so much attention to detail in these rooms, it’s unbelievable.

To get this shot, I was in the room by myself and I immediately sat on the floor. The change of perspective really showcases the size of these pumpkins. BUT THAT GLOW THOUGH! Obviously the ISO was cranked really high for this one. My settings were: F/4 1/400th sec ISO 5000.

By the way, the music video I linked above was my absolute favorite from when I was in middle school. LOL. It reminds me so much of when I’d come home from school, turn on MTV’s Total Request Live and eat a hot pocket. Even to this day, if I hear Smashing Pumpkins on the radio, I’ll turn it up. Andrew’s always impressed that I know all the words to their songs. Don’t get me started on “1979”.

A couple of blog posts ago, I talked about my favorite place in Iceland, Höfn. (If you haven’t checked it out yet, click here) It’s located about 5 to 6 hours away from Reykjavik so there were a lot of stops along the way. One of the best “road side attractions” was Jökulsálón lagoon. The only reason why I called it a “road side attraction” was because it’s right off the main road and you can’t miss it! It’s this humungous lake at the edge of Vatnajökul National park where pieces of Vatnajökul glacier break off. If you look at a world map and see Iceland, you’ll see how theres one huge glacier on the south east side of the island. That’s Vatnajökul glacier.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen something so cool. Literally. As soon as we parked the car, I hopped out with my camera ready. I was so mesmerized by these glaciers that I didn’t want to waste a second. Just the whole experience made it seem like you were on a different planet. I mean you can see the top of the icebergs, but I can’t even imagine whats underneath. How big these icebergs really are and how long they’ve been in this water. And if the icebergs were so big, how freakin’ big is that glacier? Man, I can’t even imagine.

Right across the street you go to Diamond beach and a lot of these icebergs have washed up to land and they are gigantic. So many of them were taller than me. I had a lot of fun climbing on them, running my hands (with gloves on) on them, and just taking note of all the beautiful blues I was seeing. It was so tempting to say “Icebergs right ahead”. I tried my best not to say it but I think it slipped out once.

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.