ANGELA B. PAN

Last week I said ‘goodbye’ to my friend, Navin. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that we’ll randomly meet up and shoot together. He was one of the first people I ever met in the DC photo community and it’s so crazy to think he won’t be here anymore. Our mutual friend, Joe threw him a little going away party and what do photographers do when they’re moving away? Obviously we get together and shoot one last sunset before heading off to get some drinks at a near by bar.

It was the perfect send off. All day we had crazy weather. I think I saw weather reports saying we had three tornados touch down in DC on that day. At some points it was even hailing. Luckily, when we met up the rain had stopped for a little bit. The clouds were racing above us and we were able to get some super moody shots. Then without any warning, it started to downpour. It wasn’t so bad because even through the downpour, there was still this amazing light that shined through the clouds that made everything illuminate and it was so beautiful.

This image was shot at F7.1 at 1/200th of a second ISO 400. Again, the clouds were pretty crazy and dark this day but I was super excited to get that one little clearing above the dome. Its my favorite part of this image because it looks like a little halo over the United States Capitol Building.

Its always fun shooting with people who have the same interests in photography as you. It was just a bonus that you ended up being a cool person as well. Best of luck in the Bay Area, Navin! Come back and visit and we’ll shoot again 🙂

Shout out to my friend, Zack who had been texting me to meet up for sunset on this day. Although we were on two very different sides of the national mall shooting (I was by the reflecting pool and he was at the US Capitol), I would of never have gone out on this day if it weren’t for him. It’s funny because we were texting each other pictures of what we were seeing in the sky the entire time. Once the color actually broke through the clouds, it was dead silent between the both of us until it was all over. LOL.

So I was sitting by the reflecting pool, mostly concentrating on the sky. But it was awesome because these little kids came up next to me with crackers and were feeding the ducks. *note to self, always bring crackers when taking pictures* So my attention went from the sky to getting the ducks in the foreground of the reflecting pool and Lincoln Memorial. I got some pretty cool shots which I’ll post later. Next, I’m not sure what happened but I turned around to see that the sky behind had really blown up. I mean you usually see the sunset colors behind the Lincoln Memorial, but all the action was behind the Washington Monument right at the WWII Memorial. Luckily, I had some time to set up a shot. But it didn’t last long. I’m glad I was able to capture what I did.

Camera settings for this shot was F5 with a 15 second exposure at ISO500. I was using my Ice neutral density filter for this one so I was able to capture the saturated colors and any people who were in my way were blurred out. The only people you see were the ones who were standing there for longer than 15seconds.

Shot on the same puddle as this image. Even on a super cold, windy day there will always be people running around the tidal basin. I don’t know how they do it, especially in shorts. Anyways, I saw him running from 100 ft away. I immediately got into position where I thought I could get him and the Washington Monument in the same shot, squatted down low and hoped that it would work out. Luckily it did. This was probably about 20 minutes after the first image was shot though. Thats why this one is way more moodier and darker than the other one. I really like how the guy is almost silhouetted.

In other news, Andrew and I have booked our next trip! We’re going to be flying into Denver and road tripping it to Moab, UT and Rocky Mountain National Park. If you’ve been there, please let me know if you have any recommendations. Hotel, food, photography, whatever. Neither of us have ever been and I’m super excited to explore the mile high city and for our road trip. I know its going to be amazingly beautiful. One of my friends just came back from there and he was telling me that the altitude sickness is real while in Denver. After a quick amazon search, I’m not sure which medicine would be the best for us. So if you have any experience with that, please let me know as well. I never thought I’d get motion sickness but recently there have been times when I’m on a boat and will get pretty ill. I’d like to prevent anything like that from happening on our trip so I can maximize my photography time. Oh YEA!

This is going to be an awesome experience. I’ve always felt like I’ve only been to the coasts and edges of the United States but never anywhere in the middle. Really looking forward to the adventure 🙂

Last Friday was a crazy weather day. It’s been a long time since I’d seen anything like it. All through out the day mother nature switched from cloudy to sunny, rain to snow and even sunny with snow! It was bananas just sitting in front of the window and watching it all happen. Especially since the changes would happen every 10 minutes. So around 4pm I looked out again and saw some amazing clouds. I was really hoping for a great sunset. Usually when we have crazy weather days like this, the skies really light up.

I met up with my friend, Zack, to shoot the sunset from the Tidal Basin. Half sunset shooting, half scouting the cherry blossoms. Unfortunately the skies didn’t light up like I was expecting but I had a great time shooting from a low point of view. When I say low, I mean so low that I wasn’t even able to see what I was shooting. It was really a guessing game but one that worked in my favor. The water in the tidal basin was so choppy, there was no way that I would of been able get a reflection from it. Then we found this amazing puddle. It made me see the skies and the clouds in a totally different way.

Most of the time I’m out shooting by myself. So it’s great to meet up with people who have some of the same interest as I do. I had complimented Zack on a similar picture he took of a puddle and he was kind enough to show me how he did it. It made me think about all the other amazing puddles that I could of gotten a great shot out of but just walked away because I didn’t try it. Oh well. At least now I know.

Our flight into Keflavik landed at 5am. Luckily I had the whole aisle to myself and was able to lay down and sleep the whole 5 hours to Iceland. Don’t you just love it when that happens? Anyways, so when we got to the hotel I was ready to drop off our stuff and start exploring. My friend, Mel and I discovered these geothermal baths and steam saunas at Laugarvatn Fontana. It was the first stop we were going to make along the Golden Circle drive in southern Iceland so we were pumped to relax for a bit after all that travel.

The baths were so nice. I’m a big fan of soaking in a hot tub so this was perfect. Even though it was raining off and on while we were there, it didn’t stop us from enjoying our little excursion. So behind the baths was this big lake. It was beautiful but definietly cold. I could see a layer of ice on top of the water. But the craziest part was that people were actually jumping into that lake! I don’t know. I don’t get it. So the whole time Mel and I were watching in amazement from a window in the baths as these people timed themselves to see how long they could stay in there. Then it was hilarious watching them run back to the baths and jump in. This little girl who must of been about 8 years old did it at least 3 times. More power to her.

After about 2 hours of soaking, we finally got up and explored the rest of the golden circle. On our way back to the hotel we had to make a stop back to Laugarvatn Fontana because it was the only place we knew of that had wifi. It was worth it though because the sun was setting and we got this amazing reflection of the mountains in the lake.

Last week I was out shooting the sunset. The sunset was spectacular but I wasn’t in a very good spot to photograph it. I was kinda down and was ready to head back to my car. But then I turned around and saw this amazing glow on the Washington Monument. It looks like a sword in the sky, doesn’t it?