ANGELA B. PAN

As I was sitting here looking at this image, thinking about what I wanted to say on this blog post, Andrew walked over to my computer screen and pointed at the image. This is unusual because he said , “Hey, that’s nice!” It’s unusual because Andrew doesn’t always like my images. I’d say about 50% of the time he doesn’t like them. It’s all good though. Because 50% of the time I don’t like the shirt he’s wearing. LOL. Just kidding. I appreciate his honesty. I rather him tell me what he really thinks of my images then him lying to me and always trying to please me.

But seriously, what’s not to like about this image? It’s like you’re being showered in pink petals and I love it. I love the magnolia trees that pop up all around Washington DC in the spring. And if I’m being honest, sometimes I think I like them a little more than the Cherry Blossoms just because they’re so much bigger and more abundant. It’s also nice because you don’t have to fight the crowds to photograph them either. But this view of looking up at them is my absolute favorite. The curves in the branches are so interesting.

These particular trees are located behind the Smithsonian Castle in the Enid A Haupt Garden. My favorite place to photograph magnolia trees because there are just so many of them in one location. Now that I’m thinking about it, forget what I said earlier this week about the snow. I’m ready for the flowers!

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/160th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and my 16-35mm wide angle. The wide angle lens was key so I could get as much as of the flowers in one frame as possible.

Before we left to Orlando, I had an itchy throat. I spent most of last week in bed when we got back. I’m not sure if it was the flu or not. We don’t actually own a thermometer but it was horrible to say the least. I have no idea what happened last Tuesday because I slept through it all. But I started to feel a lot better on Saturday and even better on Sunday. Funny how I was good to go by the weekend 🙂

Anyways, we got some pretty decent snow on Saturday. It didn’t stick for too long but I knew I wanted to go out on Sunday morning to shoot the sunrise. Usually when we get crazy weather like we did on Saturday, the sunrise on the next day will be just as crazy. And it was!!! It felt so good to be outside again. I met up with my friend, Birch and spent the morning walking around the Lincoln Memorial and National Mall.

It was sort of foggy and hazy but it was going in and out as well. I don’t know, its really hard to describe because it was weather like I’ve never seen before. But if I had to use one word to describe it, I’d call it “beautifuuullll” because it created this amazing glow. The best of the best glow was down the line of trees that run along side the Reflecting Pool. I love how it enclosed all the light at the end of the “tunnel”. I also really like how the World War II memorial is at the end of this walkway but you can barely make it out. Seriously this city looks so different everyday.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/100th of a second and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and Birch’s 70-200mm lens because I didn’t have mine with me 🙂

Sometimes I run out of things to talk about in these blog posts. So I googled one of those online quiz thingys and thought I’d answer some of them for you. Let’s see how this goes…

1. What are your nicknames? What do you prefer to be called?
My cousins on my mom’s side all call me ‘Angie’. My cousins on my dad’s side call me ‘Ang’. Somewhere between middle school and high school friends started calling me ‘Pangie’. I respond by all those names but always just introduce myself as ‘Angela’. I like it when people call me by nicknames though. It makes me feel like they’re comfortable enough with me to call me by another name.

2. What books on your shelf are begging to be read?
I’ve started all of them. I’ve finished about half. I’m mostly into self improvement books and biographies.

3. How often do you doodle? What do your doodles look like?
Not often at all but I used to all the time when I was bored in school. If I do, it’s like those line pattern things that quickly fill up the whole page.

4. What do you do if you can’t sleep at night? Do you count sheep? Toss and Turn? Try to get up and do something productive?
I usually get out of bed and go sit on the couch or something and read until I feel sleepy enough to fall asleep.

5. How many days could you last in solitary confinement? How would you do it?
2 days max but I would need my camera, laptop (only for photoshop) and a puzzle.

6. Who performs the most random acts of kindness out of everyone you know?
My husband, Andrew for sure! He’s always doing nice things for people, even without them knowing.

7. Are you a creature of habit? Explain.
Ummm… Yes! Daily blogging, I maintain an exercise routine of M,W,F and Saturday workouts, every morning I eat the same exact breakfest, the list seriously goes on and on.

8. When making an entrance in to a party, do you make your presence known? Do you slip in and look for someone you know? Do you sneak in quietly and find a safe spot to roost?
Slip in and look for someone I know. If I don’t know anyone, I head straight to the bar 🙂

9. What is your strongest sense? If you had to give one up, which would it be?
I’m guessing my strongest sense is sight? But if I had to give one up it would be smell as long as I could still taste without my smell.

10. Which animals scare you most? Why?
Ostriches. They are the root of my fear of birds. When I was little I had a reoccurring nightmare that one would pop it’s little head out of the ground, chase me, and peck at my hair. They’re big, scary and I don’t like them.

LOL How was that? Let me know if you liked this and maybe I’ll do more in the future.

The camera settings for this image is F4 at 2.5 seconds ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II 16-35mm lens and 10 stop neutral density filter.

I left to Orlando with no real photo intentions. All I really wanted was to have a good time with family at all the amusement parks.  Mission accomplished! I thought I’d get a cool shot of the Disney castle with the fireworks, but that didn’t really happen. Instead, I woke up early one morning and ubered to Lake Eola to check out the sunrise from there. Holy cow was it foggy.

2018 is turning out to be the year of the fog! For real.

You could barely see anything in front of you. I went to Lake Eola park with intentions of capturing the water in the foreground and the skyline in the background but I could barely see 10 ft in front of me. Instead, I changed my focus from the big picture down to the little details of what I thought made the lake so cool, all the birds and swans! This guy came at me because he thought I had food. Sorry bud, if I had some, I would have given it all to you.

Otherwise, Orlando was fantastic. It felt so nice to walk around in a tshirt and sneakers. My favorite park was Universal Studios because my favorite ride was the Incredible Hulk Coaster. I love rides that go upside down! I definietly want to go again because I know there’s so much more that we didn’t have time to do! Like Pandora- The World of Avatar ride in Disney’s Animal kingdom was a 3 hour wait. I’m sure it was worth the wait but we just didn’t have the time. I’ll be back, Orlando!

Anyways, here’s a group shot of all us in front of the Tree of Life in Disney’s Animal Kingdom 🙂

My settings for the swan image is F4.0 at 1/320th of a second at ISO 3200 on my Sony A7II with my 28-70mm lens.

Not too long ago, Budget Travel reached out to me because they wanted to use one of my images for their blog post. They were writing a piece on the best places in the country to see the sunrise and obviously, Washington DC made the list (because it really is one of the best places!). So I was honored that they wanted to use one of my images.

Click here if you want to check out the article.

You may have remembered when I took this image. It was at the same time as this one. Isn’t it crazy how different it looks with a vertical crop vs. a horizontal crop? They were obviously taken a couple of minutes a part but they look so different to me. What about you? Do you see a difference? If so, which one do you prefer? Anyways, I love the way that this one turned out as well. I think it’s so interesting to see the cloud formations behind the trees. The reflection from the reflecting pool could not be any better!

On a side note, we just got back from our trip to Orlando yesterday. I had a blast! A much needed vacation after a pretty stressful time in life. I’m ready to get back out there and shoot! More sunrises and sunsets like this please <3 I’ll be back home for a little while now. No real trips planned as of yet but I’m getting the itch to go somewhere in springtime. If you know of any cool places to go to, let me know. Especially places with some beautiful flowers!

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/30th of a second at ISO 250 on my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens on a tripod.

Thanks again Budget Travel!

If you’ve been following my blog for a long time, then you would know that I used to say three things I was grateful for every Friday. I’m not sure what happened to that because it just stopped. To be honest, I think I just forgot. But if you do remember that, thank you. I love you. You are one of my favorite people on the internet.

So I don’t know if I’m going to do this every Friday but I’m at least going to do it today because I have so many things to be grateful for.

1. I’m grateful to be in Orlando right now with family having the time of my life. Tomorrow is my nephew’s 3rd birthday and I can’t wait to watch him blow out the candles on his cake. It’s one of his favorite things to do even when it’s not his own birthday and I’m so excited to see him happy 🙂
2. I’m grateful for the DC photo community. I’ve met so many great people in the past year or two that I can’t believe it’s only been 1 or 2 years since I’ve started going to instameets and things. Regardless, I’ve met some really awesome, creative, nice people and I could not be more grateful for them always inspiring me to do more.
3. I’m grateful for the sunrising everyday. Its probably my favorite time of day (minus the waking up so early part) because it’s just so still and quiet. I love getting out there with my camera and just knowing that I will have that moment to watch something beautiful happen before me. Sometimes it can be hard to balance the photography vs. enjoying the moment thing, but I’m having a great time figuring it all out.

This image was created in Point Loma, San Diego. Just a peaceful morning out on the water that made me so happy to be there. My camera settings for this image is F16 at 1/30th of a second at ISO 125 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.