ANGELA B. PAN

I need to start marking my calendars better because I feel like I’m always missing the moon phases. Last week there was an amazingly beautiful full moon rise and I found all about it on social media. It’s all good though because I would not have been able to capture it on the best day to see it but I still would have like to know. Lol.

My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail or something. So I went out the next morning way before sunrise to photograph the full moon setting and it was still so beautiful.

In my head I wanted to capture the moon in the corner of the Lincoln Memorial so I started off by the WWII Memorial. I figured the opposite end of the reflecting pool may be a good place to start and probably where I’d stand the entire time. After about 10 minutes I got bored so I started walking along the edge of the pool to see what if there was anything more to offer. The more I walked the more I realized all the compositions I was missing by just standing at the reflecting pool edge. I’ve learned my lesson though. Next time I want to photograph the moonset, I need to start at the Lincoln Memorial and move backwards.

This image was taken when I finally arrived at the Lincoln Memorial. As you can see, I was so close to it that it almost looks like the moon is almost ready to dip below the horizon. Had I started here earlier, then it would have probably been a little more interesting and something more of what I had in mind. Regardless, I still like it 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/500th sec at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm ultra zoom lens.

The other day I went out on clear morning to go photograph the reflecting pool and Lincoln Memorial. The sunrise wasn’t great so I actually spent most of my time inside the Memorial. I love that time of day when the sun rises a little bit above the horizon and the whole memorial is glowing orange. It may only last 15-20 minutes but that whole time is seriously magical.

I brought this reflective prism with me so I thought I’d test it out and see what it looked like. It took a little while for me to figure out compositions I liked but overall I love the final look. So in order to capture something different I held the prism up to my lens, pretty much right next to it and kept turning it around and trying new things to come up with these. It definietly makes you see the Lincoln Memorial in a whole new perspective now. What do you think about them? What do you think about using props in your images in general? I don’t know if I have ever really been a big fan of them before but this prism is really making me think twice about it. It just adds an extra element of interest to a scene that has been photographed a million times.

Also, which one is your favorite?

My camera settings for all these images are the same. They were photographed at F5.6 1/50th sec at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

I’m still on the hunt for some fall colors in the Washington DC area but every time I walk out of the house it’s been a little disappointing. It’s so green still! According to this map by Vox, we should be peaking this week. I don’t see that happening anytime soon so I went to the local authority on this topic, Capital Weather Gang. Good news: CWG says that we’re still a week or two away, but I’m ready now. Hopefully that’s true and we get some nice colors soon.

So to prepare for the color change, I started brainstorming a list of places to go to photograph the fall colors in the Washington DC area and wanted to share it with you. Let me know if I’ve missed anything or if you have any other ideas. I want to keep this list growing to have it for future reference:

• Rock Creek Park: boulder bridge
• Great Falls Park/ Scotts Run Park
• Shenandoah Skyline drive
• Arlington National Cemetery
• National Arboretum 
• Dumbarton Oaks
• Manassas Battlefields 
• Constitution Gardens
• Tidal Basin
• Harpers Ferry

I actually wrote a guide to Autumn in DC a couple of years ago. Looks like this needs some major updating. I’ll be sure to do so soon!

But how great would it be if these weeping willow trees changed color? I think that would be amazingly beautiful! I captured this image last week when I was super early for sunrise. I met up with my friend, Zack and we were on the hunt to find cool places to go to capture the change. These particular trees are in Constitution Gardens and it has always been a favorite. Although the willow trees don’t change color, the trees surrounding the pond do. It’s the perfect place to go for a little bit of quiet in a busy city.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/125th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Always on the hunt for new compositions around the National Mall, I found this one a while ago. However it was one of those things where I couldn’t get it right and wanted to try again until I came out with something I was happy with. Last week I was a bit early for sunrise so I thought I would take my time walking around Kutz bridge. It was about 6a (sunrise is close to 7:30a now!) so there were plenty of people driving around. I figured this was the perfect opportunity to try some cool long exposures.

I started off on top of the grail. You can’t tell but you can get some pretty cool reflections off of it from the tail lights as the cars drive past. The reflections were cool but I still wasn’t happy with the composition. That image will probably be one of those that I go back to and try again. So I decided to get down a little lower and actually put my camera on the ground to capture the light trails. This turned out so much better. I love how the grail is dividing the image in to two parts but the way that the clouds have formed and the angle of the car lights make it all look like everything is pointing to the center of the image. It is such a yin yang type photo with the dark shadows on the left and bright light from the street lamp on the right.

One of my favorite things about the Sony cameras is that you can tilt up your LCD screen so it’s much easier to see what your camera is seeing without having to bend all the way over.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 6 seconds at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

I captured this image earlier in the summer. I remember being out taking pictures just because I wanted to, not because I knew it was going to be a good sunrise. In fact, I think I remember it raining a little bit after I created this image and being surprised that there was even any color at all. The whole mood was very dark and grey. I was grateful to have gotten this 10 minutes of color because it turned out AMAZING!

My favorite part of the image is that little cloudy-ness you see on the bottom of the image. I don’t remember what that’s from? Is it a hard core cloud reflection? Or some moldy-ness from the reflecting pool? I dunno. Either way, I think it looks really cool and I love how it’s breaking up the reflection to make it look a little different.

Also the birds! They’re so teeny tiny in the image. Can you even see them? At first I thought it was a whole bunch of dust spots that I would have to get rid of, but when I zoomed in on them it was actually it’s just a whole bunch of birds 🙂 A photo trip that lasted only 20 minutes but totally worth the early morning wake up call 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/125th sec at ISO 1600 with my Sony A7II 70-200mm zoom lens. I did not have my tripod with me this morning so the ISO had to be bumped up to help compensate. I’ve also noticed that shooting with a long lens may cause some extra shake. So just to be sure I can capture a super sharp image, I’ll usually bump up my ISO a lot. Plus it was super cloudy, so you know… Gotta do what you gotta do to get the shot!

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.