ANGELA B. PAN

I’m not sure what has gotten into me lately, but I’ve been waking up so early. Like way before my alarm goes off to wake me up for sunrise, even early enough where I could scramble myself some eggs for breakfest and still be on time to watch the sun. Oh man. That’s early! It’s like I’m jet lagged…

But what else is there to do at 5 o’clock in the morning but go out and take pics, right?

Luckily we’ve been having some awesome sunrises around the Washington DC area. This particular morning wasn’t as colorful as I usually hope for but it was so moody. I’ll take it!

It rained over night and the steps to the United States Capitol was so reflective. You know me, I love a good puddle when I see one. So I was playing around with different angles and perspectives when I finally came across this one. Holy cow, I love how the trees look as big as the Capitol Building. One of my favorite things to do is to get down low and make whatever is in the foreground look bigger than what’s in the background. Its sort of a eye-mind trick thing but I think it looks super cool. And for some reason my eye keeps going down to the reflection and staring at the Statue of Freedom lookin’ like a squiggly line. It’s so interesting how that came out.

Don’t get me wrong though, I am not complaining about waking up early. I’m complaining about being super sleepy by 8pm every night. #grandmastatus So expect to see way more sunrise images from me soon 🙂 I’ve got a few lined up.

My camera settings for this image is F22 at 0.6 seconds and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

One of my favorite things to do after taking sunrise pictures is to just sit and enjoy the early morning light. Sometimes you can forget to enjoy the moment. Maybe you woke up late and you’re in a hurry to get to your location or you’re trying to find the perfect composition at the time the light is hitting you subject just right. There can be a number of things that cause you to stress so early in the morning which kinda sounds odd because photography is suppose to be a fun activity. But once all of that madness is done and you’re just left with the early morning light, it can be so peaceful to just sit and enjoy. Even for 10 minutes. It is the most relaxing and beautiful way to spend the morning. I love it. I just feel so happy and calm. Its a great way to just slow down. Rarely will I even have my cell phone out.

This was taken at Otter Cliff in Acadia National Park, Maine. Just looking at this image brings back those feelings of relaxation and peace. I remember sitting on those rocks after I captured this image and watching the sun for a good 20 minutes before doing anything else. That buoy in the distance was ringing a bell every time a wave rocked it over.  Sue and I were the only ones there and barely even said a word to each other. Is it weird to say that thinking about this image and what it took to capture it makes me look forward to waking up for my next sunrise? Yes. The answer is yes.

PS Where the otters at?

The camera settings for this image is F10 at 1/13th of a second with ISO 100 on my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

You know what’s really cool about waking up for sunrise? The windy air. LOL!

Sorry, bad joke. But for real, waking up for sunrise and then driving to the top of a mountain can get real chilly and Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park was no exception. I was wearing 2 pairs of pants, about 5 layers including a jacket on the top half of my body and gloves while waiting for the sun in the beginning of October. It’s totally worth it though. I love being first place and when you’re on top of Cadillac Mountain, you see the sunrise first before anyone else in the United States. YESSSSS.

But usually I’m hoping for a cloudy sunrise. The colors of the sun fill the clouds and that is my favorite time to take pictures. If it’s cloudy enough, it can make the whole sky turn a variety of colors. But it didn’t happen this day. The day that we designated to shoot sunrise from Cadillac Mountain was super clear. Not a single cloud in the sky. In this instance, I think it works though. All the rocks and textures on the bottom half of the image bring the interest in this photograph and the simplicity in the sky above just work well together. I love how there is a slight gradient but otherwise, I’m staring at that guy walking across the frame. Him being there really reminds me of what it was like being on top of the mountain. Pretty chilly but totally worth waking up early and capturing a great landscape image.

And as I was putting my camera back into my backpack, my tripod blew over and almost hit someone. Again. *face palm*

The settings for this image is 1/250th of a second at F/5.6 ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom.

So you know that one of Sue’s highlights from the trip was the Ocean Path. If I had to pick mine, it would have been the airplane tour we did on our last night in Maine with Acadia Air Tours. We booked the “airvan” for 35 minutes at sunset. It was perfect because the plane was actually built for sightseeing.

But if you have never been on a scenic airplane tour, I have 2 photo tips for you:

1. Constantly check your images. The beginning of the flight was perfect. I had the correct settings to make sure I wasn’t getting any motion blur in my images. But as the sun was setting towards the end of our flight, I did not realize how much the light had changed.  I should have bumped up my ISO or something because all the images towards the end of the flight were so blurry. I wasn’t upset or anything, I still had a rockin’ time on the flight. Just check your images as you go!

2. Zoom lens all the way. I brought my 70-200mm just in case, but didn’t feel like I needed it at all. We were only up 2000ft max in the air and I was still able to get pretty good zoom-age with my 28-70mm. I say zoom instead of a wide angle because there were times when there would be a lot of sun glare on the windows. Especially when we were faced a certain way, it was very difficult to avoid it. At least with the zoom lens, I was able to avoid those spots as opposed to a wide angle or something that would have captured it all. Sue was taking pics with her phone and said that the sun glare was really difficult to avoid the entire trip. All of her photos had at least a spot.

So if you’re in Acadia National Park and want to see it from a different point of view or even have a totally different experience, I’d highly recommend Acadia Air Tours. Bernard was our pilot and he was so nice. It was very easy to talk to him and I didn’t feel like I was bothering him with the million and one questions I was asking 🙂  And if you do book a trip with them, tell them I sent ya!

This was taken at the beginning of our flight and my camera settings for this image is 1/25th of a second at F5.6 ISO 640.

If you turned around from Bass Harbor Head Light and looked onto the water, this is the sunrise you would have seen. Heart eyes emoji!

It was the best sunrise we had seen all week! And again, I did not use my tripod to capture this, I was balancing my camera on the rocks. I really like doing that because it makes everything in the foreground look super big. A play on proportions if you will and a way to see things that you usually wouldn’t be able to see just with your naked eye.

And in the center of the water is a boui that had a bell in it. I loved it. It was so peaceful and calming to hear the bell ring whenever the wind blew it. At first I had no idea what was making the noise but once we figured it out it was like listening to church bells on a peaceful morning.

But we weren’t the only ones on the rocks savoring this sunrise. There were a few other photographers who were there and as morning went on, more and more people started to show up. At one point this guy screamed, “look a seal” and pointed to something that looked like it could have been a seal’s back sticking out of the water. I was so excited to see it because Sue and I had been looking for seals the whole week. I even pulled out my vlog camera to try to capture it. But when the “seal” didn’t move for 2 minutes and its back was still sticking out of the water, I could only assume that I was staring at a rock and missed the seal completely. Crying face emoji!

The settings for this image is 15 seconds at F5.6 ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

As mentioned in a past blog post, Sue and I spent our last sunrise in Maine at Bass Harbor Head Light of Acadia National Park. It was super fun. To get down to this spot to take this image, you had to climb down some seriously steep rocks. It was a little shady at some points. Another photographer who was already there before we arrived suggested I just leave my backpack at the top and just climb down with my wide angle and tripod. Ummm no thanks sir. I got this.

So with my backpack, tripod and jacket (that I didn’t need), I carefully got down to this very cool puddle. It was the best spot to see as much of the lighthouse as you could without having to stand on slippery rock. Seeing the reflection in the water was definietly an added bonus. Then the sun rose. It was an amazing sunrise that made everything turn a reddish orange. My favorite was seeing the light casted onto the lighthouse and making the rocks in the foreground look like massive boulders.

Thankfully, I had my camera bag and all my camera equipment with me and I was able to pull out my neutral density filter to  shoot this long exposure. With the light getting bright, it was harder to capture the color without a filter. The neutral density filter really allowed me to get that saturated color, especially in the reflection. Love how that turned out!

My camera settings for this image is 6 seconds at F4 and ISO 1000 with my 16-35mm wide angle lens and Sony A7II. Although I had my tripod with me, I did not use it for this image. My camera was stabilized on a rock so I could get as low as possible to get as much of the reflection as possible.