ANGELA B. PAN

If I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, 2018 is the year of the FOG. Forget the dog. LOL. It’s all about the fog and this past weekend did not disappoint.

Holy cow did we have fog on Saturday morning. There was a dense fog advisory all night so obviously that meant that I had to wake up super early and capture it all. It reminded me of driving in San Diego because at times while driving into the city it was difficult to even see the highway signs.

I met up with my friends Albert and Austin to shoot around the Lincoln Memorial. It was so great to meet up with them because there were points in time where the fog was sooo thick that you couldn’t see anything and if we were shooting, it was into big, grey nothingness. So we basically just stood around and chatted. But once it lifted the fog created this great atmosphere around the monuments.

This was taken right before the fog was about to cover the Lincoln Memorial again. It’s crazy how fast it went in and out. I like this image because its so monotone without me having to do anything to it. This is basically what you saw if you were there. You can see a little bit of the brown in the Canadian Geese butts and that’s it. That’s not true, there’s a little more color than that. I just wanted to say Canadian Geese butts. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/500th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom lens handheld. To be completely honest, I find myself still carrying around my tripod all the time but using it less and less. If you’re interested, I can talk more about that in a future blog post.

Like I said yesterday, the fog that we had over the weekend was RIDICULOUS. And what was even weirder was the fact that it was raining while it was still so foggy out. I thought with the rain coming down that it will make the fog disappear. If you look closely at this image, you can even see the water droplets in the water. But no. At times it seemed like it got even foggier. We had a good 2 hours worth of this moody weather to photograph and I loved every minute of it. I was so excited to hear about it that I left the house without a jacket. Luckily I had a beanie in the car or else I would have been really out of luck. Thanks again to my my friend, Birch for telling me about it as it was happening.

I think my favorite part of this image is something I did unintentionally. If you look at the very right of the image there’s a tree bending like it’s trying to leave the image. I love how the person with the umbrella lines up directly with that tree trunk. I don’t know if anyone else wold notice it but I love that little detail that just accidentally happened.

Birch and I were talking about something unrelated to the scene that was happening in front of us but we were both shooting it at exactly the same time. As that person turned the corner, we stopped what we were doing and saying, looked at each other and said “that was awesome” like we both knew we got the shot! AHHH I LOVE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at 1/400th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and my 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.

Speaking of fall colors still hanging around! Heart eye emoji! (P.S. Is it weird that I say what the emoji is instead of actually using the emoji? HAHA) One of my favorite places to go to for fall colors in Washington DC area is the Tidal Basin. I don’t know if many people know it but the cherry blossom trees are gorgeous in the autumn season. We were so lucky to have gone at the right time on this particular morning. The tree colors were poppin but the sun hitting the leaves made them look like they were glowing this amazing gold color. I’d say this was probably 30-45 minutes after the sunrise.

At first I thought this season wasn’t going to be great for fall foliage. I had heard somewhere that we didn’t get as much rain as we usually do so that was going to somehow negatively affect the leaf colors. That was definietly wrong. I think all it really did was delay it for a couple of weeks because they are out in full force right now. You can even see the trees on the opposite side of the Tidal Basin and so many of them were this beautiful red color. We didn’t walk that way but I’m sure they’re just as beautiful as the yellow tree I was standing under. So if you’re in the DC area, I’d highly suggest checking them out soon before they all go away.

Shout out to Brandon, his cousin, and Jarrett for the early sunrise shoot. It was a fun morning walking around the National Mall with you guys! A morning filled with photos, camera talk and colorful leaves- what could be better?

My camera settings for this image is F/11 at 1/320th of a second and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm lens.

I’m not sure what has gotten into me lately, but I’ve been waking up so early. Like way before my alarm goes off to wake me up for sunrise, even early enough where I could scramble myself some eggs for breakfest and still be on time to watch the sun. Oh man. That’s early! It’s like I’m jet lagged…

But what else is there to do at 5 o’clock in the morning but go out and take pics, right?

Luckily we’ve been having some awesome sunrises around the Washington DC area. This particular morning wasn’t as colorful as I usually hope for but it was so moody. I’ll take it!

It rained over night and the steps to the United States Capitol was so reflective. You know me, I love a good puddle when I see one. So I was playing around with different angles and perspectives when I finally came across this one. Holy cow, I love how the trees look as big as the Capitol Building. One of my favorite things to do is to get down low and make whatever is in the foreground look bigger than what’s in the background. Its sort of a eye-mind trick thing but I think it looks super cool. And for some reason my eye keeps going down to the reflection and staring at the Statue of Freedom lookin’ like a squiggly line. It’s so interesting how that came out.

Don’t get me wrong though, I am not complaining about waking up early. I’m complaining about being super sleepy by 8pm every night. #grandmastatus So expect to see way more sunrise images from me soon 🙂 I’ve got a few lined up.

My camera settings for this image is F22 at 0.6 seconds and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

The main reason for me going to San Francisco was to attend Trey Ratcliff’s photowalk. So much fun to hang out with my Arcanum friends and meet new ones. This image was taken along the walk. Pretty awesome POV along the Embarcadero.

Officially back from an unforgettable weekend in Philly and DC. I’ve been smiling ear to ear thinking about all the fun times and people that I met.

First I met up with all my friends from the Arcanum. Erin, Jessica, Kim, Ron, AD, and Derek . Talk about surreal moment when there isn’t a computer screen in between us. I had a BLAST catching up and getting to know each other all at the same time 🙂 Thanks to Erin for your fun energy on the photowalk and Jessica for fixing my glasses! I don’t know what I would of done without your skills. Kim, Ron, AD, and Derek for walking around with me and just being my friend.

Then I met Trey and Curtis. Here’s a secret- they look EXACTLY the same as they do on the internet. It’s pretty crazy to give them hugs and have a few drinks with them. While you’re talking to them, you totally forget that they’re so popular and just think of them as regular cool people.

And meeting everyone else from the photowalk was so much fun 🙂 There were so many people at both photowalks that I’ve known online for so long but haven’t seen in a while or met for the first time. It made me so happy to be a part of such a fun community of awesome photographers.

And then my bestie got married the very next day!! AHHH overall the best weekend ever.