ANGELA B. PAN

Last week I mentioned that I got to visit the cat cafe in Georgetown DC. I was so excited about the event that I showed up early. Like so embarrassingly early that I won’t mention even mention how early I actually got there. So with a camera in hand, I decided I’d try to walk around and see if I could find any cool images of the city.

Right around the corner from the cat cafe is the Georgetown theatre. I love neon signs so I tried my best to find a way to reflect this one. As I was walking closer to the sign, I noticed this car reflecting it so well. I bent down a little bit to see what other kinds of reflections I could get and was surprised to see it almost fan out. I then decided that it would be more interesting if there was one more element in the image. I waited for some cars to pass or even a bicycle but it took a while. Finally, a pedestrian walked past and I was able to capture this. I think it’s so interesting the way that it turned out, I don’t even mind that some of the lights went out in the sign.

My camera settings for this image are F8 at 1/60th sec and ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

Happy Halloween!

To be honest, I’m not really a spooky type of person. LOL. I don’t like scary movies or going to haunted houses. I prefer funny movies and pumpkin flavored treats. I’m more into the holiday for the chocolates and dressing up. But I also think Halloween is fun because it’s sort of the unofficial kick-off to the holiday season for me. And I’m all about the other holidays! 🙂

This is probably as spooky as I’m going to get. LOL. A nice orangey sunset at the WWII memorial on the National Mall. Taken at the same time I captured this image, I just love the reflection of the sky.

So if you do go out tonight, I hope you have a fun and safe Halloween! Save some Crunch bars for me!

My camera settings for this image are f4.5 at 1/60th sec and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm.

I was TIRED! I don’t know why but driving down to the Samuel H Boardman State Scenic Corridor was a trek! It took way longer than I thought it would have and by the time we were in the vicinity, I was just ready to go straight our Airbnb and lay in bed.

But then we drove past Meyers Creek Beach. Holy cow. This place looked beautiful. It woke me right back up. Since I was the one driving, I made a mental note to remember the name. As soon as we parked, I went into my phone and wrote it down so I knew where I wanted to go for the next day. Luckily, it was already in my notes as one of the first places I wanted to visit in the corridor. LOL, it was honestly no surprise.

So this image was taken the very next day. We didn’t make it for sunrise but this was still taken in the early morning. Unfortunately, the whole time we were in South Oregon there were barely any clouds. So I tried my best to fill the frame with the lines in the sand. But I think one of my favorite parts about this image is that even though there weren’t many clouds, you can still see a few clouds above the mountains but then you can also see it in the reflection in the sand. OMG.

My camera settings for this image are F6.3 at 1/2000th sec and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 24-70mm.

Our second night in Oregon was spent in Pacific City, specifically Cape Kiwanda and I loveddd it. The afternoon that we arrived was super foggy. So foggy that you weren’t able to see the Haystack Rock in the ocean. It was pretty interesting to see (or not see…). I think I loved Cape Kiwanda so much because it was definitely quieter than Cannon Beach but I just felt so relaxed and at peace there. The fog may have added to the mood as well.

But that limited our photo opportunities in this area so Andrew, Frankie and I woke up early the next morning and just hung out on the beach in front of our hotel. The skies had cleared up by morning time and created this amazingly warm glow all along the beach. My favorite part was playing with the reflections that the ocean tide created on the sand.

So this is an image of the sand dune that was on the side of the cape. I noticed some kayakers getting ready to get into the water and thought that it was the perfect focal point to break up the landscape. I love seeing the scale of the people compared to the sand dunes. Andrew and I were actually really impressed because the night before we saw so quite a few people sledding down the dunes. Looked like fun but I was in relax mode. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/160th sec and ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and 24-70mm lens.

Now that I’m officially a sunset photographer, this was probably the best skies I’ve seen in a while. It’s a funny story because I was actually on my way to the gym when at the last minute I decided that I would go out to shoot. I don’t know what actually compelled me to do it, let’s just call it a photographer’s intuition. LOL.

On my way to the city, my friend, Birch texted me and told me she was on her way there too. We decided to meet at the WWII memorial and I’m so glad we did. I was able to capture this awesome reflection. One that I don’t think I’ve photographed like this before. In order to capture it, I got down really low behind the memorial. Mostly because I wanted to avoid people’s heads that were actually in the memorial, but mostly because I wanted to see if i could get something different. It’s so simple and it may be a little confusing but I really like the way that it turned out. Kinda alien spacecraft like but also interesting with the Washington Monument poking out and its reflection 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at 1/60th sec and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

I’m not sure when I started to become a sunset/night photographer but it just sort of started happening naturally. The summer days have been rough to wake up for sunrise but to be honest, the sunsets have been looking way better than sunrise anyways. Sunset around Washington DC has it’s own interesting challenges like parking and dealing with the crowds of people but the more I get out there, the more I’m appreciating the sunset glow more and more.

But this image came by accident. I was out with Zack (again, on a different night) to photograph the Lincoln Memorial at sunset. The sunset wasn’t really what we expected so we waited a bit longer for blue hour to try to capture the monuments at night. Then when I was about to say bye to Zack and walk back to my car, I saw a lightning bolt out of the corner of my eye.

OMG change of plans. I did not end up going back to my car, quickly texted Andrew that I was going to be home later than I expected and both Zack and I started looking at weather apps to see where the storm was headed. We made a game plan to try to capture it by the Tidal Basin and then as the storm moved forward we were going to try to capture it with the Washington Monument. It ended up being a super exciting night of storm chasing but the only problem was that I left my tripod in my car! Argh! Capturing lightning is significantly easier with a tripod and remote.

So I had to improvise. In order to capture this, I was basically just sitting on the ground hoping to get something. I was so lucky. But I also LOVE how the street lights are red. It’s sort of like a warning to not pass in case of lightning.

My camera settings for this image is f4 at 1/15th sec and ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35 wide-angle lens.