ANGELA B. PAN

If you missed it, yesterday I announced the completion of Snap DC, Your Guide to Taking Extraordinary Photos of the National Mall and Beyond… Thank you all so much for your positive feedback and basically good vibes all around. It was like I was floating on a cloud all day. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the blog post. But more importantly, here’s the page where you can sign up to get all the info, extras and even a preview of the first chapter of the book.

Within the first couple pages of the book you’ll see that I’ve dedicated the book to my grandma, Nai Nai. She passed away earlier this year but I know she would have been super proud of me for creating this book. I know I haven’t talked about it much but we found out she wasn’t doing well around Thanksgiving 2017. I spent a lot of days with her in the hospital and I would always bring my computer with me. I would work on Snap DC while she was resting. Remember that story I shared earlier this year about my love for flowers and my grandma saying “pretty”? We were in the hospital at that time looking through pages of the book. At that time they were just google drive pages on my phone but she is one of the first people to ever see it.

This image is not a part of the book. However it’s the image that I was working on when I found out the news of her passing. I find it symbolic to have been working on an image with the fog passing through the bridge as if it is her spirt was passing to her next life. This is exactly how I left it when I found out the news.

So Snap DC is dedicated to Nai Nai. I wish she could have seen the final product.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/1250th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

I deleted Instagram off my phone on Tuesday night.

It may not seem like a big deal to some, but for me it was. I’m going to be open and honest here because I just got done talking about this with my friend, Alejandra and I felt inspired to share the story…

I woke up Tuesday morning at 6a. Not an unusual time for me to wake up if I’m not shooting the sunrise. Usually I’d wake up around 4:30-5 if I were. So 6am is kinda like I’m sleeping in. Just like everyone else, one of the first things I do when I’m fully awake is go on my phone and check out what’s been going on social media. One of the first things I see is that there was this amazingly beautiful sunrise, pinks, purples, the whole 9 that morning. I took a look out my bedroom window (which is facing west) and noticed that the sky was so pink. From my experience I know that if the sky facing west is pink then it had to be an amazing sunrise. I immediately felt upset. I missed out on an opportunity to capture one of my favorite things in the whole world, a colorful sky.

So that’s how I started off my day. I spent the rest of the morning thinking about where I would have gone if I went out to take pictures, what my composition what have been like, etc etc etc. Basically just beating myself up about missing the sunrise. But I felt like there had to be underlying reason why I was upset. I was upset because I knew that my most popular images on Instagram are the ones with skies just like the one I had slept through. They are the ones with the most beautiful sunrises with a memorial or something iconic in the foreground and I had missed out. This winter has been so grey and foggy that I couldn’t believe I stayed in bed for this one! I was missing out on the likes. I was missing out on new followers. I was missing out on other people’s confirmations that they like me as an artist and in turn them liking me as a person.

How freaking crazy is that?

So obviously one thought lead to another and I ended up having a really hard mental day. Everything was getting on my nervous. I started getting really antsy and impatient about some projects that I’m working on and why it’s not all complete. Even though nothing had really changed as far as the progression, I just expect things to come sooner, better, and I could not get over it.

I realized at the end of the day I was putting so much pressure on myself to be perfect, to create the type of images I was expected to, and to get as many ‘likes’ as I possibly could. What’s crazy is that I even have this magical number in my head that if I don’t hit it within the first hour of my posting, then it’s not a good image. I just couldn’t deal with it anymore and decided to delete instagram from my phone and take a little “instabreak”. I don’t know how long it’s going to last but I already feel like some pressure has been taken off.

As an artist, I shouldn’t be so concerned with what other people think of my work. I should be concerned if I like the work. I should worry about if the image I created is a true representation of who I am as an artist and if it conveys the thoughts or emotions that I want said.

I don’t know. Those are just my quick thoughts about being an artist on social media now. Please let me know if I’m not the only crazy and if you feel the same way as well. I’ll be back on instagram eventually. Probably within the next week because I still love it for artistic inspiration and I’ve made some amazing friends from the app. I just need to take a little bit of time for myself. I’ll still be out there taking pics even if I’m not posting on instagram… I’ll be posting them on twitter now instead. LOL. FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER!!! I took this one this morning at the Iwo Jima Memorial 🙂 JK I love taking pictures and sharing them with everyone. I just felt like I was putting too much pressure on myself and don’t feel the same pressure from facebook, twitter, etc…

Other thoughts that passed through my head yesterday were not being my true self on the internet vs. real life and the need for everything to be perfect in my images before posting them. If you’re interested, let me know and I can write another long ass blog post about those topics and hopefully start a discussion.

And for those who are only here for my camera settings they are F10 at 20 seconds ISO 160 on my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Going through some of my older images, I found this one. Man it’s been a long time since I’ve been to the United States Air Force Memorial. I think the last time I was there was almost 2 years ago when my friend, Navin and I were out capturing some lightning images. In my opinion it’s one of the harder monuments in the Washington DC area to photograph. I think I find it is so hard to capture because there isn’t a lot of space surrounding it. It’s hard to maneuver  your camera and tripod around in order to get the entire monument in one frame. The only way to capture was to I walk outside of the memorial grounds and stand on the sidewalk at Columbia Pike to get it all in one image. Obviously you can photograph it while in the grounds but it’s very difficult without cutting anything off.

My favorite part of the image is the light that’s hitting the bare trees. I think it looks really cool and interesting, especially the one on the right. I think it looks like it is made out of metal or something, right? Don’t get me wrong though. I still think that the United States Air Force Memorial is one of the coolest places to go to photograph a big sky. I love the hill the sits right outside of it. It’s a great place to sit with your camera and see interesting views of the Jefferson Memorial, Washington Monument and the US Capitol. The best time of day to shoot this memorial is probably sunset.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 2.5 seconds and ISO 500 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 24-105mm. LOL that’s how you know this is an older image. I shot it with my Canon. Ahhh memories.

First of all, Happy Valentine’s Day LOVES!!!! I personally don’t think Valentine’s day is only for your significant other. I think Valentine’s day should be shared with everyone you love – family, friends, internet friends.  So I wish you a day full of smiles and hugs and pizza 🙂 Who doesn’t love pizza, am I right?

But I thought it was appropriate to post about 2 of my favorite places. The airport and the National Mall.  National Mall is a given but the airport is one of my favorite places to hang out. It’s the best place to people watch, theres always a huge variety of food to select from and each airport is so different from one another. Sometimes I just like going early to sit and watch. Is that weird? I dunno, I think my love of airports started from a young age visiting the Las Vegas airport. Now that’s a cool airport!! I always imagine walking through the airport with my mom and she’d always imitate her favorite noise, “cling cling cling cling” goes the sound of the slot machines. LOL.

Anyways… if you read my last blog post about flying out of Reagan National Airport, then I’m sorry, I think I gave you the wrong information. LOL. Turns out you can see the National Mall even when you’re flying south. I captured this image on our way down to Orlando. Again, I was sitting on the right hand side of the airplane and it worked! I really don’t know how the runways work for which direction you’re flying but it’s a pretty safe bet that if you’re going to see the National Mall, you’ll see it on the right hand side when flying out of DCA. Don’t get me wrong though, there are certain times when you won’t see it. I haven’t quite figured that part out yet. I’ll keep you updated!

My settings for this image is F8 at 1/1000th of a second at ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom lens.

I preschedule all my blog posts. That’s the only way I can make sure one gets up on the blog everyday. So as I was wrapping up yesterday’s blog post on Sunday, I was messaging my friend, Birch about the snow this coming week. We tentatively made plans to meet up and shoot but with Washington DC weather who really knows if it’s actually going to happen. And as a casual side note she told me about the awesome fog layer that was forming at that time on the Potomac River. And you know me, as soon as I hear the word ‘fog’ my ears perk up. I literally just wrapped up that blog post as fast as I could and made my way to the city.

OMG it was like I was in a magical dream land. The fog was amazing! Something I experience probably once a year in the city and I loved it. Birch and I met by the Arlington Memorial bridge and walked a huge loop around the memorials. This image was taken right at the base of the bridge but what’s crazy is that there were times where you couldn’t even see this much. If this isn’t the way to spend a spontaneous Sunday afternoon then I don’t know what is. Plus this image is in full color. Nuts-o, right?

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/800th of a second and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

So as of now, the snow doesn’t look like it’s going to happen this week. I told you Washington DC weather can be kind of crazy so definietly be expecting a lot of fog images. Birch and I were walked a lot and probably stopped at least 20 times to say “woah” 🙂 I love foggy days in DC.

Happy Happy New Year!!! YAYAYAYAY!!!! 2018!

In 2017, I set a goal to travel for photo at least once a season. Mission accomplished. Here are my favorite travel images from 2017 in chronological order.

Click on the pictures to read my original blog post.

Iceland, you beautiful country. I love you. I’ll see you again soon, k?

Captured in the middle of the day with my 10-stop neutral density filter. I love that thing. I keep it in my camera bag at all times.

Took this one just a few hours after the previous image but on the other side of the sea stacks. Crazy how the different point of view changes so much.

One of my favorite parts about Iceland, the horses! They’re so sweet.

I’m not sure if you noticed or not but once I got back from Iceland, I decided to work on my blog even more. Yes, I still post new images every weekday, but I’m taking the time out to write longer and more thoughtful blog posts. I just thought that an interesting change from this trip that I wanted to note.

I captured this image in Virginia at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. That counts as travel, right? My favorite part of this image is that little ripple the fish on top is making with his tail.

Arches National Park in Utah. This was one of the first images I captured at sunrise. I just love how the sun burst balances out the red rocks on the right hand side.

I fell in love in the spring and it was with Colorado. Man o man, I gotta go back in 2018.

Rocky National Park is one of my favorites. It’s so hard to take a bad picture.

The beginning of our epic cross country road trip. That was one adventure that I’ll never forget.

Taken on a tripod and a 10 second timer. I must have looked crazy constantly running back and forth in my flip flops. LOL oh well. Wasn’t the first time.

My first time seeing saguaro cactuses in real life. They are amazingly beautiful and so big. Now that I think of it, I should of taken another self portrait like I did in the previous image here.

Visited Maine for the first time in October. I love how spacious and airy this image is.

It was hard to find this perspective but once I did, it was totally worth the early morning wake up call and the climb down slippery rocks.

That’s it. Those were my favorite travel images of 2017. Can’t wait to capture even more in the new year.
In case you missed it, I did the same thing with just Washington DC photos. Click here to check them out.