ANGELA B. PAN

Kinda trippy, isn’t it? Like Whaaa?

One morning earlier this year during cherry blossom season, I woke up feelin’ real good. I was able to wake up extra early, drove down to the tidal basin and found amazing parking. (This is an extra big deal because parking can be pretty impossible during cherry blossom season). I basically walked around like I was going to rock this photoshoot with the cherry blossoms. Not to toot my own horn, but I knew some magic was about to happen! Then I saw these guys. They were taking the best cherry blossom trees and lighting them up from the bottom. If you know me and my photography, you know that I never use additional light. No flashes, no strobes, none of that stuff. I always use the light available to me. So I stood there for a minute and thought about how I could make the best use out of the ‘available light’. I really don’t think this image would have been as successful if there was no ‘light at the end of the tunnel’. It creates a depth that I would have not been able to accomplish. So, shout out to the photographers that you see on the left side of this image. You guys created something spectacular for me to capture 🙂 Muchas Gracias.

Although my favorite part of this image has nothing to do with the reflection or the depth that this image has. If you look in the puddle, on the bottom right hand corner, then you’ll see this cherry blossom petal created a heart. I think that little detail is so subtle but so sweet. I was so happy to see it during post production. I like it so much that I don’t even mind that it’s out of focus. I kinda like it better that way.

I was thinking about Italy the other day. Mostly because I was thinking about pizza but the weird part is that we barely had any pizza while we were there. Maybe once?  It was all pasta baby. And it was so delicious. 98% sure it’s the best food I’ve ever had. How about you? Where was the best place you’ve eaten?

I loved photographing the sunset from Piazzale Michelangelo. It was so peaceful and beautiful standing up there. In case you’re thinking about going- there are a lot of stairs to climb or you can do the lazy route and get a taxi to get you there. That’s what we did. All the pasta was weighing us down. HAHA. Its worth it though. It is the best view of the entire city. It’d try my best to get there as early as you can though. A lot of people were waiting for the sun to set even an hour before it did.

It’s also a great spot for people watching. There were so many different kinds of people there. A couple of people were there painting the sunset, others were photographing it, but everyone was enjoying it. There was even a Chinese couple standing next to me. They had no idea that I could understand them but the funniest part was when he was watching me change my lens. It’s like he was giving a play-by-play to his wife. Mostly because I tried balancing my lens on the edge of a balcony. I could feel that he was nervous for me. He kept on saying “too dangerous, too dangerous” and when I was done he gave huge sigh of relief. LOL. I don’t even think Andrew was that nervous for me. It’s funny how all these memories are spurred out of thinking about pizza…

Getting ready to head out to Utah again. 2 more weeks! Unfortunately, we won’t be visiting Zion National Park but other amazing places in Utah that I’ve never been. Actually, we’re flying in to Denver first then driving to Moab. How cool is that? I’m really looking forward to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park. I also heard theres a lot of cool stops in between Denver and Moab that are fun to see too. Have you ever been there? If so, give me some tips. Good hiking trails, cool photo spots, and where to get some good food. After Moab, Andrew and I will be spending the rest of the trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. A place I heard that you can get some serious altitude sickness. Really not looking forward to that. So if you have medicine recommendations for that, let me know too. I did a quick amazon search and was a little overwhelmed by how many options there were.

This image of Zion was taken in October 2014 at the Watchman. It seemed like just yesterday that we were there but we were lucky enough to hit the tail end of the autumn colors. It’s also one of the easiest sunset spots there is. Plenty of parking and a really short walk to get to this spot. It’s easy to find too. Just look for the huge group of photographers with tripods. You can’t miss it 🙂

The camera settings for this image is F22  at 1.6 seconds ISO 100 on the tripod. While the sun was still up when I shot this, I still wanted to try to make the Virgin River as smooth as possible. If I had the chance to shoot this again, I’d probably use my ICE Neutral Density filter to get an even longer exposure.

So heres my image from Grand Central Terminal that I was talking about yesterday. I still think it’s craziness that I’ve never been there before. What a beautiful transit station. It kind of gives you that old world feeling with all the train markers. Everyone always talks about how beautiful the ceiling is but I thought it was funny how there were so many lost balloons up there. My favorite part was definietly the people watching. Its my favorite part about any airport, bus station or place like that. Everyone’s always so busy with their lives, somewhere they got to be. It’s just interesting watching the interaction of it all. Otherwise, there were so many other photographers there! It was pretty cool. You can definietly tell the guys on the left side of this image were taking a time-lapse. They were standing in the same position with their tripods for quite some time. But then there were people taking selfies and other people next to me who were taking similar pics.

I didn’t bring a tripod with me for this trip. It was going to be too much of a hassle considering I knew we weren’t going to be taking any sunrise or sunset pics. But standing here in Grand Central was the only time I wish I had one. Luckily, using the ledge for my long exposure  turned out great. My camera settings for this image were F/14 at 4 seconds ISO 100. I love the mixture of people on the go and people just standing there. This is what I mean by watching the interaction of so many different kinds of people all in one place and this wasn’t even the busiest time of day to be there. I think we took this around noon because right afterwards we went across the street for some pizza 😀

This one was fun to shoot. My intention was to photograph the Washington Monument and cherry blossoms through the puddle and get a really cool reflection shot out of it.  I didn’t use my tripod because it doesn’t go as low as I’d want and  I couldn’t get the right angle. So I bent down to get low. I figured out the composition using the live view function on my LCD screen.  The lens was hovering right over the puddle.

While I was getting all of that sorted, I didn’t realize I was holding up people behind me. They were being nice and was  trying to avoid getting in my shot by waiting but I figured I’d let them pass because it’d be faster that way. As they were passing and without even thinking, I pressed the shutter. There was no real plan for people to walk through this shot or anything like that but I’m so glad they did. It turned out way better than anticipated.

I then posted this image Saturday night on instagram and almost immediately got a message from the girl in this image! She was saying how after they walked passed the puddle, her and her husband were talking about how cool of a shot that would of been. It’s so funny how all of these things come full circle. I love that they found themselves and I’m even more happy that they like this image.

I’d say my favorite part is the sun burst on the guy’s leg. My eyes keep on drifting to that part of the image and am super grateful how everything lined up so nicely. It looks like I had my own little cherry blossom parade but without all the balloons and streamers. Just some beautiful cherry blossoms and very nice people.

In between shooting cherry blossom sunrises, I made my way over to the National Arboretum this past weekend. I met up with a bunch of friends from IGDC . (If you don’t know them, you should check them out on instagram especially if you’re in the DC area.) It was really cool because it also World Wide Instameet weekend and the theme was ‘kindness’. So IGDC and the Humane Rescue Alliance in DC teamed up to show off some adoptable dogs. I had a BALL hanging out with all the dogs. There were so many of them. The best was when one dog would get really excited and then get all the other dogs excited and watching them bark at each other. I don’t know why, but I think its so funny. Taking the group shot at the end was particularly enjoyable to see the dogs “together”. Unfortunately, Frankie couldn’t make it 🙁

This was shot in the middle of the day. I want to say around 11:30. These columns sit on top of a hill in the middle of the arboretum and the first thing I noticed were the shadows they were creating in the grass. I quickly changed my lens to the 16-35mm so I could get it all. That’s when I noticed the sun flare. I really think that sun is there for that extra added bonus. However, I think if I were to redo this shot again, I would of tried to get a dog or a person in the the middle of the columns or in the foreground somewhere. Oh well. I’m still really happy with how this turned out.

The settings for this image were F22 1/25 of a second ISO 100. I had to shoot small just to exaggerate the flares coming out of the sun a little more.