ANGELA B. PAN

Flew in last night from my trip out west. Since I preschedule these blog posts, I can’t tell what happened yet because I don’t actually know. I do know that I had a very good time though.

But if you’re reading this, it means I survived. Actually, that may be a bit early. If you see a blog post from me tomorrow, that means I survived because on this trip, I went camping for the very first time ever in life. Leading up to the event, I was nervous. I do consider myself an adventurous/try anything at least once type of person, but camping was something that has not been very high on my priority list. I mean, sleeping outside with bugs does not sound like my idea of a good time. But we camped in Lake Tahoe! And based on the images that I’ve seen, Lake Tahoe is amazingly beautiful. So I’ll let you know how it went soon. Hopefully.

In the meantime, I love coming home and seeing this view. I used to always fly in and out of Dulles Airport which is in Virginia. But something just clicked in my head where in the past few trips I’ve taken, I made it a point to fly in and out of Regan National. I personally think the airport itself is nicer, but if you’re sitting on the correct side of the plane you get cool views like this. I’m lucky that I live pretty much in the middle of the two so while booking a trip, I can be flexible. But nothing feels more like home when you’re driving and you see the Washington Monument in the rear view mirror 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/8th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

I received some of the most exciting news ever right before I left for my trip to California. It’s so exciting that I still can’t believe it’s true.

I have 8×10″ prints and postcards selling in all 5 of the bookstores in the National Mall!!! AHHHH!

I’ve actually known about it for a while. Maybe since October 2017. But I did not know when it was actually going to happen. At first it was expected to come out in March but March came and gone and it wasn’t there yet. So the longer it got delayed, the more I questioned if it was actually going to happen.

So now that it’s August, I could not be more thrilled. As soon as I got word that they were in the stores, I jumped around the house for 2 hours. There’s no way to sit still after news like that. But by the time I found out they were in the stores, they had already been there for a week. Within that week, they had almost sold out of all the postcards and had already made an order to reprint them. Wow. Can someone seriously pinch me?

I asked my friend, Andy, to meet me at the National Mall to help me film my reaction. If you’re interested in watching, click here. He actually had no idea why we were there so it was fun seeing his reaction too!

If you’re ever in the National Mall, please check them out. Some of the proceeds of the prints and postcards go back to the National Mall to help preserve and maintain our beautiful monuments. A really amazing cause that’s a win-win for everyone!

Special thanks to the National Mall for using my images and for being so beautiful. And shoutout to Andy for being so awesome!

Thank you all so much for your amazing feedback on Snap DC. I think I check amazon almost everyday just to read the reviews. They make me so happy and I’m so glad everyone is getting so much value out of the book. If you haven’t already, sign up for Snap DC’s newsletter list. I just updated it so that you’ll receive a free photo itinerary for a 1, 3 or 5 day trip to Washington DC. It really is the perfect supplement to the book and it was so much fun to create.

Obviously, the Jefferson memorial and the tidal basin are in the book. Lately, the tidal basin has been my go to place to go shoot. I love the reflections but there’s always something interesting to photograph there. If you look close enough at this image, you can see the bus loads of people visiting the memorial. This was taken around sunset so the memorial is packed with tourists. In the book, I discuss my favorite places to photograph at the tidal basin including the spot where I was standing to take this image. Andrew and I were the only ones there and to be honest, I probably got the better image of the memorial than anyone who was that close to it.

So to find out all the knowledge I have accumulated throughout my years of photographing the Mall and surrounding areas of Washington DC and check out the book and don’t forget to download the itineraries! I’m pretty sure the most frequently asked question I get on social media is, “did I move to the Mall?” The answer is no, but it would be so much easier if I did 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/250th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

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.

I’ve consistently been writing this blog for years. I love doing it but from time to time I feel like I’ve run out of things to say and I’ll start making things up. LOL.  I figured that’s not the right way to do it.  So I’m hoping I could get your feedback. I figured I could get a list going and it would help me create more content of things you would like to see.

If you have just 10 minutes, I’d really appreciate if you could drop me a line and help me answer some of these questions:

What brought you to this blog in the first place? How did you find me?
Are you a photographer? Tell me about your photo background. Or are you a travel kinda person and just here for the images? If so, tell me about your travels!
Is there anything that I can help you with? Whether it’s improving your photography, finding places in Washington DC to photograph, etc?
What keeps you coming back to the blog?

Thank you in advance for any feedback you can provide me. Feel free to send me an email: [email protected] or hit me up on any of my social medias: @abpanphoto or anything! I’m pretty much everywhere.

As for this image, I took it a couple of months ago with my friend, Christa. I remember it being a really cold evening but that didn’t stop us from photographing the sunset. As soon as I stepped out on this terrace, I fell in love with the location. It’s just such a unique point of view of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial. I honestly never realized how close Regan National Airport is to the National Mall. So awesome!

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 0.4 seconds at ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm lens.