ANGELA B. PAN

After doing a little bit of research, I found that one of the best places to practice flying your drone is in Fiesta Island in San Diego. It’s a wide open area with plenty of room to fly with not a lot of trees or anything to get in your way. It’s perfect. So one beautiful afternoon last week, I headed down there by myself to get some fly time in.

Overall, it was an awesome experience. It was my first time flying over water and the views were beautiful! However there are a few more things here that I have to look out for than I do flying back home. First of all, there are so many more birds here. It’s a little nerve wracking when a whole flock of them fly by. But I did get a pretty cool shot of them flying below the drone… youtube video coming soon 🙂

Second, the wind here is a huge factor. At one point my drone went a little bit too high in the sky and I honestly thought it was a goner. I hit the ‘return home’ function on the remote but it just went higher and further away. OH MAN were my hands shaking. I was so nervous about it drifting to the other side of the island or even hitting a bird or something and going straight down. Luckily, I was able to get it back and it’s all safe and sound.

So here’s one of the images I was able to capture while practicing. It’s a simple one of me sitting on the beach as a bird is flying by but I really enjoy the lines in the sand and the color of the water. Hopefully I’ll be able to fly more asap.

The settings for this image is F2.2 at 1/1100 of a second and ISO 100 with my DJI Mavic Pro.

Day 2 of things I’m grateful for: I bought myself a DJI Mavic Pro! I’m so hyped.

Long story short, I flew my cousin’s drone 2 years ago and crashed it within 2 minutes. Getting it down from the tree and having it repaired was the biggest nightmare of my life. It was so horrible that it frightened me from ever wanting to ever fly again. Plus there aren’t a lot of places to fly around the DC area, so why bother?

But then instagram. Man, instagram and all your cool images of drone photography!!! You got me interested again! So I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a Mavic. Luckily, my friend Andy, had an extra one so I was able to get a pretty cool deal on it.

So I watched a couple of youtube videos, read parts of the instruction manual and felt a little more confident to fly. Over the weekend I met up with my friend, Paul in Manassas and was able to fly without crashing. That’s a huge win in my book. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. Now I’m hooked. I had soooo much fun flying and just seeing the world from a totally different perspective. It was so awesome. To quote Andy, “yeah makes you hate walking to take pics lol”. Sooo true. HAHA!

For my day 2 of gratitude, I am extremely grateful to have gotten over my fear of flying drones and sooo excited to capture new images. This image is my very first selfie flying the drone. I texted it to my mom and she was like “what is that?” I know I look really small. But we’re working on baby steps here!

The camera settings for this image is F2.2 at 1/180th of a second at ISO 100 with my DJI Mavic Pro.

Normally I’m behind the camera. It’s where I feel the most comfortable and let’s be honest, the results are usually a whole lot better when I’m back there. LOL. But this time I could not resist stepping in front and throwing some leaves around. Especially when the fall colors are this amazing, how could you not? They’re gorgeoussss.

I took this in Manassas National Battlefield Park, Virginia. A great place to go when you want to capture some great open spaces. Obviously, this is not an open space.  I wasn’t even intending on taking an image like this when I arrived. I sort of did the same thing as I do when I’m in Washington, DC. I park my car and go. Either way, I think it still worked out, no?

My camera settings for this image is F3.5 at 1/40th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens. I had my camera on my tripod and set it on a 10 second timer in order to put myself in the image. It was a scramble to get in front of the lens and pick up a whole bunch of leaves to throw in the air in 10 seconds. It was fun scramble though. Wait, I just realized, does this mean I took a selfie? HAHA

On a totally different note, if you’re in the DC area, it will be worth your time to check out DC PhotoWeek that’s going on right now. I had the opportunity to check out some photo talks and the best of IGDC exhibit over the weekend and both were so great. I learned a lot and got to see some amazing images. There’s A LOT going on this week so take the time out to check it out. So worth it, trust me!

Here’s one more from the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room exhibit: All the Eternal Love I Have for Pumpkins, currently at the Hirshhorn Museum.

This has got to be my favorite room out of all of them. The first time I visited the Kusama exhibit, it was closed. Someone was trying to take a selfie and things got out of hand and smashed one of the pumpkins. I’m so glad everything got fixed and I was able to see the room in person on my second trip. Don’t get me wrong, all the rooms are AMAZINGLY beautiful, but theres something special about this one. First of all, the pumpkins themselves are soo cool. If I could have a pumpkin like that for Halloween, I’d have the most popular trick-or-treat house on the block. I love how they are in all different sizes and shapes. But I think the coolest part of the room is being able to see the reflection of the pumpkins on the ceilings. Seriously theres so much attention to detail in these rooms, it’s unbelievable.

To get this shot, I was in the room by myself and I immediately sat on the floor. The change of perspective really showcases the size of these pumpkins. BUT THAT GLOW THOUGH! Obviously the ISO was cranked really high for this one. My settings were: F/4 1/400th sec ISO 5000.

By the way, the music video I linked above was my absolute favorite from when I was in middle school. LOL. It reminds me so much of when I’d come home from school, turn on MTV’s Total Request Live and eat a hot pocket. Even to this day, if I hear Smashing Pumpkins on the radio, I’ll turn it up. Andrew’s always impressed that I know all the words to their songs. Don’t get me started on “1979”.

Our apartment was in Shinjuku so that’s where we spent most of our time. Which turned out perfect because it was my favorite part of the city. Theres all these great alley ways, stores and restaurant. Every where you turned, there was something new and interesting to see.