ANGELA B. PAN

Another rainy, moody image from our trip to New York.

This image was taken after we finished our meal. Andrew and I started walking back to our car when we ducked into this little alleyway because the wind had really started to pick up and blowing the rain everywhere. We were getting soaked. So we stood under a doorway of a closed store to wait it out a little bit. Luckily, there were some other people hanging out in this alley because they were all in line for Sunday morning Dim Sum.

Rain or shine, Dim Sum is always a great Sunday morning treat! What caught my attention about this person and his umbrella was the puddle that was building up on the umbrella. I don’t know, I keep on looking at that and decided that I needed to capture it. The added bonus was all the reflections from where he was standing. The rain made everything glow.

Now I sort of wish that it will rain every time I go on a trip. LOL.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/100th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm.

So for the most part, we had beautiful weather on our trip to New York. It was pleasantly Autumn while we were there with cool weather temps but not cold enough for heavy jackets. Andrew and I couldn’t stop talking about how ideal it was because every other time we’re there it’s FREEZING.

But the day we left the city was POURING rain. As soon as I woke up in the morning, I could hear the rain pounding on our hotel room window. Good thing I was prepared with a long, heavy-ish jacket that kept me warm. Don’t get me wrong, I still got wet but it was better than having nothing at all.

So for our last meal in New York, Andrew and I went down to Chinatown for some soup dumplings. What’s better on a cold, rainy day? We made the decision that I would drive and I’d drop Andrew off in front of the restaurant so that he could put our name down in case there was a wait. That allowed me to drive around, find parking and along the way, I could stop and take some super moody images of the city with the rain. Turns out, Chinatown is PERFECT for rainy shots. I loved the mood this part of city created and it seemed like there were still so many people out with umbrellas. As soon as I saw a whole bunch of umbrellas lined up in a corner of the street waiting to cross, I knew we were in the right place.

This is probably my favorite image I captured the whole weekend we were in New York. I just love the bright red punch buggy with all the red in the signs plus the out of focus pedestrians. I don’t know it definitely brings me back to that rainy, windy Sunday.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/250th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

So on this girls’ trip, we had 6 girls. With so many of us, we are obviously going to have different sleeping schedules. There were about half of us who were earlier risers and the other half who likes to sleep in. I was in the early riser category so the first morning I woke up my fellow earlier risers and asked if they wanted to go on a walk.

It was perfect that we were staying in the downtown area so there were a lot of interesting things to see. We ended up walking to the Texas State Capitol and then made our way to brunch. On the way to brunch, we ran into this colorful wall with a few cute sayings on it, like “I <3 Austin” and this one, “The only magic I still believe in is love”.

I took a few pictures of the different parts of the wall and as I looked up, I noticed this man who was about to walk by. I took a few steps back and held my camera low so he wouldn’t notice I was taking a picture. For some reason, it immediately reminded me of this image I took in Aruba. Andrew had always liked that picture so when I got back from our trip and showed him this picture he said that it was cool. Without even mentioning anything, he referenced the Aruban image as well. LOL.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/125 sec and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

Since I’ve been out photographing the sunset and night so much, I found myself craving a morning in Washington DC. There’s something about the early mornings where it’s so quiet and peaceful, you really get to appreciate the city that you live in. Or at least, that’s how I feel.

So one morning I found myself by the US Capitol and in an effort to photograph something different, I spent a lot of time around the Library of Congress. I’ve mentioned many times before how the Library is my favorite interior in the entire city, but the exterior is beautiful all on its own. This particular composition struck me because of all the layers. I love how the staircases divide the image but I also love the little splashes of green. Everything is just lined up so nicely in this image. The best part is that the city is such a healthy city, that it doesn’t take a long time to wait for a runner to run by your shot 🙂

PS I love how if you peek through the windows on top of this image, you can kinda see what it looks like on the inside. LOL Can you tell I was proud of myself when I captured this? HAHA

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/200th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm.

After taking the image from yesterday’s post, I felt so inspired to take more pictures of the World War II memorial. I think I just realized how much I missed the memorial. So the next day, Andrew and I ended up going out. He wanted to get out of the house so I suggested taking pictures (obviously). We headed to DC around sunset time and just chilled out by the World War II memorial.

I had no idea what I was going to capture here, so I ended up walking around for a little bit when I saw this girl sitting on the bench. Is it just me, or did you just assume that the Memorials would not have electrical outlets? I mean, what? I saw this girl charging her phone and was so confused by it. But I was all for it since she was sitting there so beautifully in her bright pink outfit. She must have sat in that spot for a good 20 minutes. I tried all different compositions to capture her and this one was my favorite.

It’s inspired by one of my favorite photographers, Matt McClain. He works for the Washington Post and just consistently posts such amazing work. I’ve seen him post images of people by the water but the way he frames them is so creative. So while I was sitting by the fountain, I thought I’d give it a try.

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/250th sec and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

If I’m ever in the mood to practice some street photography, I love visiting Union Station to do so. The architecture is stunning and there are always so many people on the go that it’s actually pretty easy to get a lot of candid shots.

Plus a Magnolia’s Bakery just opened there and their banana pudding has been on top of my dessert list for forever. OMG.

Back to the image. This image was taken when I was about to leave the train station. I had spent some time inside and out, just wandering the area looking for cool images. I was a little hesitant to photograph this area because it’s just been done so many times, but I thought I’d just try it out to see what I could get.

In order to capture this, I stood pretty far back. Like across the street and then some. The further back I got, the more the arches and lights were getting compressed and I just loved the way that it was looking in my camera. So I pointed it up a little bit to get mostly the architecture as opposed to the people and I love the way that it turned out. It sort of reminds me of those cartoon images you see of the inside of a whale’s throat. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/50th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

PS If you do go to Magnolia’s Bakery, tell them Angela sent you. It won’t mean anything but just tell ’em 😉