ANGELA B. PAN

This is probably one of my favorite views ever of the National Mall. It’s right when you’ve reached the top of the Lincoln Memorial steps and turn around to see behind you. There’s just something about the columns framing the Washington Monument that makes me so happy. It was odd though, for a Sunday morning, a weekend morning, there was hardly anyone out. Usually you’ll see at least runners and small groups of people here or there. But I’m glad this lady was there. Her red shirt pops perfectly as she’s taking her own photograph.

This is the second image in the five images that I’ll be posting this week, encouraging photographers to walk around when they’re out taking pictures. You’ll never know what images you’re missing by staying in one place the whole time. The first image was right on the Lincoln steps leading up to this image. I really believe that if you keep walking around and try new compositions you’ll find new ones that you may have never seen before and probably end up really loving.

This five day series is coming because Andrew and I are in Norway! We landed in Bergen yesterday and spent the afternoon exploring the city. Today we’re headed to Flåm which marks the beginning of our road trip. Hopefully we’ll get to ride the railway system. Thank you to everyone who has suggested it. I am so looking forward to seeing more of this country. Planning the trip was so fun, I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like to experience it. I’ll be adding pictures and videos to my instagram stories so definietly follow along if you’re not already.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/80th of a second at ISO 2000 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.

Since I’ll be away this week, I thought it would be kinda cool to pre schedule these blog posts to illustrate the importances of moving your feet while shooting. What I mean is that photographers can get so comfortable when they find one composition that they end up staying in that same exact spot for the entire sunrise, sunset or whatever period of time. To me, there’s little worse than coming home and finding a whole memory card full of the exact same images. I personally feel like I didn’t push myself enough or I could have missed an opportunity. Even something as simple as turning around and seeing what’s going on behind you can even lead to a more interesting image.

So everyday this week there will be a new image but they were all taken within an hour of each other. I would stop at each place for about 10 minutes or so. However long I felt was necessary and then kept it moving. I walked from the edge of the reflecting pool to the center to the other side of the reflecting pool. I would walk up and down the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial steps. And even go back down to the reflecting pool when I saw something cool happening over there. None of the images will be the same but all taken in the same area. I hope that you’ll find inspiration from this and keep your feet moving!

This particular image is one of the very first ones I was happy with this Sunday morning. Despite what you may think it wasn’t taken at the reflecting pool either. It was on the Lincoln Memorial steps. There just happened to be this beautiful puddle right and I stood behind it to capture the Washington Monument. I think my favorite part of this image is the little gap you see in between the trees and the reflection. I think it makes it much more interesting than if it were just a perfectly symmetrical image. The colors ain’t bad either 😉

My camera settings for this image is F11 at 1/40th of a second at ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.

I went out to take pictures this past weekend on a whim. No real plans, I didn’t even know if the sunrise was going to be good or not. I just missed shooting. I felt like it had been a while since I had been because the week before I didn’t have a chance to go out at all. So I went out Saturday morning to one of my favorite places in the world, the Lincoln Memorial. The weekends are so fun at the memorial. This may sound weird but its a totally different vibe. There are so many more people who are out enjoying the sunrise with you and since it’s a weekend, they have the time to just sit and enjoy. Of course there are still runners and bikers, but there are just more people in general sitting on the steps and enjoying life.

So with my 70-200mm in hand, I thought I would photograph the memorial instead of the sunrise. The sunrise wasn’t that great anyways…

Looking at this image makes me so happy. Happy because the two girls there are obviously having a great time so early in the morning. At this point I think it was about 6a. But I also like how President Lincoln is behind them sort of watching over them. Usually when I’m out taking pictures I think about photographing in 3’s. 3 points, 3 people, 3 whatevers. So I when I captured this image I liked how that rule of 3’s still applied. The third being President Lincoln.  A little different from the other two, but I still think it works!

Plus their matching outfits make it even better!

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/640th of a second at ISO 800 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

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This was totally an experiment but I really like the way it turned out. The car trails are so dynamic that I kinda wish that I captured it horizontally, instead of vertically. That way they would have taken up more space in the image but I had no idea how cool it was going to be.

I captured this on a Friday morning so luckily there were quite a few cars driving around at 5:30a. I saw a whole line of them waiting to turn so I propped my camera down and just waited for the green light. I didn’t spend much time trying to capture other exposures but this was definietly the best one. The key was to wait for them to turn and drive past you while standing in the median. But I think one of the coolest parts about this image is that you can see the red, yellow and green lights.

Looking at it again, I already have new ideas of how I could improve upon this image. That’s one of my favorite parts about daily blogging. It constantly pushes me to create new images and talk about them once they are complete. Even if I’m not totally happy with them, I see each of these posts as kind like a sketch book where I can go back and see some of my older images and improve. But OMG, googling my images from years ago, like 5 or even 7 years ago. My images have changed sooo much. It’s kind of funny (but also hurts my eyes in a way too LOL). So grateful to be growing and falling in love with my images over and over again.

My camera settings for this image is F18 at 25 seconds ISO 400 with my Canon 5D Mark II and my 17-40mm wide angle lens.