ANGELA B. PAN

This is probably my third or forth time seeing a rainbow over the US Capitol. You can see one example here and another one here. But it wasn’t until this rainbow where I realized this is probably the best spot to catch rainbows in DC. 3 out of 4 times it will be directly over the dome and it’s just a beautiful sight to see. It will be slightly off center or totally off to the side at any of the other memorials. But now that I think of it, it might work from behind the Lincoln Memorial. So…. note to self. Check that out next time it rains 🙂

Anyways, I left my house a little early to make sure I had time to catch sunset. I figured with all the rain, traffic was going to be horrible and I was right! I came from a different direction than I usually do which meant that I parked my car on a totally different side of the street. I was way off to the right when I usually park in the middle. From the middle it was two perfect arches over the dome. But it worked out in my favor because I was able to get a totally different perspective of the rainbow and the dome. At first I was envisioning the rainbow pouring out of the dome but then I realized I could see the reflection of the rainbow in the street puddle, omg it was over. I was down, kneeling in the middle of the street for like 10 minutes. Luckily, its not a busy street. Luckily, all the nice people who wanted to drive on the street at least honked their horn at me instead of running me over. At one point, I was side by side next to that red tour bus you can see coming down the road. He didn’t flinch and neither did I. I’m just glad I didn’t get splashed. That would have been inconvenient.

I know I’m skipping around a lot. I just took so many pictures on our trip that it’s difficult to decide where to start. I’m all over the place when it comes to editing, but this one is another one from Rocky Mountain National Park. Can you tell it was my favorite national park that we visited? I really enjoyed the fresh air and the snow-capped mountains. Although you can’t even tell there was snow in this image. It looks like a beautiful spring day, which it was. And you know me, when I see a puddle, I have to check out what reflections I can see out of it. This one was a particularly awesome puddle. It was huge and so reflective. I got a few shots and decided it needed something else. So I asked Andrew to stand there and model for me. This is obviously his best model pose. LOL.

In case you were interested, this was on along the trail walking to Alberta Falls. It was one of the only trails we could confidently walk on. So many of them still had snow on them. And forget about making it to Emerald Lake. It was the ultimate goal but the elevation was so high and there was so much snow still on the ground that it was impossible. We only had sneakers on so we were slipping and sliding all over the place. Note to future self: Always pack hiking boots. Even when you don’t think you’ll need them, it will just make life so much easier.

The settings for this image are F/14 at 1/80th of a second at ISO 400 handheld. If any of you know of a tripod where you can shoot really low to the ground, I mean flush to the ground, please let me know! I’m always finding myself wanting something that can get that low but just haven’t found one yet.

During cherry blossom season, I was obsessed with finding puddles. I made it a mission to find whatever reflection I could get and try to make it work. So I figured after Monday’s rain that there would be tons of puddles. Wrong! There were hardly any. Even the ones that I knew that had to be here, were not even there. It was so strange. It was almost like it didn’t even rain. Oh well. So I was happy when I saw this one itty bitty little piece of reflection.

At one point while I was shooting other potential reflections, this couple from Panama came up to me. They told me that they owned a camera store and were desperately trying to get their kids in to photography. I must of looked like I had the biggest question mark on my face because I think they were trying to ask me for advice. I dunno? Give them a kick-ass camera and tell them to go play? That’d definietly motivate me to get more into photography. They were also super impressed by the fact that I’d get down low for my shot. So I showed them some of my images on my camera and for some reason I felt like they were really happy for me. The kind of look that only parents give. They were so sweet. I think it’s awesome that they were pushing their kids toward the creative side. At the end of the conversation they invited me to go Panama to eat sea food with them and visit their camera store. I have no idea what their names were or even where they live in Panama but it was so kind of them to stop and say such nice things. It really made my night that much better.

Sometimes finding a new point of view can be difficult. Especially if you’ve visited the same location multiple times. That’s always the problem that I have visiting the memorials. How can I make it look different from all the other times I’ve shot it. Sometimes I try to go at different times of day, other times I’ll make sure the sky is really unique or different. I’ll shoot high or I’ll shoot low. But I always try to make the memorials that I love so much different in each of my posts. So when I saw this puddle I was super excited. It was just this gigantic puddle in the middle of the grass/dirt. I got some crazy looks from people when I kneeled down to get closer to it, but I think it was all worth it in the end. There were people who even stopped next to me just to get down low to see what I was looking at. LOL. Some people may not get it but these puddle shots are quickly becoming some of my favorite to shoot.

The camera settings for this was F7.1 at 1/100th of a second at ISO 160. It was a pretty cloudy day. A storm was expected to hit a few hours later (and you know how I can’t resist shooting in storms). My main focus was to get everything even and symmetrical. I think my favorite part about this image is the tree leaning over. When you’re standing up you barely notice it, but I think with the reflection in the puddle the curvature is a little more exaggerated. It really acts as a leading line to bring you through the whole image.

Anyways, hope you all have a great weekend filled with fun, amazing light and beautiful views. We’re celebrating my brother and my grandma’s birthdays tonight with some Turkish food!

Ok, last cherry blossom image for a while. I know I’ve been on a cherry blossom streak but I’m lovin’ them this year and this one was absolutely incredible. This is from that same foggy morning when I lost tripod in the tidal basin also the same day that I captured this beautiful cherry tree. Actually you know what, that tree that’s almost parallel to the sidewalk is the same tree as the previous image except this is from the other side it. That morning was crazy incredible for photography. So grateful for my rain boots so I was able to stand in the middle of this gigantic puddle and capture the reflections. I’m pretty sure other photographers there was staring at me to get out of the middle of their shot. LOL. *just one more, I promise* says every photographer in the world.

But the sad part is that I should of never been able to take this picture. The flooding of the tidal basin at high tide is a growing problem that’s getting worse everyday. It’s due to the collapsing seawall that surrounds the basin. If it gets bad enough, it will be disastrous for the cherry blossom trees. Just thinking about it makes me so sad. So if you’d like to learn more about the situation or if you would be kind of enough to donate the cause, click the link here. If every visitor to the tidal basin donated just $15, then that money would really go a long way to preserve the wall and trees.

The settings for this image was F6.3 at 1/15th of a second at ISO 200 with my 16-35mm. The biggest thing I wanted out of this image was to really show off the reflections in the puddle. I think the bubbles in it were an added bonus but I’m not sure how they happened. Maybe it was me walking through the puddle? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Another puddle shot. I’ve been loving them this year and shooting them at the Tidal Basin is super easy because there are always puddles! Even when it’s super clear and nice out, there will be a puddle. It’s just because the sidewalks can be really uneven that if you look around there will be at least a little one in the cracks somewhere.

This however was not a little puddle. It was quite big and pretty much took over the whole sidewalk. Days like this, I’m super grateful to have rain boots. That way I can walk comfortably wherever without having to worry about my socks getting wet or my shoes getting muddy.

I’m also really grateful that the cherry blossoms peaked so nicely this year. It was totally unexpected that they would since we had that cold spell in the middle of March. I think it scared away a lot of the people because everyday that I went down to the Tidal Basin, there weren’t a lot of people there (compared to previous years where it’d be hard to even walk, let alone get shots without many people in it). Overall I’m just so happy spring is here and the cherry blossoms were amazing. I don’t know if I’ll be at the Tidal Basin anymore shooting the cherry blossoms this year but hopefully in other places around the DMV area <3

This was shot at F5.6 at 1/125th of a second at ISO 400. Again, I did not shoot this on my tripod because it just can’t get low enough. Which reminds me, if you guys have any tripod recommendations that can get super low, like almost touching the ground, let me know. I’d love to try that out. The only reason the ISO was at 400 was because this was hand held and I wanted to make sure to get everything sharp and in focus.