ANGELA B. PAN

Last week, I had THE best rooftop experiences O F M Y L I F E !

Thank you so much to Albert for inviting me to Rosslyn, Virginia where they were holding a cocktail reception celebrating Rosslyn’s newest development Central Place. Central place is a high-rise apartment building and its absolutely GORGEOUS. Inside and out. For the most part we were on the 6th floor lounge area enjoying the cocktails when around sunset Albert, Anna, Lindsey and I asked if we could be escorted upstairs to one of the top levels. This is the view from the 26th floor lounge. Yes! This apartment complex has 2 lounge areas, a pool with Miami FL vibes, and seems super dog friendly. All huge pluses for me.

My jaw dropped as soon as we went to the outdoor patio. Never in my LIFE have I seen a view with all four landmarks in one shot. It’s the Jefferson Memorial on the very right, the Lincoln, Washington Monument and then the Capitol in the back left side. It was absolutely breathtaking. I really just wanted to claim a little corner of that space and live there forever. I feel like I could watch this view from sunrise all the way to dawn.

Luckily we had some rain earlier in the day and the sun came out just in time to create these cotton candy skies. I’m pretty sure the camera gods knew I’d be taking pictures at the best view ever so I appreciate them looking out! Either way, I don’t think anyone could ever take a bad picture from this view point.

I’m also super happy that I had my 70-200mm with me. It was an amazing way to break in the new lens!

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/50th of a second ISO 400 on my Sony a7II handheld.

This past weekend was absolutely amazing for so many reasons. But most of all it was for the photowalk that happened Saturday at the Tidal Basin. Thank you so much to IGDC for hosting. I had the time of my life! Thank you to my friends who came out but also the new ones I met that evening. The weather was cloudy, the water levels were extremely high (the highest I’ve ever seen), but it seemed like everyone came out with amazing pictures. So before I share some of my own, I wanted to highlight some of my favorites from the walk. If you’d like to see more of what everyone created, check out #igdcsnapdc on instagram.

There were so many great images to choose from but here are a few of my favorites:

The beginning of our walk started at the Jefferson Memorial and we were greeted by prom! I love the way you captured this, @ciarasandborg

@pootie_ting, the framing in this is incredible!

@jane_connors, I’m so glad you captured the heron under the cherry blossom trees. This turned out fantastic!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi_5HH_Al5y/?taken-by=jane_connors

So many birds! But I love how they are framing the Jefferson Memorial. Stunning capture, @virginia.cheng

LOL talk about perfect timing, @mica4life. This makes me smile 🙂

The sky turned moody very quickly after sunset. This is so great, @dcrooks_us

And after the photowalk officially ended, the Washington Monument decided to light up the sky. This is AH-MAZING @zackowicz

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjAmY4sAh1S/?taken-by=zackowicz

Thanks again for those who walked! I appreciate you spending your Saturday evening with me. I hope you had a great time but most importantly felt inspired to take more pictures around the National Mall.

Snap DC is officially released on Amazon. If you haven’t already, check it out. It’s available in paperback or kindle and I hope you love it!

While I was busy storm chasing the other day, I didn’t even notice the sunset that was happening. I figured with so much rain, cloudiness and overall darkness going on that we weren’t even going to get a sunset. I was totally wrong. It was this incredibly glowing pink, orange, purple color. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anything like it and was completely shocked when I did. Man at least I saw it for the last 5 minutes because I would have been real upset if I missed it.

I was standing in between the columns when I noticed the glow out of the corner of my left eye. I scrambled inside the memorial because I knew the only way to shoot with a cool foreground and not stand in the rain was to shoot the Jefferson statue. I am so glad there are little openings all the way around the memorial because I love the way this image turned out. The reflection on the marble floor is super nice too. I consciously made an effort to include that in the image while I was shooting.

The sunset lasted about 5 minutes (for me at least) and then I went right back to my spot in between the columns to shoot the lightning. Overall it was a great night for photography and I am so glad I was able to go out.

Funny though, the first song that I heard on the radio when I got back into my car was Lightning Crashes by Live. That song brings back so many childhood memories for me. LOL. Mostly of me sneaking into my brothers room and listening to his cd collection.

The settings for this image is F5.6 at 0.4 seconds at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm and a tripod.

This week has been kinda crazy, weather wise. During the day it is hot and humid and at night time we’ll get these awesome lightning storms. In fact, it was so bad on Tuesday morning that it woke me up from my sleep around 3a. Craziness.

To be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention to the weather like I should have. I have been busy with Snap DC and things that I didn’t think these storms were as intense as they actually are. Holy cow was I wrong. Around 6p on Monday I was getting ready to go workout when this loud alarm started going off on my phone. It was a tornado warning. It took me about 20 minutes to change out of my gym clothes into some long pants and long sleeves, eat dinner and I was out the door! I really didn’t even hesitate to leave the house because I knew I’d get some awesome images.

I made my way over to the Jefferson Memorial. Actually, no. I ran to the Jefferson Memorial from my car and was soaked head to toe. The winds were so strong that it actually got all my clothes inside my jacket soaking wet. Once I actually stepped into the memorial it was like it was still raining because all the wind was blowing the rain inside. CRAZYYYYY….. fun.

Once the wind settled down I was able to set up my tripod in between two columns and started shooting. I was probably out there for 2 hours and this was the best image I could come up with. I definietly would have considered this storm a practice run and it is getting me even more excited for the summer. I can’t wait!

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at 0.3 seconds ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens on a tripod.

A couple of weeks ago, I announced the first photowalk that I’ll be hosting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still on and would love to see you all out there but now there’s another photowalk opportunity that’s coming up even sooner. This Saturday evening!

Thank you so much to my friends at IGDC for helping me put this photowalk together. It will be Saturday, May 19th at 6p and we meet on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial. Everyone is welcome! I’ll also be giving away a few copies of Snap DC for the first to arrive. If you’ve never been to a photowalk before I encourage you to say hello to someone you’ve never met. It’s such a great way to meet like-minded people and do something you both enjoy doing. I’ve met so many great friends through the IGDC community. I’m so grateful for their support and can’t be more honored to be photowalk-ing with them. The photowalk is free, super casual, and we’ll be walking around the Tidal Basin until about sunset. Hope you can make it!

This image was taken last week at sunset. The same day as the epic rainbow but about 30 minutes afterward that image was made. Hopefully we’ll get another beautiful sky like this one on the walk. You know one of my favorite things about shooting the Tidal Basin is definietly the reflection that you get in the water. I love how in this image the Jefferson Memorial columns look so wavy. Well definitely be talking about reflections and other photo ideas on the walk so please join us if you can!

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/50th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II handheld. As a side note, this is definietly cherry blossom inspired 🙂

Yesterday was a great day. The kind of day where you go out and get ice cream to celebrate – Dairy Queen vanilla soft serve and dipped in chocolate to be exact. So after Andrew and I basically inhaled our ice cream we set off to go to the Tidal Basin for a little walk around at sunset.

First of all, it was DEFINIETLY tour bus season. I don’t think I have seen so many people at the National Mall at one time. It was kind of insane. But that didn’t even matter because as soon as we parked, I noticed this amazingly bright rainbow. I walked over to the pedestrian bridge as fast as I could and saw how the rainbow was coming right out of the Jefferson Memorial. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything so perfect. Andrew ran to the bathroom while I was having the time of my life capturing the rainbow. I didn’t want to move because I was afraid the rainbow would fade away but I saw it for a good 20 minutes before it started disappearing in the clouds.

It was all good because the sunset that followed the rainbow was equally as cool. It’s been a while since we had such great weather conditions. Thank you lightning storm that passed earlier in the day. But I am so grateful for that rainbow and sunset. It made for the perfect ending to an already great day. I won’t even mention the gummy bears we got on our way back home. LOL

Have a great weekend everyone, especially to all the mamas out there. I appreciate you! Special shout out to my mom. The more I grow up, the more I see you in me. It’s especially evident when I look in the mirror. OMG.

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/125th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.