color

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The first morning we were in Oranjestad, my friend Sue and I walked around the city. It was so cute and every turn had something new and unexpected. I loved all the colorful buildings and homes and this house was no different. It was the pink flowers that originally drew me in but then it was all the cracks and tears all along the facade that really made me want to photograph the house. I just loved all the details and really wished that I was able to walk onto the porch but there was a gate blocking us from doing that.

So I captured this image with my 16-35mm wide angle lens. As we were walking around more I felt like I wanted to capture more detailed shots of the house. I opened up my backpack, trying to dig out the 70-200mm when I noticed a cat was sitting on the porch! I had no idea it was there when I first took the picture so I tried to remain calm and quickly put my 16-35mm wide angle back on the camera before I went any further. I’m not sure what happened but the cat quickly got up and ran away 🙁 I was kind of disappointed that I wasn’t able to capture the cat like I wanted to but went back to review my images and I’m so glad I was able to capture this. It’s so funny because I didn’t even know he was there in the first place. He was a tiny little guy so I wouldn’t be surprised if you missed him the first time you looked at this image too. LOL.

My camera settings for the image is F8 at 1/800th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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So the 4th was awesome. It was one of the best fireworks displays I had seen in a long time. It was hot and humid but not humid enough where it effected the sparkles like it had in the years past.

I rode the metro to the mall and made my way over to the Lincoln Memorial. I was flying solo this year since Andrew had better plans of bbq and fireworks at home and it seemed like all my photo friends had their own ideas of where to shoot the fireworks from. I’ve been wanting to shoot in front of the Lincoln Memorial for so long so that I finally took the opportunity this year to do so. I arrived around 615p and the Lincoln Memorial steps were already packed! I didn’t even bother. It seemed like everybody was so squished up and it was already way too hot without all that body heat around me so I looked over to the Reflecting Pool to look for some open spots. I think being by myself was an advantage because I was able to squeeze in, dead center of the Reflecting Pool. It was awesome! There was only one row of people in front of me and that was it.

I sat there for almost 3 hours, reading on my kindle app and playing some phone games. Its funny though, I stood up to get my camera ready at around 9p. The fireworks were supposed to be going off at 9:09p. And even though I had been waiting for those fireworks for sooo long, it still surprised me when the first one went off. I’m pretty sure I screamed so loud that the people around me heard me yelp and jump a little bit. A little embarrassing, but whatevs. The show was one that would be hard to forget! I’m not usually one to say anything but I was ohhh-ing and awe-ing the whole time.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1 second ISO 160 shot Bulb with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm lens.

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I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I am so grateful for the DC creative community. I’ve learned so, so much just by meeting up with various photographers and taking pictures with them. Just seeing how they work and how they “see” things inspires me to want to create more than just my typical sunrise shots. Whether it’s street, portraits, or whatever, I am grateful for everyone being so open and willing to share their ideas.

This is definietly the case with my friend, Birch. She has always been a photographer I admired on Instagram. Her point of view is so interesting but we hadn’t connected offline until the beginning of this year. Once we finally met, I feel like we became instant friends. Not only did she have a lot of the same ideas about creativity and photography as I do but we have a lot of the same interests besides art. So since our initial meeting, we’ve been getting together to take pictures quiet often. You can find us talking about the latest audiobooks we’ve been listening to, working out, or even bucket list travel destinations.

What I love most about her photography is how simple she makes everything. For the most part, she’s only carrying her 70-200mm whenever we go out shooting which is so different than me! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a photographer with a whole bunch of gear in her backpack but I’m usually with a wide angle lens and a zoom lens and that’s it. But with her 70-200mm telephoto zoom lens, she’s able to capture so many things that I usually would not even notice.

When we first met, I told her that I wanted to get a 100-400mm. I’ve tried it out since then and to be honest, it’s just kind of a big boy lens to be carrying around on casual photowalks. Maybe sometime in the future. But last week I purchased  the 70-200mm sony lens, inspired by Birch so that hopefully I can see things in a whole new way. Be prepared to see things a lot more close up. LOL.

This image of the row houses is also inspired by her. I loved the way she captured them in Capitol Hill so last time I was in Georgetown, I thought I’d try something similar . Thanks for being such an inspiration, Birch! If you haven’t already, definietly follow her on the gram 🙂

The settings for this image is F8 at 1/160th of a second ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom.

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Here’s a crazy example of how foggy the Tidal Basin can actually get on any given winter morning. I mean come on! You can barely see anything in this image which I think makes it pretty cool. Its like you have to look really deep and kind of know what you’re looking at in order to make any sense of it. If I didn’t tell you, would you have even known? The most interesting part to me is that you can still see a slight hint of the Washington Monument’s reflection but I love the fact that you can see the rain drops in the water. Look at the bottom right hand corner. I love that trail of drops leading to the Monument. It must be something special if you can capture fog and rain all in the same image.

Here’s what it would usually look like if it weren’t foggy.

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at ISO 320 at 1/640th of a second with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle handheld. As far as editing, I didn’t do much. I upped the contrast a bit just so you can see the monuments a little bit better and that’s pretty much it! Full on color image of what it looked like that one special Sunday morning.

PS Sorry not sorry there have been so many fog pictures lately. I love shooting the fog and the mood it brings. But I feel like 2018 has been especially foggy for me for some reason. I’ve never had so many wonderful opportunities to shoot in the weather and I’m taking full advantage! I just hope we get more days like this during cherry blossom season like we did that one time last year. That was seriously one of the best days ever. This is probably a close second <3

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Hi my name is Angela and I’m palm tree obsessed.

Every time I step out of our airbnb, I see them and can’t stop smiling. I love looking up and just knowing that today is a good day. My favorite is seeing them in rows like this. I think it is so cool. I don’t know why. Its just something I’m totally not used to seeing on the east coast.

So earlier this week, Andrew, Frankie and I were at Ocean Beach around sunset and just walking around scouting the place for cool photo opportunities. As we were walking along the beach, I saw this row of palm trees. I knew I had to come back at sunrise to try to capture it with some color in the sky. Luckily, the very next day at sunrise my vision came true! It was surprising to actually see color in the sky since it’s been so foggy since we arrived. Foggy, but still very nice temperatures 🙂

The other good thing about going at sunrise is that there are not as many cars around so I could stand in the middle of the road and not bother as many people as I would if I were shooting at sunset. It was funny though. About 20 minute minutes after I took this image, a man walked up to me and said “were you the one who was standing in the middle of the street?”. I laughed and said yes. Luckily he just wanted to tell me about some other photo opportunities other than standing in the middle of the street. Man, people here in San Diego are so nice!

My camera settings for this image is F18 at 1.3 seconds and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens shot on my gitzo tripod.

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I did not take this image this past snow that we got. I took it a couple of years ago but still really, really enjoy it and figured why not post it? Theres something so peaceful and serene about it. I especially like looking at that platform in the middle of the water and envisioning so much summer fun happening there with floaties and belly flops. Definietly not winter fun. Or at least that’s not my idea of winter fun LOL.

As I was editing this image in Photoshop, I was wondering if I should leave that little bit of yellowish colored grass showing on the right hand of the image. It’s not the most attractive looking grass but in the end, I decided to leave it. Its only a small amount but I love how it shows that this is actually a color image and not black and white. It’s a little detail that could be distracting but I think it tells so much more of the story of what it’s actually like being at this lake.

I also love seeing all the curves in the lake and if you look closely enough, you’ll even see a house or two. This is taken at a neighborhood lake in McLean, Virginia but if you asked me, it looks like it was taken straight out of a movie like Frozen or something. I dunno, I just can’t keep my eyes off of it. I love it so much. I could totally see myself sitting on that grass and staring at this scene for hours. It’d be awesome if I could fly my drone here too. Ohh the possibilities.

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/160th of a second and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle.