ANGELA B. PAN

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.

Happy Monday! I may be the only one who’s counting down the days but 6 more days til the release of Snap DC!!!!! I can’t hold back the excitement. You are going to love the guide book. It’s seriously everything I know about shooting in Washington all in one book. I don’t think there was anything more I could have added to it except for maybe this image! LOL

As a side note, there are images in Snap DC that you’ve never seen before! Images that I’ve never posted anywhere or anything. They’ve just been living on my computer so I’m excited for you to see those too!

This image was taken in December, way after the content of the book was complete. But I love it. Obviously it was taken super early in the morning. Not sure exactly the time, but this was the day that I woke up at 3:30am to shoot. See other images from this day here and here. It was so worth waking up that early too. I love how the image is pretty dark except for that gorgeous glow that’s coming up on the horizon. A few minutes later all the color was gone. So to say we were lucky to get the color is an understatement.

To be honest, it has been a while since I’ve seen a great sunrise in Washington but I’m not complaining. The weather has been fantastic lately. So even waking up super early (like 4:30a) on a regular non-spectacular sunrise day is worth it just to walk around and enjoy the outdoors. It just makes the day feel like it’s super long and I’m a huge fan of eating lunch and then taking a nap. You just sleep so much better on a full stomach. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 3.2 seconds at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens on a tripod.

Sometimes its good to just wonder.

The other day I was out by the Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial shooting the red tulips. They are so beautiful when they’re fully bloomed. Can you imagine just red on red flowers all lined up at sunrise? It’s like a dreammmm.

Typically when the sun has come up for a while, I’ll head back to my car. But on this day I was not ready. I didn’t want to go back. It was such a beautiful Sunday morning that I felt the need to go on a walk. So walking along the trail next to the George Washington Parkway, I found myself capturing the willow trees with the Washington Monument. I loved how linear everything was. I probably stopped at like 5 willow trees to use the branches as framing pieces. But then there was this one tree where the sun light was hitting it just right.

Wow, check out those leaves on top of the image. If that ain’t an image all on it’s own then I don’t know what is. But then mister bike guy came rolling past and made it even more perfect. I had no idea he was coming and once I saw him in my camera frame, I just kept on clicking, clicking, clicking.

LOL I waited a bit longer to see if I could recreate this moment with another biker. But I waited a good 10 minutes and no one showed up. I lady ran past but it just wasn’t the same. I don’t know what I was looking for with the other biker. I guess I just wanted options. Either way, it was the perfect Sunday morning walk.

My camera settings for this image is F/18 at 1/100th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7Ii and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

I know that it is not healthy, but a lot of times when I get sad, I just bottle it in. It’s hard for me to truly express how I’m feeling so instead of trying to explain myself or avoid a super long conversation, I’ll keep it to myself. It’s awful, I know and I need to stop.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling a little down and decided that I’d work on some images to hopefully make me forget about things. If I try to think back on it now, I have no idea what I was sad about. I just remember trying to evoke that emotion into this image I was working on. I did it by adding super dark tones into the shadows of this image but I knew the feeling would pass so I wanted to keep the cherry blossoms light. My FAVORITE part of the image is the little bit of light that’s hitting the front tree trunk. I think that glow is so special.

Well, I posted it on instagram and Vanessa suggested that my friend, Christopher and I should collab on this piece. If you’re not familiar with Christopher’s work he’s thehappiestswamponearth on instagram and he takes images and composites Disney characters in to them. You have to check it out if you like images that will make you smile.

We talked about it a little over dm and we both agreed that the image had a little bit of sadness in it. A couple of weeks later he sent me this!

OMG this image turned from sad to something so sweet and magical. I love, love, love the way that it turned out. Bambi and his mom look so precious in that little corner, I can’t even  express how happy this makes me. SEE I’m not good at expressing my feelings but I LOVE IT.

The camera settings for F5.0 at 1/30th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony a7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

What’s crazy is that I’m still not even close to done with all my cherry blossom images from this year! We had great bloom and I tried to go out as often as I could. You would say that I went pretty hard! Out of the two weeks, I think I only missed two sunrises. Even if it was really grey and windy, I still went out to see what I could find.

This was captured at the National Gallery of Art. The same time I took this image. But at this point the sun had already come up so there was a little more light available. If you’re not familiar with the gallery, then it may be a little difficult to see what’s really going on. The blue part is just the side of the building. The orange/warm part is the inside of a corner of the building. It goes in a little bit and it has it’s own special uplighting which is causing the warmer tones. I love how the cherry blossom branch just unifies everything in this image.  I have a couple more variations of this image that I still need to play around with but if you’ve been following my blog then you’ll know I love the contrast between warm and cool tones that this image is bringing. It would be really neat to see this as a series. So many ideas, so little time! One day.

And the cherry blossom vlog is coming! It’s been taking me a while because I finally downloaded Final Cut Pro X. I figured it was time to upgrade my video workflow as well. Thanks to my friend, Andy for the extra push! I love how creative you can get with the videos but it’s just taking me a while because I literally have to google every single thing that I want to do. It will be worth it though. Just taking time… apologies.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/25th of a second at ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.