ANGELA B. PAN

For some reason it has just occurred to me that summer is almost over. What?! Like didn’t it just start last week? I feel like I now have to pack all these summer activities in the next 3 weeks before fall comes. What about you? What are the things you have to do every summer? My idea of a good time is just being outdoors. Although this past month it seems like it’s been raining more than it has been sunny. I hope that doesn’t mean we’re going to have a real cold winter.

In effort to jam in as much as we can these last few weeks of summer, Andrew and I have booked another trip to go to New York City at the end of the month. He must have realized how fast summer was going too. HAHA. We’ll be staying for a few days which will be really different for us. We’re usually there for a weekend and we’re gone. This time, I’m really looking forward to taking my time in the city but I already know if Andrew’s involved there will definietly be massive amounts of eating amazing food. It’s usually his job to find the food. It’s my job to find the photo opportunities. So I want to go to the places that I’ve always wanted to go to visit but we were never able to cram into a weekend getaway. Like art museums or trying to find some amazing views from New York buildings like the top of the Empire State building or top of the One World Trade Center. So if you guys have any New York City recommendations, please let me know. We’ll be staying in Brooklyn this time and Frankie is coming with us too! Family filled fun <3

So the settings for this image was F7.1 at 1/200th of a second ISO 160.

Every morning I have a routine. After I have settled into my desk and take care of the little things that need to be done, I will begin my day with processing an image. It relaxes me, it makes me happy and I feel accomplished once it’s done. I’m one of those photographers who enjoys the process of editing an image and I really believe that it’s at that time in front of the computer that your image really comes to life. Your emotions and vision become whole.

After I’m done, I’ll save it to a folder on my desktop called “haven’t blogged yet” and then uploaded the image to instagram. I usually come up with some little phrase or caption that suites the image but as soon as it’s up, I’ll mostly likely forget about the image. It’s kinda of those one and done things and then I’m on to working on the main focus for the day. However it doesn’t always make it on to instagram. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with the social media network. Most of the time, I love it. But there have been a few instances where the image just doesn’t look good. Whether it’s the instagram cropping, the resolution quality or even if it doesn’t fit well with the ‘grid’ view of my other images, there will be images that won’t even make it to my instagram. Is that being called being too picky?

On the flip side, people who follow me on instagram are the ones who are the first to see most of my images.

I have quite a few images in the “haven’t blogged yet” folder that have not seen the light of day on any social media. I still really enjoy them but sometimes, it just doesn’t fit well. They would only look good on my blog, facebook, and other social medias where you can see the whole entire piece. This is one of those images.

So I stayed around a little longer to check out the sunset. I figured it was going to be good one after all the rain we got. Plus that epic double rainbow still had my shutter-clicking finger itchin’ for some more.

It was an interesting night. The west was fully covered with clouds. No chance of any light or color peaking through. The only color we got was coming from the east and it was so beautiful. This soft pastel-y kinda of pink invaded the lingering storm clouds. But I think my favorite part of this image is the US Capitol’s dome reflection. For the same exact reasons that I liked this one of the Washington Monument. The ducks swimming past just made it that much more interesting. Luckily these particular ducks just kept on swimming back and forth in front of my camera for some reason so I had plenty of opportunity to catch them at the right time. And the whole time I was trying to capture these ducks, there was an elementary school girl next to me taking a time lapse on her iPhone. Her friend kept on asking her to take instagram pictures of her but she explained that she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop taking the time lapse of the ducks and sunset because it was so “aesthetically pleasing”. She kept on repeating that phrase over and over again because she was just so proud of her time lapse. So the whole time I was taking this picture, I was definietly making a conscious effort to make sure my images were ‘aesthetically pleasing’ as well.

The settings for this image is F/8 at 1/250th of a second at ISO 1250. The light was dark and the ducks were going by fast. I had to make sure I got a clear image for the shot I had envisioned in my head.

I’m currently in the middle of reading 5 books. This has never happened before. I’m more of the finish a book before you start another one type of person, but I’m super into all of these books. And the funniest part of it all is that I’ve never really read photography books either. The last time I read one must have been when I was in college or something taking photography as an elective. It’s funny because half of these books are about photo.

So if you want to get your summer reading on, check these books out:

1. Ansel Adams: An Autobiography. More than anything, this book just makes me want to backpack around Yosemite for a year. However, this book starts from his early childhood and it’s super interesting how he has developed his creativity throughout his adult life.
2. Extraordinary Everyday Photography: Awaken Your Vision to Create Stunning Images Wherever You Are.  All about finding unique compositions where you live. Seeing new things out of the mundane.
3. The Business Idea Factory: A World-Class System for Creating Successful Business Ideas. If you ever feel like you’re in a rut, check out this book. Andrew originally recommended it to me and this may be my favorite out of the ones on this list.
4. Real Artists Don’t Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age.  It’s a really easy read with some inspiring stories of creatives from around the world. So far, my favorite part is about how the author, John Grisham and how he made his mark with ‘legal thrillers’.
5. And I’m still waiting to finish listening to Kevin Hart’s I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons. I started listening to it on our cross country road trip and I can’t wait to find out what happens 🙂

If you haven’t noticed, the books I like are self help, autobiography, non-fiction type books. LOL. Let me know if you’ve read any of these book or if you pick any of them up. What do you think, should we start a book club or something? I think that’d be so fun!

PS. the image is from sunset at White Sands National Monument <3

Dead Horse Point. What a funny name for a state park, don’t you think? But it’s probably one of my favorite places in Utah that I’ve ever photographed. It is beautiful at any time of the day and in the two days that we were in Moab, we visited this place twice. It was that cool. I also liked it because it was so easily accessible. There weren’t long hikes or anything that you had to do in order to get some great views. You pretty much park your car and you are right there in the mix of all this amazingness. I took this while I was waiting for the sun to go down. It’s hard to believe places like this really exist.

Speaking of which, have you seen the HBO show West World? Andrew and I started watching it from a recommendation of a friend and just hearing people talk about it in general. I think we’ve seen 3 episodes of it. To be honest, I’m not a big fan. It’s a little too weird for me. There are so many characters and so much going on at once that it’s a bit too much for me. I can’t find a single character to really care about or relate to. But I mention West World because it looks like the characters on the show are straight up living in National Parks. I don’t know for sure but some of it must have been filmed in Utah and they make it look amazing! I think that’s the most exciting part of watching West World to me. Just watching the scenery and imagining what life really must of been like back in the day, when there were no real rules, just amazing landscapes. Oh man, the trouble I probably would of gotten myself into. HAHA!

BTW, did you know that if you hoover on top of the image and there’s a link to “purchase print”? Obviously, you can buy this print if you’d like, but it also allows you to view it larger. I’d recommend doing that! This image looks even better bigger! For realz.

Flowers are my favorite. They make me so happy. Especially when you see a whole bunch of them growing like these sunflowers in southern Maryland. This image was taken last year and I’ve heard the ones this year are just couple weeks away from blooming. Can’t wait!

So if you’re in the DC metro area and interested in shooting these sunflowers, google or click this link for McKee Beshers. It’s hard to give an exact location to where they are but on their website, they’ll have a map of where the sunflowers are blooming. That will be your best bet.

If I can offer you any tips on shooting these sunflowers, it would be BRING BUG SPRAY. Not even joking. I’ve never had so many bug bites in my life. Two years ago, I went with my friend Ryan to go shooting and at one point we decided there were way too many mosquitos and we started running back to the car. Tell me how I swallowed 2 of them!!! It’s absolutely nuts how they just swarm you. I’ll never wear shorts out there. I rather be hot in long pants and a shirt before I even think about going there with too much exposed skin. If you haven’t noticed yet, these bugs are for real. Definietly take precautions. The mosquitos and I are not friends.

Other than that, sunset is probably your best time to go too. I’ve tried sunrise a few times but where these fields are located, sunset is definietly the time with the best light. I’ve seen people bring ladders and that’s probably a cool point of view as well. If you have any other questions about these sunflowers, don’t hesitate to ask 🙂 I know a lot of people were asking me about them on instagram so I think that answers the majority of them.

My settings for this image was F7.1 at 1/13th of a second ISO 125 shot at sunset while a storm was approaching.