ANGELA B. PAN

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN 

It’s the last day of 2018 and I thought it would be fun to look back on the past year and relive some of my favorite travel moments from the year. It’s interesting because I do something similar to this every year and every year my favorite images are almost always different from others. I try not to let emotions play into the selection but it can be difficult. You’ll see what I mean 🙂

I had a fantastic year of travel and so blessed to be able to experience everything that I did. I’m lucky enough to have visited the Europe, Caribbean and of course different parts of America. So let me know what you think. Click on each image to read the original blog post:

One of my very first drone images from San Diego. Taken around this time last year, I loved being in Southern California in the winter time. I got my drone at the end of 2017 so I was just practicing flying when I took this image. I really didn’t think much of it until I saw that bird fly below close to the water. With the placement of where I’m sitting and that bird, I love how everything lines up. Definitely expect more drone images from me in 2019. I’m hooked!

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Like my last couple of trips, I wanted to work on my street photography. I just have so much fun with it and you never really know what you’re going to get.
Similar to the trips to Japan and this one to Aruba.

However going through my images, I found that I took a lot more architectural images than anything else. I thought it was interesting, but not surprising. There are so many hills in San Francisco and it made it slightly difficult to walk, but I really enjoyed the different perspectives you would get throughout the city. Whether you’re on top of a hill or on the bottom, nothing really looked the same one block to the next.

So here are a couple of images I took on the streets of San Francisco.

This was taken somewhere in the financial district and purposely left the words “Turkey. For the win” in. That’s for Andrew because he loves turkey. HAHA

Another POV from a crazy hill somewhere in the Mission District I think and I’m pretty sure I was on top of a hill looking down.

This person was taken their dog on a walk. I just love the different textures and framing this one image has. I was happy with it as soon as I snapped the pic.

There were so many people walking around the Financial District with these bags. I stalked them to find out that it was the American Psychological Association and not the American Photographers Association 🙁 Anyways that’s me in the shadow with my huge backpack on.

Thanks for checking out my images and I hoped you liked them. The very top image is very close to that California Street image I talked about last week. I just love that early morning light that’s on the buildings. Also, today’s my birthday! 🙂

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that Navin Sarma was one of my first ever photo friends…. ever.

I’m not sure how we found each other but it had to have been before instagram was even a thing. I even remember being kinda hesitant meeting up with him for the first time because I was just meeting some guy I met from the internet really early in the morning. And as usual, he was late.

But in the end, he has become one of my favorite people to go out to shoot with. It’s always been super casual and talking about the most random stuff. He was with me when I unintentionally captured my very first lightning shot! And the following year we sat on the hill by the Air Force Memorial and intentionally captured even more lightning shots like this one.

Last year he left the Washington DC area to move to California. We’ve stayed in touch so when I booked the trip to San Francisco, he was one of the first people to know about it. I definietly wanted to try to meet up and shoot again. So luckily it worked out that the first night we were in the Bay Area, Navin was able to pick Andrew and I up and take us to Marin Headlands. We noticed the fog approaching and thought a higher point of view would be really cool image  of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was so great to see him again.

You can notice the fog a little bit above the Golden Gate Bridge but what I like most about this image is the light that hitting the top of the bridge. I love how it just pops. Betcha didn’t notice the sailboat in the water. I actually didn’t notice it at first either. HAHA

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/250th of a second at ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens handheld.

While planning our trip to San Francisco, there were so many options of places to stay. A lot of really cute hotels and airbnbs that I could have chosen from but I ended up picking  an AirBNB in the Mission district. The reason why I chose to stay there as opposed to other places was because I really wanted to live more like a local. I figured there would be no better way to do that other than to live in the heart of the city.

What I mean by living like a local is just doing the things I would be doing at home, but in San Francisco. For example, Andrew and I were in the city for the weekend so we definietly wanted to check out some of the farmers markets, we also did a little errand shopping for last minute camping supplies and basically walked around different neighborhoods with no real plans. We purposely avoided some tourist locations since I had been there so many times or we knew it would be so crowded that it would not have been so enjoyable for either one of us.

Our location was perfect! It was easily accessible to so many great places in the San Francisco area but what I liked most about it was that there was plenty to see right in our own neighborhood. This image was taken from Bernal Heights Park, literally just a few blocks from our Airbnb. Andrew and I kinda got lost one day going to our burrito lunch spot and stumbled onto it. I kept it in the back of my mind for a “maybe this is something we could do later on” because the hill was STEEP and I was hungry.

It just so happened that our last full day in SF was foggy. I wanted to go somewhere we could try to get above the fog and hopefully capture some cool images so I suggested Bernal Heights. Although we couldn’t get above the fog, it was still really cool to see the views. I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a gluteus maximus workout because GEEEZZZ! HAHAHA.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/250th of a second at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom.

Like I’ve mentioned before, I have quiet a few family members that live in the Northern California area so I’ve been a few times. And when I booked this trip to San Francisco, I wanted to make it a little different. I didn’t want to go to all the tourist attractions (which I did end up going to a few, but not as many as I would have before) but I just wanted to walk around the different neighborhoods and get to know the local side of San Francisco.

But the only shot that I had planned and definitely wanted to capture was this one. Up until recently, I had never seen anything like it. I love how the Bay Bridge is framed by the tall buildings and whenever I look at it, it totally reminds me of rice-a-roni, the San Francisco treat! HAHAHA. Wasn’t there a picture similar to this on the cover? or something like that. I can’t just be making it up.

So if you ever are going to be in the Bay area and want to capture something similar, here are a few tips I learned from capturing it:

• This shot is located on California St and Stockton St (I think). I heard that going on a Sunday morning is the best time to capture it because it’s going to be far less crowded and you’ll have a better chance of getting a clear shot of a trolley. So this was taken on a Sunday morning. I didn’t actually attempt to go any other morning.
• Be patient. The website says the trolley runs every 6-15 minutes. If you asked me, it seems like longer. I think I only saw two trolleys while I was there for an hour. Maybe I was there a little too early but still….
• Bring a long lens. In order to capture this compressed look, a long zoom lens is ideal.
• Hopefully when you go there will be no cars because you have to stand in the middle of the street to capture it. I’d suggest bring a friend with you so they can lookout if a car is on the way. If not, have you camera settings ready to capture this real quick.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/400th of a second at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.