ANGELA B. PAN

So excited it’s Friday! YES!  This weekend is going to be so fun. I get to spend it with some of my best girlfriends and then Andrew and I will be going to New York. We’ll be gone for most of the week next week and it seriously couldn’t have come at a better time. Time to refresh and enjoy the views 🙂 If you have any photo recommendations, let me know. I’d love to get on to some rooftops while we’re there.

But speaking of views, I love this one. I photograph DC a lot. Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with new and original compositions. Either other people have done it before or I have. The key for me is to walk in different directions, in different environments, and go frequently. This is probably something I’ve captured before during cherry blossom season or something like that, but on this particular morning it was foggy. Taken just 20 minutes after this image, you can really see how drastically the sky changes. But with the fog and the green leaves on the trees, it looked completely different to me. It was very muted and so quite. I love that branch that looks like it’s slicing the Jefferson Memorial and it’s reflection in half. It’s probably my favorite part. At first I was unsure about the puddle on the sidewalk, if it was really necessary or if I even liked it. But the more I look at it, the more I felt like it tells the complete picture. It tells the whole story of what it was like being there. The entire morning I was dodging giant puddles like this all around the tidal basin.

My camera settings for this image was F/6.3 at 1/6th of a second and ISO 200 handheld.

Usually before I go to bed, I will check my phone for the weather. That pretty much determines if I’m going to wake up for sunrise or not. So last week I was in bed, messing around on my phone when I saw a fog advisory popped up. Music to my ears! I don’t know about where you live, but we don’t get many foggy days in the summer time. Our foggy days usually happen in the winter. So I was so excited to go to sleep so I could wake up to my favorite weather to shoot in.

I was up extra early, got ready and drove down to the tidal basin. I had a hard time even locating the Washington Monument while I was driving into the city. That’s how you know it’s going to be a fantastic day! When I got to my destination, I couldn’t help but smile. The way that the fog was playing with the Washington Monument lights was so cool. I’m glad I got there when I did because soon after I captured this, the color in the sky went away and it slowly got brighter out so the lights weren’t as visible. I posted this image up on my instagram the same day and a friend commented, “U captured an angel in your shot”. OMG it made me see this image in a whole new way. I love it.

What also makes me so happy is that I got emails, texts and messages asking if I saw the fog in the morning. Thank you for all of you who did that. I love that when you see fog you think of me – a thick cloud over the city. HAHA! I love it!

This image was shot at F4.1 at 1.3 seconds at ISO 320.

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?

If I’m ever feeling frustrated or less than confident about my work, I tend to just go to my cherry blossom images and then I feel all better. Theres something about them that makes me so happy. They are also easy to shoot. They have all the built in elements of composition right there. Line, shape, form, color, frame. You just have to be creative with it. Plus it’s really hard to take a bad picture when they’re at peak bloom. Anyone can do it.

Since I’ve been shooting the cherry blossoms for 7+ years now (I know, crazy right?), every year I challenge myself to create something different. Even though they are the same trees at the same Tidal Basin, they’re always look different. My favorite from last year was playing with framing and the year before that was incorporating people into the shot. This year was definietly the surprise element of fog and creating some images with the muted tones. I also had a great time playing with puddles since weather was a huge factor during this year’s festival. So I guess the point of this story is to challenge yourself. I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I take the same pictures as everyone else. I think it’s fine, but get those out of the way first. Move on from those and try to see something new. Change your perspective or walk in a different direction than everyone else. You’ll be surprised by what you see. Even if you’re used to always shooting on a tripod all the time, leave you tripod in the car this time and see what comes up. You may be happy with your results.

It’s not all shooting though. Once you’re in front of the computer, try a different way of processing or even cropping. This image was actually a horizontal image that I cropped to a vertical. I felt the composition was much strong like this but didn’t see it until I saw it on the big screen.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love shooting the fog. *but knowing me, I’ll probably tell you a 100 more times so just pretend it’s like your first time hearing it each time I tell you. You know that scene in Cinderella when all the birds and mice dress her up for the ball? It’s like a whirlwind of magic and then all of the sudden, she’s ready? That’s what it’s like shooting in the fog for me except I really hope there are no mice circling me and I pretty much look exactly the same as I did before it got all foggy. But what I mean by the Cinderella reference is that I feel like I’m being wrapped up in this warm magical cloud whenever I’m walking through the fog. It’s absolutely amazing. But what it does to the scenery is even better. Everything is so muted and reduced down to the bare minimum. If I could wake up everyday to fog, I’d be a happy photographer.

That’s why I was super excited when I saw the Jefferson Memorial like this. Just a tiny hint of reflection in the Tidal Basin water with a bit more of the top of the Jefferson Memorial and cherry blossom trees peaking through. You have just enough information to know where this is. You may think this is black and white, but it’s not. Just the way the scene presented itself. I was standing on Kutz Bridge literally in awe of it all.

This was shot on my tripod with camera settings F/9 at 1/30th of a second with ISO 200. Not much photoshop editing with this one either. The hardest part was getting rid of all those dust spots! Man am I the only one who can never keep a clean sensor?

Happy Monday! Can’t believe May is here! Did you guys check out the desktop and cell phone wallpapers? I do them every first of the month and love them.  Or if you haven’t yet, make sure to sign up for my newsletter. You’ll receive them straight into your inbox. What could be easier? If you use them, send me a screen shot. I have a folder on my desktop that’s called ‘happy’ and I put all of my favorite screenshots in there. If I’m ever feeling down or anything, I always look in that folder and feel uplifted. As you may have noticed I have tons of other folders on my desktop, maybe one day you’ll find out what they all are. Or if you’ve even be interested in that? It’s sort of the method behind all my madness. LOL.

This image was shot in 2013 when I was still using my Canon 5d Mark II. I recently found it on one of my old drives and been having a good time looking through some past images. I love this one with all the greens and different lines. I think my favorite part is the path leading off to the edge of the image. I still remember shooting this. It was on an early morning walk through the Blue Ridge Mountains. I was staying in a yert with some of my friends and a few of us decided to explore the surrounding area. I love how that foggy weather just lingers all morning in the mountains. Perfect mood lighting for a great, calm day.

My settings for this image was F7.1 at 1/20th of a second with ISO 200. I shot this with my 17-40mm wide angle lens on a tripod.

Wow that was a lot of links in just one blog post but in case you were wondering, I was a backstreet boys girl allllll the way. Still love you, Nick.