ANGELA B. PAN

You know what’s funny? As I was shooting this, I noticed I was the only one who was getting up close to the US Capitol building. There were quite a few tourists out there with me. I think a bus pulled up while I was there and so many of them were taking selfies in front of the Capitol. But no one would even get near the fountain. Weird, right? Maybe it was the Capitol police with their guns that looked so intimidating. Or maybe they were just not trying to get into my shot. Either way, I was all alone taking this picture. I’m not complaining though. It was really nice to be the only one. Who knows how many people got pictures of my back side though. HAHA.

On this evening, it looked like it was going to storm but I don’t think it actually did. The clouds were super dark. I couldn’t tell with my eyes if they were moving but once I slapped on the Ice Neutral density filter 10 stop, I could see that they were making this really cool effect. Like they were all racing out of the Capitol dome. I really liked it so I tried different angles and came out with this one. This one came out particularly awesome because you can see some reflection in the water and may I add the symmetry of the building’s architecture is probably the coolest part of the image.

For some reason seeing dark and moody images of the Capitol always reminds me of President Underwood. So now that House of Cards season 5 is officially back on Netflix, I think you know what Andrew and I will be doing on our flight back home from our trip. Oh man, can’t waitttt. This season is really going to be good!

Afraid of heights? Yea, me neither. I actually think heights can be fun. Sometimes.

This was taken looking down from a rooftop in Ginza, Tokyo during a fun photo tour I had with Eyexplore Tokyo. I joined them for one of their Vertigo tours and it was definietly a different view of the city than I was expecting. In this image, we were looking down at 3 or 4 different buildings. Hard to tell how many there really are because all them are so close to each other. But most of the time we were confined to really tight spaces on top of these buildings. So, I’m the one wearing black shoes and the tour leader, Axel is wearing the brown ones. Andrew was directly behind me so he didn’t make it into the shot but that was basically as much room we were given on this rooftop. Just goes to show you how smushed we really were and how super jammed pack the city is. There was definietly not enough room for tripods at all. Good thing the Sony a7ii is so great in low light situations. I was using the balcony for camera support during the longer exposure times.

The camera settings for this image was f/4 at .5 sec at ISO 500. The ISO definietly had to be bumped up to compensate for the lack of tripod. But I’m glad I was still able to capture the colors and angle so nicely. For sure a difficult shot and if I had the opportunity, I’d love to do something similar in DC. But I’m not sure how rooftop-hopping would go in these government secured buildings. LOL.

If you ever find yourself in Toyko, consider joining one of their tours. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot, like I did 🙂 Tell them Angela sent you.

Even though The National Museum of African American History and Culture is the newest museum in the National Mall and Washington DC area, it’s quickly becoming one of my favorites. I’ve only been inside once but I’ve admired it from the outside numerous times. It’s so exciting to have this new space because there are so many new angles to explore. Like this one made possible by the enormous and beautiful reflecting windows that surround the museum.

Now that summer time is on us, I also think it’d be interesting to see what people do with the fireworks in this space. I was lucky enough to have special access to shoot the Independence Day fireworks on the grounds last year but it was sort of a bust. All day it had been rainy with super low clouds so it was sort of difficult to see the fireworks. And it was crazy because the fireworks that were super high in the sky were only heard, not seen. So this year I think it’d be interesting to see if fireworks would be able to reflect off the windows or even some of the outdoor features surrounding the museum. Weather permitting of course.

The camera settings for this image was F7.1 at 1/30th of a second at ISO 400. I shot this at sunset while being smushed up against the windows. A high ISO was needed to be sure everything stayed sharp and in focus. It was only afterwards, in post processing, where I thought this image would look even cooler in black and white. I think it really brings out the the drama and makes the angles look even sharper.

Can’t wait to go inside the museum again to capture the ‘cleansing fountain’. The first time I was there, it wasn’t up and running.

Rarely do I shoot night time images. I love them for the same reasons as I love shooting sunrise. It’s the time of day that you’re usually by yourself. You feel the freedom to just wonder (with a good flashlight). Everything is usually so still and quite. But there’s one good reason that I don’t shoot it that often. It’s because I’m such a morning person now that staying up late is so difficult for me. LOL. For the same reasons of why I hear people who never shoot sunrise, is the same reason why I hardly shoot nigh time. Especially the time of night where you can really see the stars shining bright, usually around 2 or 3am. Man, oh man do I wish you could sleep all during the day, wake up in time for sunset and stay up all night til sunrise and be able to function like a normal human being that way. In other words, why can’t the world just revolve around my photography schedule? Just kidding. Not really, but kind of.

This was shot in Davenport, California at Shark Fin Cove. A beautiful location in the middle of the night or during the day. Now that Andrew and I are on our trip together, I’m hoping to shoot some more night time images. Nothing is guaranteed because we are planning on some cool stuff during the day too. Hopefully I can squeeze in a cat nap so we can take some night images like this. Nothing like sitting in the middle of no where with a whole bunch of stars lighting your path.

Since I shot this on a Rokinon 14mm lens, I am not able to see what my aperture setting was. I’m assuming it was as wide as I could get it at 2.8 but I know for sure that it was 8 seconds long at ISO 2000.

What may look like a beautiful sunrise image is actually a little shocking. This was a sunrise shoot that was hard to forget. It was the morning after a huge tornado hit the DC area and usually after dramatic storms like that, we’ll get dramatic skies. So I woke up early and made my way down to the Tidal Basin. I was super excited to see this beautiful sunrise and immediately parked my car. I started off at the pedestrian bridge that’s on Ohio Drive. A good starting point for any image at the Tidal Basin and to get a better view I wanted to get closer to the water. Man, I was shocked when I tried to walk down the ramp and realized that I wouldn’t be able to get down any further. The water levels were so high that it was covering half the walkway. That meant the entire sidewalk area  further down was flooded. I think I stood there in disbelief for a minute because I had never seen anything like it. So I quickly turned around and to find an area on the grass where I could stand. I figured standing behind this bench would give me the most accurate depiction of how flooded it was to give scale. I bet if I actually stood in the water, it would of been up to my shins. Craziness! I had never seen the water rise this high before. Can’t be good for the cherry blossoms at all.

At least the ducks were happy.

So if you wanted to help the National Mall fix this flooding problem, please consider donating. It will really help with the improve and restoration of the seawall that’s obviously being damaged by the water and reconfigure the foot traffic so the cherry blossom trees won’t need replacement every year.

I was thinking about Italy the other day. Mostly because I was thinking about pizza but the weird part is that we barely had any pizza while we were there. Maybe once?  It was all pasta baby. And it was so delicious. 98% sure it’s the best food I’ve ever had. How about you? Where was the best place you’ve eaten?

I loved photographing the sunset from Piazzale Michelangelo. It was so peaceful and beautiful standing up there. In case you’re thinking about going- there are a lot of stairs to climb or you can do the lazy route and get a taxi to get you there. That’s what we did. All the pasta was weighing us down. HAHA. Its worth it though. It is the best view of the entire city. It’d try my best to get there as early as you can though. A lot of people were waiting for the sun to set even an hour before it did.

It’s also a great spot for people watching. There were so many different kinds of people there. A couple of people were there painting the sunset, others were photographing it, but everyone was enjoying it. There was even a Chinese couple standing next to me. They had no idea that I could understand them but the funniest part was when he was watching me change my lens. It’s like he was giving a play-by-play to his wife. Mostly because I tried balancing my lens on the edge of a balcony. I could feel that he was nervous for me. He kept on saying “too dangerous, too dangerous” and when I was done he gave huge sigh of relief. LOL. I don’t even think Andrew was that nervous for me. It’s funny how all these memories are spurred out of thinking about pizza…