ANGELA B. PAN

Throwback Thursday! This one was taken earlier this year a little bit after I took this image. I LOVE foggy mornings. Although it’s the same subject, taken around the same time, theres two totally different vibes. Mornings like these are so special, especially around the DC area because you never really think we get them. You know, you always associate fog to San Francisco or places like that. But here on the east coast, we can get some pretty awesome foggy mornings too! It’s my absolute favorite weather condition to shoot in. I think its so fun to see how it interacts with the monuments. For example, this was a crazy foggy day too and this was a 70 degree foggy christmas morning! It creates a totally new perspective on our environment and I love how it just minimizes everything.

If it’s lingering fog, I really like to take my time and walk around most of the monuments. What I’m looking out for are the shapes and lines that are peaking through the mist. This image was taken while I was walking along Kutz Bridge. It’s a great spot to go to during cherry blossom season or to take pictures in general. I was drawn to it because of the outlining of the trees and the little spurts of lights created by the street lights and cars. Theres just something so simple about it. I’m sure if I took this same exact composition on a regular sunny day, it would look totally different. There would be so much going on that you don’t really know where to focus your attention. At least for this foggy image, it’s obvious that its all about the trees and the reflection coming from the water.

Anyways, that was my little rant about fog. What about you? What’s your favorite weather to experience?

I’ve been uploading so many travel photos lately that I’ve been missing DC pics. No matter what, I always love shooting this city. Some people can say they get sick of shooting the same place over and over again but I don’t. It’s always looks and feels so different anytime you go. I don’t think I could ever really get tired of it.

This was taken while walking around the Tidal Basin. It was early morning, probably an hour after the sun had risen and the light was hitting these leaves perfectly. I think my favorite part of the image is the reflection of the Washington Monument in the Tidal Basin. It makes it look so long and exaggerated. Funny story is, this was actually influenced by a picture I saw at my doctors office.

I was just going in for a physical when they brought me into a little room to get my weight and my blood pressure. There was a photograph of a similar scene but taken during cherry blossom season and there was a lot more going around on top and around the monument. But I couldn’t stop staring at the reflection of the Washington Monument. I thought it was the coolest part of the image when I’m usually all crazy about cherry blossoms. I guess seeing another person’s work made me see the Washington Monument in a totally different way. It was exciting. I immediately went home to see if I had I something similar to the reflection that i saw in my doctor’s office. and I did! I took this one last year around this time. I never noticed the reflection until that doctors visit. LOL. I totally would have dismissed this picture before but i really like it. It feels like home to me <3

I know I’ve been talking about New Mexico a lot but I just loved it. It was my first time ever in the state, we spent most of our time on our road trip in New Mexico and overall, it’s just awesome. And top of that list was definietly, 100% White Sands National Monument.

It was a lot smaller of a park and a lot quieter of a place in general. I never felt like it was too crowded or impossible to take images without anybody in it. It was just so chill. I love this image in particular because it’s just so simple and what it’s really like being there. It reminds me of just walking along the sand – never too hot and relaxing in between your toes.  The best was being able to walk around the entire park without any shoes on.  I feel like every national park should be like that (or is that the asian side of me wanting to take my shoes off everywhere?). It was very much like walking along a beach with no ocean.

Besides the natural beauty of it, my favorite part of the park was the sledding! When we were first coming in to the park, there were these other two girls who were walking out. They offered us their snow sleds and without hesistation, we took them. Sliding down these dunes was so much fun. A lot better than I thought it would be. I felt like I was in elementary school again and it was our first snow day of the year. You can actually get a pretty good speed on these dunes if you find the right one.

This image was taken bright and early in the morning, right when the park opened. Don’t try to come for sunrise, you will be disappointed.

I know its wrong but whenever I travel and check the hours for a national park, I kinda just assume it’s more like a guideline as opposed to an actual rule. I think it’s because there have been so many times at so many different parks that the gates are left open and I just drive right through. Well this is definietly not the case at White Sands National Monument. They closed the gate! I was so disappointed that we woke up early just to go take some sunrise shots and it was closed.

But since we were already up, dressed and ready to take some pictures, we decided to pull over at this camp site spot near the entrance of the park. It had really pretty cactuses and a lake that maybe we could get a few shots in. I didn’t really expect much but then I saw these three birds just hanging out in the water. I knew they were going to fly away as soon as they saw me so I did my best to slowly approach them. I only had my 28-70mm so I wasn’t able to zoom super close to them like I would have wanted to. Regardless, I’m really happy that I was able to capture them taking off. My favorite part of the image is that one little water drop in the middle of the second and third bird. Such small details like that can really make an image. For me, my eye keeps on going straight to that spot and I love it!

So listen to me now. If you’re going to White Sands National Monument, definietly get your beauty sleep in so you can be ready to shoot sunset. Sunset is where it’s at at White Sands! 

Settings for this image was F7.1 at 1/200th of a second ISO 500.

What may look like a beautiful sunrise image is actually a little shocking. This was a sunrise shoot that was hard to forget. It was the morning after a huge tornado hit the DC area and usually after dramatic storms like that, we’ll get dramatic skies. So I woke up early and made my way down to the Tidal Basin. I was super excited to see this beautiful sunrise and immediately parked my car. I started off at the pedestrian bridge that’s on Ohio Drive. A good starting point for any image at the Tidal Basin and to get a better view I wanted to get closer to the water. Man, I was shocked when I tried to walk down the ramp and realized that I wouldn’t be able to get down any further. The water levels were so high that it was covering half the walkway. That meant the entire sidewalk area  further down was flooded. I think I stood there in disbelief for a minute because I had never seen anything like it. So I quickly turned around and to find an area on the grass where I could stand. I figured standing behind this bench would give me the most accurate depiction of how flooded it was to give scale. I bet if I actually stood in the water, it would of been up to my shins. Craziness! I had never seen the water rise this high before. Can’t be good for the cherry blossoms at all.

At least the ducks were happy.

So if you wanted to help the National Mall fix this flooding problem, please consider donating. It will really help with the improve and restoration of the seawall that’s obviously being damaged by the water and reconfigure the foot traffic so the cherry blossom trees won’t need replacement every year.

I found this in my computer trash bin the other day. LOL. Sometimes I can be so dramatic. I have no idea why I threw it out. I think I can get frustrated by my own work sometimes and without thinking, I’ll immediately dismiss it. I also think it’s the time of day that I chose to edit this image too. It was late (and by late I mean 9pm) and I had nothing better to do so I decided to edit some images. I feel images never really turns out the way I want to that late at night. I don’t even know why I bother sometimes. So I tossed it. But looking back at it now, I kinda like it. I also remember shooting this and thinking that man purposely stood there because he saw me setting up the shot to get low and he just wanted his picture taken.

What about you? Do you have a most productive hour? Mine is definietly in the morning. Probably between 10a – 1p. I usually don’t even eat lunch until 2pm because I want to make sure I get everything done that I wanted to get done in that amount of time. In the afternoon is usually the time where I’ll do the mindless things- check emails, go to the grocery store, etc. Then my second wind will come back at around 5pm. Too much info? Ok, I’ll stop now.

My camera settings for this image was F8 at 1/50th of a second ISO 1000. Yes, 1000. I had to double check to make sure I was counting all the zeros correctly. I have no idea why my ISO was so high. The only reason I could come up with was that I must of bumped it up that during sunrise and forgot to change it back when the sun was actually up. I hope the rest of the images from this day wasn’t that high.