ANGELA B. PAN

So this is the type of weather I would expect for October. When it’s cool and crisp outside but still indecisive enough so you can get these really moody sunrise/blue hour type images. Not the 80 degree weather we have been getting.

I took this image last year with my friend, Larry. Pretty much ever since we’ve met, we’ve made it an appoint to go to Shenandoah National Park to check out the fall foliage. I think last year was our third year in a row. But I remember this day VERY clearly. It was crazy, crazy foggy. So foggy to the point where we could not see much of the mountains. It was all just fog. It was even difficult to drive at some points. Obviously Larry and I got out of the car to capture a few images here and there but we soon decided that we needed to have a second trip in order to actually capture the type of images we wanted.

This particular image was taken along side of skyline drive. We parked the car and were pretty much the only ones in the park that early in the morning so it was easy to just get out and walk in the middle of the road. It could have been a little dangerous considering how foggy it actually was and the visibility was basically zero. But luckily, I was with Larry and we would look out for each other in case a car was coming. The yellow and red leaves in this image just make me so happy.

Looking forward to the leaves changing this year in the park and hopefully visiting again sometime soon with Larry.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/30th sec at ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and my 16-35mm wide angle zoom lens.

It’s October and it still feels like it is summer in the Washington DC area. The average temperatures have been high 70s and I still find myself walking around in shorts but believe me I’m ok with it! Totally not the cool temps that I’m used to for this time of year but my favorite part about it is that we’ve been waking up to some amazing fog these past few days.

For me, fog is a little more difficult to capture than a beautiful sunrise. I have apps and things to help me figure out if the sunrise is going to be nice but fog seems to be more elusive. It just seems to pop out of nowhere and it’s a huge surprise. So obviously, the past few times that I woke up to try to capture it, it wasn’t there. But the days I decide to “sleep in” (sleeping-in to me is waking up at 6a), it shows up when I’m out for our morning walk with Frankie. Its ok though because I actually have quite a few images of fog from earlier this year and even from a few years back.

This particular image was taken on Christmas day in 2015. It’s an image that I had wanted to capture for a while. I love how the fog is covering the bottom half of the Jefferson Memorial but you can still see the reflection in the water. It just gives off this creepy, halloween vibe and I love it.

Hopefully these foggy mornings will stay for a while so I have more opportunities to capture it in a different ways. By the way, this image is in color. It was just THAT grey out with all that fog.

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/50th sec at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom lens.

If you asked either me or Andrew what our favorite part of the road trip was, we would both say Dalsnibba. I think it was both of our favorites because it was so unexpected. Let me paint you a picture.

So driving from Flåm to Geiranger was our longest day of travel. Not to mention that the day before we had put in the wrong address in our GPS and ended up driving an unintended extra 2 hours. So when we left Flåm we made 100% sure we had the right address and I think we both just wanted to get to Geiranger as fast as possible so we didn’t have to spend another day in the car. Midway through our drive, Andrew and I stopped for lunch which was just a quick sandwich from the grocery store and we switched places driving. It was my turn to drive. Andrew was tired so he put his seat down and took a nap while I navigated the Norwegian roads.

It was rainy, it was foggy and hard to see even 5 feet ahead of me but I made it through all the downhill hairpin turns. We finally got to our cabin that we were staying at and decided to walk around the little town area. That’s when we saw a poster and sign for Dalsnibba. It looked beautiful so we took a picture of it and kept it moving.

The next morning we ate breakfast and went on a little hike. After the hike was over, we knew we still wanted to stay in Geiranger but didn’t know what to do. Our next destination was only 2 hours away so we wanted to make the most out of the the beautiful Geirangerfjord. Luckily we took a picture of that poster and decided that we should just go checkout what it was. When I put the address in the GPS, I realized it was probably off the road we drove in from, but couldn’t see it because it was so foggy. Holy COW. As soon as we started making our way up the mountain, my jaw immediately dropped. I could not believe that both of us had missed out on such amazing views! Like seriously, it was probably one of the most surprising and beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

This was taken on the very top of the mountain at the Dalsnibba skywalk. I used my 70-200mm to zoom in on the snow because I thought the low hanging clouds would bring in this extra moodiness. But I’m also in love with the texture. Man, I loved that long lens while on this trip. There are just so many details that would be difficult to see if it weren’t for that extra zoom.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/8000th ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm lens. 

Happy Labor Day! Hope everyone is having a great long weekend. Now that Labor Day is almost over would it be inappropriate to start counting down the days until Fall? Although you can’t tell, I took this image in the fall time a couple of years back. The fog had taken over the valley so much that you can’t even see anything but the beautiful curves of the mountains. I love the almost monochromatic blues in this image. It makes it so abstract and different from other images of the national park. Really looking forward to going back this year when the leaves start changing. I love Shenandoah during that time of year.

Speaking of traveling, this time next week Andrew and I will be on our way to our next travel destination. It’s kind of overwhelming since we just got back from California and planned this trip so last minute but either way I know it will be a great time. To be completely honest, we still haven’t figured everything out yet. It’s a place that neither one of us have been to and it will definietly be an adventure. Can’t wait to tell you about it soon.

In the meantime, let me know if you have in fall plans. I’m already loving all the pumpkin spiced things in the grocery stores but I have to be honest, the halloween and christmas stuff seem to be a TADDDDD too early though. LOL.  But so far my only fall plan is that there is a photowalk in the works! It’s going to be great and so different from the ones I’ve done before. So keep the middle-ish/end of October free. It’s going to be a good one!

My camera settings for this image is F13 at 1/20th of a second and ISO 125 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 24-105mm lens on a tripod.

While planning our trip to San Francisco, there were so many options of places to stay. A lot of really cute hotels and airbnbs that I could have chosen from but I ended up picking  an AirBNB in the Mission district. The reason why I chose to stay there as opposed to other places was because I really wanted to live more like a local. I figured there would be no better way to do that other than to live in the heart of the city.

What I mean by living like a local is just doing the things I would be doing at home, but in San Francisco. For example, Andrew and I were in the city for the weekend so we definietly wanted to check out some of the farmers markets, we also did a little errand shopping for last minute camping supplies and basically walked around different neighborhoods with no real plans. We purposely avoided some tourist locations since I had been there so many times or we knew it would be so crowded that it would not have been so enjoyable for either one of us.

Our location was perfect! It was easily accessible to so many great places in the San Francisco area but what I liked most about it was that there was plenty to see right in our own neighborhood. This image was taken from Bernal Heights Park, literally just a few blocks from our Airbnb. Andrew and I kinda got lost one day going to our burrito lunch spot and stumbled onto it. I kept it in the back of my mind for a “maybe this is something we could do later on” because the hill was STEEP and I was hungry.

It just so happened that our last full day in SF was foggy. I wanted to go somewhere we could try to get above the fog and hopefully capture some cool images so I suggested Bernal Heights. Although we couldn’t get above the fog, it was still really cool to see the views. I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a gluteus maximus workout because GEEEZZZ! HAHAHA.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/250th of a second at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom.

SURVIVEDDDDDDDD! I survived my first ever experience in camping. It was actually better than expected but more about that later.

A few little updates from even before we left for our trip to California:

I originally booked the trip so that I could spend more time with family. I have cousins in Palo Alto and in-laws in Lake Tahoe. But before I met up with them, I wanted to spend a little time in San Francisco just photographing the city. I was going to go by myself when very last minute, Andrew decided to join me on this whole adventure. I was so happy! This trip would not have been the same without him. When I’m talking about last minute, I’m talking we booked his flight 4 days before we left for the trip so I’m glad it all worked out.

Also I received my repaired A7II the day before I left for the trip. But funny enough it was also the same day that I was to receive my Sony A7III from borrowlenses.com. In effort to keep things simple and easy, I decided to just receive the A7III and ship it right back to Borrow Lenses. I didn’t even touch it. I just feel more comfortable with my own camera and I didn’t want to fumble around with a camera for my trip. I wanted it to be as easy and light as possible. Glad to have you back, baby *kissy face*

Last but not least, I got some of the most exciting news ever. Click here if you didn’t read my blog post from Friday. I still can’t believe I have prints and postcards in the bookstores of the National Mall. Please someone come and pinch me to make sure this is real!

This image was taken one more from Baker Beach, San Francisco, California. It’s funny because it was not foggy during the sunrise but as the day went on, it got foggier and foggier. This image was probably taken around 7:30a. We stopped by Baker Beach on our way to the farmers market. Andrew’s obsessed with the fruit in California 🙂 So am I. My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/640th of a second at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom.