ANGELA B. PAN

If you asked my friend, Sue what her favorite part of our whole Acadia trip was, she’d say it was Ocean Path. It’s a super easy hike from Otter Point to Sandy Beach with a stop at Thunder Hole along the way. It’s two miles long and would typically take people 2-3 hours to complete, it took us almost 4. LOL. That’s only because we stopped a lot to take pictures… and snack breaks. This was our early morning hike so we didn’t have any breakfast prior.

If I had to guess, she liked this hike the most because every view point and every stop was so typical “Acadia”. Like when you google imaged pictures of Acadia, these are the views you’d see in the search results. We were also hiking on a super cloudy day and the air was crisp and cool. It made it so much more comfortable for us to really take our time and enjoy the scenery.

So if you have plans on visiting Acadia National Park, this hike would be one of my top suggestions. It faces east so basically anywhere you stand, you’re going to get a great view of the sunrise. And I’m not sure if we were just lucky or what it was, but we barely saw anyone on the hike. It wasn’t until we got closer to Sandy Beach (our end destination) where we really started seeing people. I think most people go to Cadillac Mountain to view the sunrise if they’re going to wake up that early, but there are other beautiful places in the park to see it too and Ocean Path is one of them!

The best part was being able to take a bus back to our original starting point, Otter Point where we parked our car 🙂 Luckily we got on the bus just in time before it started pouring rain. Man I can’t express how happy I was to be able to take that bus back instead of walking back 2 miles in the rain.

A quick break from autumn Maine images to show off Washington DC’s beautiful sunrise from yesterday. Sunrise is around 7:15ish now, so I have to take advantage of the later wake up call while I can. I shot this at the Tidal Basin on the little footbridge between the Jefferson Memorial and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial. It’s an angle that I’ve always wanted, but wasn’t sure I could get. I’m so glad it actually worked out this time.

Since I’ve been shooting DC sunrises for years now, I’m finding it to be a challenge to photograph it in new, different ways. I was super happy with the way this one turned out. My favorite part about the image is the color change between the two peep holes. The transition from cool to warm tones in a photograph is always something I strive for. I feel like it completes the whole color story and really adds a lot of dimension in a photograph. Plus the reflections of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial look super cool too.

In order to capture this, my camera settings were F/6.3 at 1/20th of a second and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens. This was shot handheld although I did try to shoot it with my tripod. I just couldn’t get the tripod at the level that I wanted and I was constantly moving around to make sure the the monuments were centered, so the tripod just didn’t work out. Now that I think of it, I must have looked like I was spying on someone while I was sitting on the sidewalk and moving my neck all around to make sure everything lined up correctly. LOL, oh well. It’s not the first time I looked crazy for an image.

An image that didn’t make the 2018 Dynamic DC Wall Calendar cut.

I love this image. I think it sets such a nice tone for the cherry blossoms, but I wasn’t sure if you all would want to be staring at a lady’s back for 31 days. So it didn’t make the cut. LOL

I think my favorite part of the image is the little reflection you see on the bottom right hand corner. It’s definietly obvious that it’s there, but the reflection is so subtle that I don’t know if you really think about it. I like how it gives the vibe that she’s being surrounded by cherry blossoms.

To be honest, I don’t even know how this lady is. She was just there with another photographer and they were having a cherry blossom photoshoot. Totally normal if you’re ever at the Tidal Basin during cherry blossom season. I usually try to stay out of the way and I was in the middle of walking around them when I saw the scene from behind. Now, I don’t know how this lady’s photographer’s image turned out, but I’m really happy with mine. But even if she walked right past me, I would not even be able to recognize her. I completely forgot what she looked like from the front. She will now forever be called ‘Cherry Blossom lady’ to me. HAHA. But if I did find out who she was, I’d totally gift her with this print.

The settings for this image is 1/100th of a second at F/8 and ISO 160 with my 100mm macro lens. See, you can go beyond just macro images with that lens however I’m not sure why I did that. I was probably busy shooting the flowers and just happened to have that lens on my camera.

Now that I think about it, this whole image sounds like one happy accident 🙂

It’s here! It’s finally here. The 2018 Dynamic DC Wall Calendar is here!

This is one of the images that’s in this years calendar PLUS there are 12 more that I think you’d like as well 🙂

Click here to check it out.

It takes me quite a bit to complete the calendar. I started on the project in the beginning of August and I’ve been going through many revisions to get it to what you see today! And my mom tells me every year that I need to show it to her first to make sure she likes all the images before they get printed…. so it’s Mommy Pan approved as well.

If you were interested in getting it, they are on presale now and at a discounted price. If you’re hesitant, just get it now. The discounted price only lasts until November and they usually sell out by December. However I think this year may be a little faster. I’ve already had people emailing me telling me that they want to reserve some before they’ve even seen it! That’s so nuts.

So one last time, click here to see your new 2018 wall calendar.

This image was taken in the beginning of 2017 and made it’s way to the calendar as the September image. I love the cloud formations and reflections you see in the Tidal Basin. But my favorite part of the image is the color change from orangey yellow on the very left hand side to the blue hues on the right. It started off as a foggy morning but once the sun came out, the fog and the clouds lifted and formed this amazing sky. My camera settings for this image is 1/160th of a second at F7.1 and ISO 200 on my Sony A7II with my 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Not to say that I like one better than the other, but another favorite place to shoot fall colors is Shenandoah National Park. Just driving along sky line drive is so peaceful and relaxing. I never have a plan of what I’m going to shoot, I just go. And each time I go is so different.

What’s crazy is that I shot this in 2011! Lately I’ve been going through some older photos. Like way back. And I still remember shooting this. This particular morning was foggy. You know me and how excited I get with fog. But you can’t even tell that the leaves are changing or anything. I just love how the fog washed away all the details and all you see are blurred lines. It sort of reminds me of an abstract painting with an influence of Mark Rothko. The small hint of purple and pink in the middle of the image really draws my attention.

My camera settings for this image was F/18 at 1/20th of a second ISO 125 on my Canon 5D Mark II.

On a side note, I still get quite a few questions about my 5D Mark II. They’re mostly if I still use it and the answer is not really. The only time I really use it may be shooting fireworks. I just trust the camera remote on the 5D Mark II way more than the one on the Sony A7II. I feel like in that “high pressure” situation, (high pressure meaning, I can’t easily re-do it) I’d rather use that camera. Otherwise, it’s straight Sony equipment for me. I still have my Canon body and lenses sitting on the shelf. I may sell it in the future, but I’m not sure. We just have so many memories together that I don’t know if I’d want to give that away.

Let me know what you think about this image. Its really different from what I usually do but I still really like it and it was a total accident. I didn’t even know that I took this until the other day when I was looking for another image to edit.

So on the same foggy morning that I took this picture of the Washington Monument, I was out with my camera on my tripod shooting. Obviously. But I actually went to the tidal basin with the intentions of shooting the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial. When I arrived, I saw that the fog was so amazing that I couldn’t resist taking a few shots of the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial. So in the series of images, this was the very last image I took right before I began shooting MLK JR. memorial. I know I was bracketing my shots because this was a long exposure and I’m assuming I just got impatient for the last shot to finish and just picked up my tripod. Pretty cool, huh?

My favorite part is how aligned everything is. I literally must have lifted the tripod up straight in the air for that to happen. I didn’t do much in processing either. I just added a little bit of contrast and that was it.It’s basically straight out of the camera. I also like how it’s kind of monotone grayish blue. What do you think. Should I try some more experimental long exposures? For some reason, it reminds me of this meme from SpongeBob SquarePants of Mr Krab. Like you just woke up from a really long nap and you don’t know what time it is, what day it is, or what is actually going on. LOL

My settings for this image was F/32 at 2 seconds ISO 50.