ANGELA B. PAN

Reflections from yesterday. Reflections for today. I bet I could go on all week with just reflection images. I think I’ll try. They’re one of my favorite things to shoot. It’s just so exciting when you see a nice one, especially in a puddle or something like that where it’s unexpected.

But even the Tidal Basin can be unexpected sometimes. The water can get kinda choppy and the reflection won’t be as visible. I’m pretty sure I got lucky this day. With an awesome sunrise, great colors and a great reflection. While post processing this image, I intentionally edited it so the colors went from cool to warm. Love the way that it looks and sort of completes the story of the sunrise. That way you know which direction the sun is coming from and where it’s about to hit. At times like this, you can also see the Washington Monument glow orange from the sun light. It didn’t happen this day, but it’s my absolute favorite when it does happen.

The settings for this image is F/14 at 1/8th of a second and ISO 90 with my Sony A7ii and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

By the way, I received the 2018 Dynamic DC Calendars over the weekend and AHHHHH they look sooo good! I always get so nervous about the final product, but I’m pretty sure that this year’s calendar is my favorite out of all the years that I’ve been doing this. I’m going to start shipping them out later this week so if you ordered one, be on the look out and let me know what you think. If you love it, take a selfie with it. I’d love to see where you hang them and your beautiful face.

If you haven’t gotten yours yet, make sure to get it now. There aren’t much left.

YAY Monday again! Hope you all had a great weekend.

I took this image in September of 2016. You would think that I go to the Tidal Basin so often to take sunrise images that I’d forget what it was like capturing this particular image from over a year ago, but I don’t. A day like this is sort of hard to forget. I remember exactly what it was like. The morning was absolutely gorgeous. I had been walking along the side of the Tidal Basin just snapping away and shooting the sunrise from all different angles. But there comes to a point when you’re just done shooting. You feel like you’ve captured THE image and you’re ready to go home. So I was walking back to my car when all of the sudden I look up and there are rays of pink bursting out of the clouds. OMG it was sooo cool. I took a few shots of it from where I was standing, but I didn’t feel like it showcased the rays like I wanted to. So I immediately started running to a position where I was able to capture the rays of light as if it were coming out of the Jefferson Memorial. I’m lucky the pink rays lasted for so long cuz I’m a slow runner. HAHA.

Doesn’t it kind of look like the grand re-opening of the Jefferson Memorial in Las Vegas? HAHA! Like the Luxor Hotel but not as big and way more historical.

Either way, I’m really happy with the way this turned out. I love how you can even see the reflection of the rays in the water. Not a bad way to start the day, am I right?

My camera settings for this image is F/14 at 1/6th of a second and ISO 80 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

This past Friday, I had the honor of going back to high school again. WOW never thought I’d ever say those words but it really was an honor. I was invited by Ms. Archibald (just kidding Amanda), the current photo teacher at my alma mater, Langley High School.

I had such a great time sharing my photo journey since high school and speaking to the students about my photography. But my favorite part was after my talk and speaking to the individuals about their own images. To hear them speak about their own work and what they’d like to accomplish with their photography was inspiring. The creativity they had was like nothing I had seen. One artist was asking me on how she could expand on her dark image series. Another had used an xacto knife on her prints to reinforce the emotions the image was portraying. It was so cool. Man, to be that young again and utilize digital photography and social media to your advantage is so awesome. Kids these days…

The crazy part was walking through those doors again. There has been so much construction that my old high school was hardly recognizable. I mean nothing was the same! The photo lab still had a dark room but their main classroom looked more like a computer class than anything else. Everything is digital! Back in my day we were film only.

It would be so great to reconnect with my old photo teacher. So Mrs. Morse! If you’re out there, let’s have lunch and catch up!!

This image has nothing to do with my day at Langley. It’s an image I took a little while ago but I just thought it was cool. The camera settings on this one is 0.5 seconds and F22 at ISO 100.

Thanks again, Amanda and LHS for letting me come back. I had an experience will be hard to forget.

You know what’s really cool about waking up for sunrise? The windy air. LOL!

Sorry, bad joke. But for real, waking up for sunrise and then driving to the top of a mountain can get real chilly and Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park was no exception. I was wearing 2 pairs of pants, about 5 layers including a jacket on the top half of my body and gloves while waiting for the sun in the beginning of October. It’s totally worth it though. I love being first place and when you’re on top of Cadillac Mountain, you see the sunrise first before anyone else in the United States. YESSSSS.

But usually I’m hoping for a cloudy sunrise. The colors of the sun fill the clouds and that is my favorite time to take pictures. If it’s cloudy enough, it can make the whole sky turn a variety of colors. But it didn’t happen this day. The day that we designated to shoot sunrise from Cadillac Mountain was super clear. Not a single cloud in the sky. In this instance, I think it works though. All the rocks and textures on the bottom half of the image bring the interest in this photograph and the simplicity in the sky above just work well together. I love how there is a slight gradient but otherwise, I’m staring at that guy walking across the frame. Him being there really reminds me of what it was like being on top of the mountain. Pretty chilly but totally worth waking up early and capturing a great landscape image.

And as I was putting my camera back into my backpack, my tripod blew over and almost hit someone. Again. *face palm*

The settings for this image is 1/250th of a second at F/5.6 ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom.

If you turned around from Bass Harbor Head Light and looked onto the water, this is the sunrise you would have seen. Heart eyes emoji!

It was the best sunrise we had seen all week! And again, I did not use my tripod to capture this, I was balancing my camera on the rocks. I really like doing that because it makes everything in the foreground look super big. A play on proportions if you will and a way to see things that you usually wouldn’t be able to see just with your naked eye.

And in the center of the water is a boui that had a bell in it. I loved it. It was so peaceful and calming to hear the bell ring whenever the wind blew it. At first I had no idea what was making the noise but once we figured it out it was like listening to church bells on a peaceful morning.

But we weren’t the only ones on the rocks savoring this sunrise. There were a few other photographers who were there and as morning went on, more and more people started to show up. At one point this guy screamed, “look a seal” and pointed to something that looked like it could have been a seal’s back sticking out of the water. I was so excited to see it because Sue and I had been looking for seals the whole week. I even pulled out my vlog camera to try to capture it. But when the “seal” didn’t move for 2 minutes and its back was still sticking out of the water, I could only assume that I was staring at a rock and missed the seal completely. Crying face emoji!

The settings for this image is 15 seconds at F5.6 ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

As mentioned in a past blog post, Sue and I spent our last sunrise in Maine at Bass Harbor Head Light of Acadia National Park. It was super fun. To get down to this spot to take this image, you had to climb down some seriously steep rocks. It was a little shady at some points. Another photographer who was already there before we arrived suggested I just leave my backpack at the top and just climb down with my wide angle and tripod. Ummm no thanks sir. I got this.

So with my backpack, tripod and jacket (that I didn’t need), I carefully got down to this very cool puddle. It was the best spot to see as much of the lighthouse as you could without having to stand on slippery rock. Seeing the reflection in the water was definietly an added bonus. Then the sun rose. It was an amazing sunrise that made everything turn a reddish orange. My favorite was seeing the light casted onto the lighthouse and making the rocks in the foreground look like massive boulders.

Thankfully, I had my camera bag and all my camera equipment with me and I was able to pull out my neutral density filter to  shoot this long exposure. With the light getting bright, it was harder to capture the color without a filter. The neutral density filter really allowed me to get that saturated color, especially in the reflection. Love how that turned out!

My camera settings for this image is 6 seconds at F4 and ISO 1000 with my 16-35mm wide angle lens and Sony A7II. Although I had my tripod with me, I did not use it for this image. My camera was stabilized on a rock so I could get as low as possible to get as much of the reflection as possible.