ANGELA B. PAN

I took this right before I left for my trip to Colorado and Utah. Its of the Jefferson Memorial and a big puddle I found on the street right behind it. I distinctly remember trying to walk a different way than I usually do to the Memorial on this day but that meant weaving through a whole bunch of buses and school field trip children to get to it. I know I must of looked crazy because I got so many weird looks. Like why was I kneeling down in the middle of the road? Middle school kids can be so judgey. LOL JK not really. Whatever. I got a cool shot, right?

On a completely different note, tomorrow is the start to a brand new adventure! My friend, Sue and I are about to hop in a car and drive cross county to California. Final destination, San Diego! It’s going to be B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Can’t wait. Here are our stops in case you are somewhere around us or if you have any tips for things to see along the way.

Day 1: Nashville, TN
Day 2: OKC, OK
Day 3: Santa Fe, NM
Day 4: Alamogordo, NM
Day 5: Tucson, AZ
Day 6 & 7: Los Angeles, CA
Day 8,9 & 10: San Diego, CA

I’m most excited about White Sands National Monument. Every picture I’ve seen from that place is BEAUTIFUL. Same with Tucson, AZ. Seguaro National Park is definietly on the to-do list. Now that I think about it, this whole trip is going to be a brand new to me (minus the places in California). Can’t freakin’ wait! A cross country road trip has been something on my vision board for a while now and I can’t believe it’s finally happening. Be sure to check out my instagram stories to follow along on the adventure but most of it will be on my youtube channel when I get back 😉

We arrived in Estes Park, right outside of Rocky Mountain National Park around dinner time. So naturally, our first stop was to get some pizza. OMG you need to try this place called Antonio’s Real New York Pizza. The pizza was outstanding! And believe me, I’ve had a few slices in my day and I really liked this pizza. And to walk off all those calories we headed to Sprague lake right after dinner in Rocky Mountain National Park.

It’s a super easy walk around the lake thats about a mile long. It was perfect because each side of the lake provided some amazing views. Good thing I had my neutral density filter with me because the sunset wasn’t actually as vibrant as this image makes it look. The clouds were looking very nice but the longer exposure by the ND filter really brought out that extra umph of color that it really needed. It also helped that it was a very calm and peaceful evening with not a lot of wind to create ripples in the water. So if you’re a fan of reflection shots, Rocky Mountain National Park has tons of them. From all the lakes to puddles. Everything is just so reflective and beautiful. You would love it.

The settings for this image was F5/6 at 1.6 seconds at ISO 400. I used my 16-35mm wide angle lens to try to capture as much of the scene as I could. I didn’t have my tripod on this one but I managed to find a good ledge to balance this on. The key is to try to get your camera body and lens to stabilize on something to make sure theres no extra shake. If your lens isn’t leaning against something or supported somehow, it probably won’t work out as well.

If you’re in the DC area, check out the June’s issue of the Washingtonian magazine. Its the best of Washington issue and I have two pictures in there! So freakin’ cool! The first and biggest one is the one featured above. I took it one morning at the Hirshhorn Museum when people were waiting in line for the Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors exhibit on one of the last days that it was here. They were waiting for day of passes but it’s crazy because I took this around 7a in the morning and there were already so many people there. The light was absolutely amazing and the reflection in the middle as so cool. It was hard not to take the picture. The Washingtonian contacted me and said they were doing a story on lines in DC so I thought that this one would fit perfectly. I especially like all the blue and yellow tones plus the reflection in the windows are pretty awesome as well.

The second image I have in this month’s issue is of the National Gallery of Art’s new roof terrace sculpture by Katharina Fritsch’s titled “Hanh/Cock”. I originally wanted to take a picture of it for Chinese New Year since this year is the sign of the Cock. I think it’s really cool that it ended up in the Washingtonian. This sculpture itself is pretty large and in charge when you see it in person. I don’t know if you can see, but theres a slight shadow of someone in the window. That might give you a comparison of what it’s like to stand right next to it. Oh the jokes that this bird has heard.

Anyways, shout out to Washingtonian for being so awesome. Its always so exciting to see my work published in print. I grew up on the Washingtonian so I’m grateful to be able to contribute to such an awesome publication.

Walking around, I spotted this guy and I had to take a pic. Not only was the light perfect on him but he reminded me of Daryl from Walking Dead. But only if he was a photographer and not a walker slayer. What do you think?

At around sunset, Andrew and I found ourselves at the Big Chief Overlook. If you’re planning on visiting Dead Horse Point State Park in Moab, Utah, I’d highly recommend starting here. It’s at the very tipty top of the park but it’s great because you get these amazing PAN-oramic views of both sides of the park. The best was that I was able to follow the sunlight wherever it was going as it was setting. It can get crowded with people up there, but the ability to walk around the corner was amazing. I got so many cool shots from up there.  And how beautiful are these rocks against the falling sunlight? They were literally glowing.

Andrew and I spent a lot of time up there. We actually stayed up there way past sunset. Almost to the point where we could start seeing stars out. Not talking or anything, just enjoying the view. At one point, I told him to take some pics with his phone, so he took this one.

Pretty cool, huh? And all with no photo instruction from me. LOL. We joke that he’s this amazing photographer when in fact most of the pics he takes either has a finger in the corner or they’re really blurry. If you’ve seen some of his other iPhone pics, this one is definietly a major achievement. Seriously.

My settings for this image was F11 at 1/160th of a second. Super fast shutter speed to capture this beautiful moment. So glad I got to spend it with Andrew AND Daryl.

Out of all the places that we went to on our trip to Colorado and Utah, Maroon Bells was my absolute favvvvorite. I loved it so much for many reasons. First of all, the walk was super short from the parking lot to this point of view. I’m not sure why that stands out so much in my mind, but it was awesome. Then once you actually see this view, you can’t help but to say ‘WOW’. I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to shoot this during the autumn time when all the leaves are changing. OR during golden hour. OMG I’d be the happiest person in the world. And if you put those two things together… mind blown. Unfortunately, we only had about an hour here before we were off to our next location. But we’ll be back soon and I’ll be sure to spend some extra time in Aspen just for this park.

But if you asked me what was my favorite moment of this trip, it was the simplest thing. We were walking around the lake and Andrew and I were talking about what it’d be like to swim in the water. Then we started wondering about how cold the water actually was. So we dipped our fingers in and the moment my finger tips touched the water was one of my most treasured memories. The water was just so crisp and refreshing feeling. I don’t know, it was such a simple act but it really made me feel connected to the environment.

We also saw 3 more deer in the parking lot of Maroon Bells. Deers seem to be everywhere in Colorado! I mean we have some in VA but not like how it is there. They move in herds!! But that’s not the deer story I was talking about in yesterday’s blog post 🙂 Just a little bit longer for that story 🙂 Hehe.

Shout out to Jason for telling me about this place.

I love Colorado. There I said it. I fell in love on our trip. Everything was absolutely amazing. As soon as I stepped out of the airport in Denver, I could definietly tell a difference in air quality. It was just so fresh and crisp. The weather was absolutely perfect the whole time we were there, 70 degrees with a little breeze.  I really think it’s something I could get used to but I don’t know if we were just lucky with the weather or if it’s always like that in the spring/summer. Either way, I was lovin’ it. (Like McDonalds).

At one point, Andrew and I were walking around after we had a big lunch and we saw this lady with her dog. We stopped to talk to her for a little bit and as we were walking away, Andrew said “I never realized how many nice people there are”. LOL! I thought that was hilarious but so true. I feel like everyone in DC is always in such a rush to get things done. You can definietly tell the slow paced, enjoying-life/nature type of of people in Colorado. Seriously, I can’t wait to go back.

This image was taken in Rocky Mountain National Park on the last day we were there. Andrew thought he “discovered a secret” vantage point however, it was just the parking lot of a museum. Moraine Park, specifically. We didn’t have a lot of colorful sunsets while we were there, but we did have some pretty cloudy ones which is really all you need. I shot this with my 16-35mm at F/10 for 4 seconds with my Ice Neutral Density filter. At one point we spotted a herd of deer running around on the grass in the foreground which was so cool to watch. But don’t worry, I’ll have more deer stories for you in the future. Oh man. HAHA.