ANGELA B. PAN

I guess you would call this a day market? I’m not sure, but every morning there are always these street vendors selling produce, cooked food and meats. It’s not an everyday scene that we see in America so I tried to capture it as much as I could. But to be honest, I wasn’t sure about posting it. I didn’t know if everyone would want to see meat hanging from hooks. This is outdoors with no refrigeration or with any kind of packaging but this is how they do it in Taiwan.

I showed this image to Andrew and he really liked it. He said he likes the framing but also how the vendor looks so sharp. I like it because he has such a big smile on his face and it really shows a sense of community. Its everyday scenes like this that I wanted to capture on this trip, so I’m glad this one turned out as well as it did.

What do you think?

My camera settings for this image are F5.0 at 1/160th sec and ISO 80 with my 35 mm prime lens.

Walking around Tamsui near the Zhuwei MRT subway station, I saw this light and waited for someone to either walk or drive past it. But then something even better happened, this lady stopped her scooter to adjust the bags she had in the front and then sped off. This allowed me to frame this image how I wanted and I love the way it turned out.

Another thing about street photography that I love so much is being able to shoot in the middle of the day. If I remember correctly, I captured this around 11 am. For landscape photographers, you would have already been inside, had a snack and watched some tv shows. But for photographers photographing street scenes like this, it’s perfect, especially when you’re in cities with really tall buildings. The buildings act as reflectors and cast amazing light all over the city. You just have to find it. And the best thing about photographing street in Taipei is that it’s so crowded that if you miss your shot of someone, you can just wait another minute and someone totally different will enter your scene.

My camera settings for this image are F5 at 1/640th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 35mm prime lens.

I don’t think I could have planned this scene better myself. I love all the layers of yellow that the taxis in Taipei created. There’s even yellow in the signage in the background that makes me even happier. But this was not planned at all. I was actually just following people with umbrellas to see if I could create an interesting image. As soon as I saw this woman stop at the corner, I knew I had to just wait for that right moment for something to happen. I noticed one taxi drive-by and saw all the yellow in the frame, so I patiently just waited for another one. Luckily, when you’re in a busy city like Taipei, it doesn’t take very long.

I think that’s what’s so exciting about street photography to me. It’s that feeling of a chase that you’re always on the hunt. An unexpected composition that you’ve never imagined but turned out way better than you could have come up within your head. I know I haven’t gone through all my images from Taiwan yet, I’ve really only looked at the first few days, but I’m so excited to see how the rest have turned out!

My camera settings for this image are F7.1 at 1/400th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

Prior to leaving for Taiwan, I would keep on checking the weather because it literally said rain every single day that I was going to be there. Even though it was forecasted, luckily it did not rain every day. We somehow managed to arrive at the island at the very beginning of a typhoon. Which is crazy because I thought they only happened in the summer months but this one was coming in the middle of November. We were lucky because it wasn’t going to hit Taipei. It was forecasted to hit some other part of the country and Taipei was only going to get a little of the residual.

But that didn’t stop me from taking my camera everywhere I went. This image was captured while I was wandering around in the streets one day around lunchtime. I was trying to capture all the scooters lined up at the red light when a woman and her umbrella walked passed my camera. I love the way that it turned out and the accident framing. One thing that I loved about this forecasted weather was that even if there was a slight drop of rain from the sky, everyone had an umbrella out. It made for AMAZING street photography!

My camera settings for this image are F7.1 at 1/1250th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

Right before I left for Taiwan, I purchased my very first prime lens. If you have noticed on my gear page, I only have zoom lenses. But recently, I’ve been watching a lot of youtube videos who have been saying all these great things about prime, that I had to give one a try.

The hype is real! I loved it! I probably walked around Taiwan with my new 35mm prime lens about 70% of the time. I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did. One main reason was that I already have a 16-35mm and I wasn’t sure if it would be that much of a difference. The second reason was that I thought I would have to get used to not being able to zoom. OMG, I loved it just because it made shooting so much easier and the lens itself is so tiny. I felt like I could shoot all day without getting tired.

This image was taken with my new 35mm one afternoon in Jiufen. More about Jiufen later but I love how colorful this portrait turned out. This vendor was taking money from her customer when she looked up very quickly. I’m glad I was already in position to capture this portrait because this look only lasted a second. Probably would have been hard to take with any other lens but a prime.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/250th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 35mm prime.

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.