ANGELA B. PAN

Soon after this image was taken, this lady got yelled at for letting her dog go into the water. LOL! Aw man!

It was literally picture perfect. This girl was just relaxin’, having a great time with her dog and that awesome hat she was wearing. The dog was having a blast swimming into the middle of the water and fetching the stick. The snow capped mountains, beautiful weather, both of them were loving life. It was seriously like a scene straight out of a movie. But after getting yelled at, the park service woman told them about another body of water that was close by that dogs were allowed to swim in – so it was all good by the end of the day 🙂

But looking at this image, it still gives me that calm/relaxing feeling that I never want to end. Next time I visit Colorado, I definietly want to make sure we spend more time in Aspen. It looked like such a cute little town with beautiful scenery. Best part is that Maroon Bells is just 15 minutes away from the town. I’d love to capture it at sunrise or sunset. That would make me so happy.

A big shout out to photography for teaching me to love the outdoors.  I don’t think I would have been able to appreciate it as much as I do now if it weren’t for photo. It has allowed me to go to places I would have never imagined and meet some amazing people along the way. Some of my most precious memories have been from exploring the outdoors and trying to capture its beauty.

My camera settings for this image is F16 at 1/400th of a second ISO 200. I pulled out my 16-35mm wide angle to make sure I captured the entire scene.

Out of all the places that we went to on our trip to Colorado and Utah, Maroon Bells was my absolute favvvvorite. I loved it so much for many reasons. First of all, the walk was super short from the parking lot to this point of view. I’m not sure why that stands out so much in my mind, but it was awesome. Then once you actually see this view, you can’t help but to say ‘WOW’. I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to shoot this during the autumn time when all the leaves are changing. OR during golden hour. OMG I’d be the happiest person in the world. And if you put those two things together… mind blown. Unfortunately, we only had about an hour here before we were off to our next location. But we’ll be back soon and I’ll be sure to spend some extra time in Aspen just for this park.

But if you asked me what was my favorite moment of this trip, it was the simplest thing. We were walking around the lake and Andrew and I were talking about what it’d be like to swim in the water. Then we started wondering about how cold the water actually was. So we dipped our fingers in and the moment my finger tips touched the water was one of my most treasured memories. The water was just so crisp and refreshing feeling. I don’t know, it was such a simple act but it really made me feel connected to the environment.

We also saw 3 more deer in the parking lot of Maroon Bells. Deers seem to be everywhere in Colorado! I mean we have some in VA but not like how it is there. They move in herds!! But that’s not the deer story I was talking about in yesterday’s blog post 🙂 Just a little bit longer for that story 🙂 Hehe.

Shout out to Jason for telling me about this place.