ANGELA B. PAN

And probably the most epic travel experience of 2017 was our cross country road trip from Northern Virginia all the way to Southern California. It was intense, but soooooo much fun. I can’t even express how fortunate I am to have been able to do something like that. Everyday was a brand new adventure with driving times averaging 9-10 hours everyday. That doesn’t include all our pitstops. Some were as long as touring Elvis’ Graceland to as short as visiting Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas for 10 minutes. Either way, it was a trip that I’ll never forget.

My favorite, favorite destination without a doubt was White Sands National Monument in Alamogordo, New Mexico. It has been a place that I’ve been wanting to go for the longest time and when the opportunity presented itself, I knew that was a place where we were spending the night. No pit stops, no messing around, we’re taking as many pictures as we can of this place! So that meant sunset and sunrise. Unfortunately the park wasn’t open at sunrise but we were still able to take some early morning shots which was cool, but not as cool as sunrise. LOL.

Fortunately when we arrived at sunset, a huge rain storm was about to arrive as well. It turned the skies all these crazy colors of orange and purple, I literally thought I was in a dream. Running up and down these sand dunes is no joke either. I was going crazy trying to find different perspectives with the skies. By the end, I was super out of breath. Note to self, forget your shoes and bring a bottle of water next time you shoot sand dunes.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/20th of a second ISO 160 with my Sony A7II 28-70mm.

I love New York. My friends ask me why I go so much, but there’s something about the city where you can be so anonymous and free to be who are that I love so much. Every turn is something new and exciting to see and you can never be bored. There’s a million and one things to do in the city and even more to eat. Which is probably reason #2 why I love going. The food is the bommmmmmb.

Over the weekend, Andrew and I took a short trip to the city. It was cold but so awesome to see all the christmas decorations and lights. We put our name down for dinner at an Italian restaurant and had an hour to kill so we figured we’d walk to Rockafeller Center to check out the Christmas Tree. You know that pre-dinner walk so you can fit more food into your belly? Anyways… Holy cow going on a Saturday night is not a good idea. It was so crowded, you could barely move. So once we made our way out of the crowd we somehow found ourselves on this closed off street in front of the Radio City Music Hall. I have no idea how I was able to get no people in this shot but I did. If you look at either side of the sidewalks you can see some people walking by but it really doesn’t depict just how many people were actually there. I don’t know how to express just how many people were there and how amazed I am for not getting any of them in this image. LOL. *pats self on back*

My camera settings for this image F4.0 at 1/13th of a second at ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

The end of 2017 is fast approaching and I can’t help but reflect on the amazing year it’s been. I think this whole week on the blog I’ll talk about all the fun photo adventures of the year. It started off with an awesome trip to Iceland. It was my second time there but definietly not my last. If you’ve never been to Iceland, it’s hard to describe. It’s just so amazingly beautiful and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the outdoors.

I took this image on one of the last days we were there. We had shot sunrise and was wondering around Höfn when we stumbled upon this group of horses. It was beautiful because the early morning light was hitting them perfectly. But if you look at this guy in the eye, you can totally tell how calm and relaxed they all are. The horses in Iceland are super chill and so great to pet… and hug… and basically obsess over.

Shout out to Peak Design for their awesome camera straps. I have the clutch, which is basically a camera strap for your hand. I love it! It makes it so easy to carry around and shoot from different angles. I was able to get this low perspective without having to bend down. I just had my arm straight out, pointed up, and I didn’t have to worry about dropping it at all. Its kinda fun to see what you end up with. It was not serious shooting but shooting for fun and if you get something that turns out cool, it’s even better!

Click here if you’d like to see more images from Iceland.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/100th of a second ISO 80 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

After our first snow of the season, I knew I had to wake up early the next morning and capture the sunrise. Somehow I knew it was going to be a good one. We had 2 days of really grey days so I knew the clouds were going to have to break up and bring in some of the sun light.

But this was not the image I intended to capture. I had every intention of shooting at the Tidal Basin. I thought it would be cool to see how the water did in the snow. Did it freeze over? or was there any snow still on the cherry blossom trees? I dunno. I wasn’t able to drive over there since all the roads around the National Mall was blocked off. I’m not sure why, but I’m thinking it was for some kind of parade or marathon. I’ve tried googling it and still can’t find the answer. Oh well.

So I drove over to the Capitol and figured it would be just as nice. I spent the morning just walking all around the Capitol grounds, blasting my music with no headphones. LOL it was awesome. There was hardly anyone around and it felt like I had the whole Capitol to myself. I felt so free to just walk anywhere I wanted to and was so happy when I stumbled onto this compass. I’ve noticed it before but never saw how reflective it is. I guess the melting snow made for great puddles in here. Love finding hidden gems like this. One thing I didn’t notice while taking this picture was the guy walking in front of the Capitol building. I love how he adds some scale to the whole thing. Yea, the US Capitol building is hugeeee.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/80th of a second ISO 160 with my Sony A7II 16-35mm wide angle lens.

It’s still crazy to me that 2017 is almost over. I was looking through my instagram feed the other day and I was reminiscing on some of my pics from the past year. I had some really great adventures in 2017 and I’m looking forward to the last couple of days the year. That’s when I do an end of the year recap of my favorite images. It’s going to be really hard to pick just a few but seeing them all displayed in one place is going to be so exciting! It’s funny though because my favorites are not usually other people’s favorites. It’s probably because I have a different emotion connection to the images than others but it’s all good. I love that I can look back at the pictures and just smile.

I’m pretty sure there will be an image or two of Utah on that list. When Andrew and I went to Utah in the early part of summer, we had the best time ever and created some memories that will last a life time. Including our little run in with some feisty elks. OMG that was so scary. LOL. BTW I know now that they were elk and not deer and that story was from Colorado, but Utah and Colorado was all the same trip!

This image is from Dead Horse Point Utah State Park. We got to spend a beautiful sunset there and I would highly recommend anyone else doing so. It was great for sunset because if you’re at the very tip of the park, you can actually follow the light of the sun all around the rim of the bend. It’s absolutely beautiful!

The settings for this image is F/9 at 1/8th of a second and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm lens.

It’s what we’ve been waiting for all year! Happy Thanksgiving! This song will be playing on repeat today to celebrate the holiday. And it is also day 4 to of this week long series of gratitude on the blog which is going to be for my family.

I know I don’t talk about them much on my blog. Mostly because they aren’t usually with me while I’m taking pics or something like that but I know in my heart that they are always there for me no matter what. When I initially told my parents that I wanted to quit my job and become a full time artist, there was definietly a lot of concerns and discussions. They were not thrilled at my decision but they also knew that if I put my mind to something, I’m going to do it. No matter what they thought.

Now, my family are some of the most supportive people I have in my corner. Whether it’s my mom forwarding all my newsletters to her friends, my dad always asking me how photo is going and giving me suggestions, or even my cousins liking my pictures every time I post them on social media, I know they are super proud of me and I’m so extremely grateful for them.

This image that I chose to be today’s photo is a little different for a Thanksgiving post, I know. It’s from Artechouse’s newest exhibit called, Kingdom of Colors. If you haven’t already, you gotta check out this space. This part was my favorite out of the whole experience. Watching the smoke or water or whatever it was coming down and falling on to the flowers. It was just so beautiful. And totally reminded me of my mom who was the one who taught me to appreciate flowers in the first place, so I thought this would be perfect for her.

The camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/25th of a second and ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!