ANGELA B. PAN

I have to tell you something.

I have been working on 2018 Dynamic DC Calendar for the past few weeks and it’s going to be so awesome. I don’t know why but I’m so excited about this one. Next year’s calendar is going to be better than ever. Pre-sale announcement will be coming out soon. If you’re planning on getting one, I’d suggest to get it at that time. There is only a limited amount and they usually go pretty quickly. (Especially since my parents always order a whole bunch. Thanks mom and dad!!!) So be on the look out for that and make some space on your wall. It’s gonna be outstanding!

Unfortunately, this image is not in the calendar this year. I tried my best to get a variety of sunrise/sunset images but also colorful ones, night sky ones, etc. But maybe next year….

I love this fountain. It so beautiful and whenever I’m driving by or stopped to take pictures, there’s hardly anyone around. I have no idea why. It seems like such a cute little park with beautiful landscaping and flowers that everyone would want to hangout at. It sort of reminds me of being in France. Do you feel like that? Anyways, the sculptor who designed this is also known for designing the Statue of Liberty. Isn’t that so cool? I could definietly seem some similarities between the two. In case you were interested, the designer’s name is Fréderic Auguste Bartholdi. The fountain used to be in Philadelphia but I’m glad it found it’s way to DC’s US Botanical Garden.

The settings for this image is F/9 for 30 seconds at ISO 50. My favorite part of the image is seeing all the little swirls the water creates. It’s so interesting to follow the pattern all around the image.

After settling into our AirBNB, Andrew and I decided to take Frankie on a walk around our neighborhood to see if there were any good places to eat dinner. We found this one amazing Italian restaurant and luckily they had this really cute outdoor patio so we could bring Frankie too. The food was so good. OMG. I had this mushroom pasta dish, it was so good that I’m still thinking about it now. Anyways….

Frankie was obviously tired from the drive, all the walking around and watching us eat delicious food. We were originally going to take him to Brooklyn Bridge Park but thought he wasn’t going to be able to make it. So we took him back to the AirBNB and made our way over. It’s a good thing he didn’t come cuz we ended up walking EVERYWHERE. Somehow, we even ended up on the Brooklyn Bridge. We’ve both walked it before, but this time was different because it was at night. I was having a ball with all the long exposures and trying to come up with creative compositions. In the end, I really enjoyed this one. I like how you can still see a hint of all the yellow taxis driving by but also the Manhattan skyline.

We didn’t walk across the whole bridge though. We only made it halfway. We figured if we walked the whole way, than that would have meant that we would have had to walk all the way back too. So this was taken from the middle-ish area of the bridge. HAHA

My camera settings for this image was F4.0 at 1.3 seconds ISO 400 handheld – but mostly just using the railings and things to steady the camera. I wish I had a steady enough hand to hold the camera that still for 1.3 seconds. HA!

I’ve lived in Northern Virginia my whole life. I was born in Fairfax hospital and only time I left was when I went to college in Richmond, VA. But I’m not sure how much that really counts because I was back in NoVA every weekend anyways. So I’ve basically lived here my entire life and I remember all the things that used to be here. Like, who remembers when there used to be that big Best store? or when there was no Mosaic District and it was just a huge Multiplex Movie Theater? So seeing all these new buildings pop out of no where and new transient stations being built is so crazy to me, especially in the Tyson’s Corner/McLean area. That place has changed so much, but I think it’s all for the better. I love how the new Silver Line on the Metro will go directly to Dulles Airport. It will make it so much more convient in the future.

So just for fun, I thought it’d be cool to see what it’d look like from the Greensboro Metro Station at sunset. I’ve never been on the Silver Line before but I knew this had to be a crazy, cool view. I was right!! How awesome is that? Shout out to the Wendy’s that’s right next to this metro station. That was the first place I drove to on my own once I got my drivers license. LOL!

But there’s still one view that I want to get. I think the BEST view is that from 495 from Maryland going into Virginia. How do I stand safely on the highway to capture that view? Or is there another way? If you’re from the area, you know what I’m talking about! Man, the skyline has changed soo much it’s crazyyy and it’s only going to change more as the years go on.

Rarely do I shoot night time images. I love them for the same reasons as I love shooting sunrise. It’s the time of day that you’re usually by yourself. You feel the freedom to just wonder (with a good flashlight). Everything is usually so still and quite. But there’s one good reason that I don’t shoot it that often. It’s because I’m such a morning person now that staying up late is so difficult for me. LOL. For the same reasons of why I hear people who never shoot sunrise, is the same reason why I hardly shoot nigh time. Especially the time of night where you can really see the stars shining bright, usually around 2 or 3am. Man, oh man do I wish you could sleep all during the day, wake up in time for sunset and stay up all night til sunrise and be able to function like a normal human being that way. In other words, why can’t the world just revolve around my photography schedule? Just kidding. Not really, but kind of.

This was shot in Davenport, California at Shark Fin Cove. A beautiful location in the middle of the night or during the day. Now that Andrew and I are on our trip together, I’m hoping to shoot some more night time images. Nothing is guaranteed because we are planning on some cool stuff during the day too. Hopefully I can squeeze in a cat nap so we can take some night images like this. Nothing like sitting in the middle of no where with a whole bunch of stars lighting your path.

Since I shot this on a Rokinon 14mm lens, I am not able to see what my aperture setting was. I’m assuming it was as wide as I could get it at 2.8 but I know for sure that it was 8 seconds long at ISO 2000.

Another one from last year. For some reason, I never thought to post it. Strange, huh? This was taken while I was at the Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Va. There were a lot of lightning strikes over in DC and it was the perfect place to be to capture it all without getting wet 🙂 I never posted it because I always thought the original image looked like it was so far away. Never had I thought to crop it. But once I did, it totally changed the perspective. Here’s the original with no editing at all:

Can’t you see how that one little edit can make such a difference? I probably have at least 10 more of these kind of shots from this day that if I did some fancy cropping to it, it’d turned out the way I’d like. It’s funny how a gem like this could really be looked over immediately.

So here are my camera settings: F5.6 at 1/15th of a second at ISO 400. I’v heard of other photographers leaving their shutter open for a couple of seconds in order to capture lightning images like this. I’ve never had such luck. I think I just got real lucky because there was lightning going off every minute at least! I had plenty of opportunities to time it and make sure I captured something good and quick. The tricky part of lightning is that it’s so quick and it’s such a big burst of light.

Here are a few tips: 
– Definietly shoot on a tripod with a remote but also be very careful if your shooting with a metal tripod.
– Try to shoot with a wide angle. Lightning moves and it’s better to shoot wide and then crop in if need be
– Shooting at night time will give you the best results

If you have any other questions about shooting lightning, let me know. I think next time we get some good lightning in the DC area, I’ll make a video for you to go more in-depth.

Ya’ll know that I don’t shoot a lot of portraits. I love looking at them but I’m just more of an exploration person where I’d rather be out walking around and looking at stuff than to be tied down to just one subject. When I was first getting into photography, I was totally against having people in my landscapes. I just wanted the scenery to speak for itself but lately I’ve been changing my mind. Sometimes I think it’s cool to have people in your shots to show scale. Other times I think people make for some happy accidents and they really add to the image. In this particular case, I couldn’t help but capture this image. That’s my friend, Zack. While we were waiting for lightning (which never came), he made it appoint to show us the cool lighting that the Lincoln Memorial has to illuminate it at night. I’ve noticed it before, but never really ‘looked’ at it either. Then, in the middle of the rain, Zack jumped down to show us that it’s even cooler than what I thought it was. He’s crazy though. He stood there for a good 5 minutes while Dave and I shot him. My favorite part is the light coming from his jacket and the shadow casting onto the ground. You can tell it was a longer exposure by the car trails on the top passing by. By the end he was soaking wet. He’s crazy though because he could of at least put up the hood on his jacket. Of course, that wouldn’t of made for as cool of a shot as it is. He looks like a rain god. LOL

The camera settings for this image was F7.1 at 2 seconds with ISO 320. Thanks so much for standing so still while shooting this, Zack! I still think you’re crazy 🙂