ANGELA B. PAN

Now that I’m officially a sunset photographer, this was probably the best skies I’ve seen in a while. It’s a funny story because I was actually on my way to the gym when at the last minute I decided that I would go out to shoot. I don’t know what actually compelled me to do it, let’s just call it a photographer’s intuition. LOL.

On my way to the city, my friend, Birch texted me and told me she was on her way there too. We decided to meet at the WWII memorial and I’m so glad we did. I was able to capture this awesome reflection. One that I don’t think I’ve photographed like this before. In order to capture it, I got down really low behind the memorial. Mostly because I wanted to avoid people’s heads that were actually in the memorial, but mostly because I wanted to see if i could get something different. It’s so simple and it may be a little confusing but I really like the way that it turned out. Kinda alien spacecraft like but also interesting with the Washington Monument poking out and its reflection 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at 1/60th sec and ISO 250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

Since I’ve been out photographing the sunset and night so much, I found myself craving a morning in Washington DC. There’s something about the early mornings where it’s so quiet and peaceful, you really get to appreciate the city that you live in. Or at least, that’s how I feel.

So one morning I found myself by the US Capitol and in an effort to photograph something different, I spent a lot of time around the Library of Congress. I’ve mentioned many times before how the Library is my favorite interior in the entire city, but the exterior is beautiful all on its own. This particular composition struck me because of all the layers. I love how the staircases divide the image but I also love the little splashes of green. Everything is just lined up so nicely in this image. The best part is that the city is such a healthy city, that it doesn’t take a long time to wait for a runner to run by your shot 🙂

PS I love how if you peek through the windows on top of this image, you can kinda see what it looks like on the inside. LOL Can you tell I was proud of myself when I captured this? HAHA

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/200th sec and ISO 1000 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm.

You know I haven’t gone out for sunset much in the past, but when I do I want to make sure it glows! HAHA jk. This sunset was totally unexpected but so welcomed. I love the way the sun is just lightning up these park benches along the National Mall. I don’t think I would have normally thought to capture an angle like this but the light just caught my eye. This is actually the same sunset as this image, just way more zoomed out.

It may not seem like a significant detail, but I actually waited for that bicyclist to ride by too. I felt like there was too much negative space on the right-hand side of the image and there needed to be something to balance it all out. So I just waited by the bench for someone to walk or ride by. That one little detail made such a difference. Plus I feel like it tells a better story of what it’s like to be there at sunset as opposed to sunrise. With sunset, it’s hard to not get people in your shot while it’s just the opposite at sunrise. It’s hard to get people in your shots! LOL.

Looking forward to seeing what more of these sunset adventures will bring.

My camera settings for this image is F4  at 1/60th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

I’m not sure when I started to become a sunset/night photographer but it just sort of started happening naturally. The summer days have been rough to wake up for sunrise but to be honest, the sunsets have been looking way better than sunrise anyways. Sunset around Washington DC has it’s own interesting challenges like parking and dealing with the crowds of people but the more I get out there, the more I’m appreciating the sunset glow more and more.

But this image came by accident. I was out with Zack (again, on a different night) to photograph the Lincoln Memorial at sunset. The sunset wasn’t really what we expected so we waited a bit longer for blue hour to try to capture the monuments at night. Then when I was about to say bye to Zack and walk back to my car, I saw a lightning bolt out of the corner of my eye.

OMG change of plans. I did not end up going back to my car, quickly texted Andrew that I was going to be home later than I expected and both Zack and I started looking at weather apps to see where the storm was headed. We made a game plan to try to capture it by the Tidal Basin and then as the storm moved forward we were going to try to capture it with the Washington Monument. It ended up being a super exciting night of storm chasing but the only problem was that I left my tripod in my car! Argh! Capturing lightning is significantly easier with a tripod and remote.

So I had to improvise. In order to capture this, I was basically just sitting on the ground hoping to get something. I was so lucky. But I also LOVE how the street lights are red. It’s sort of like a warning to not pass in case of lightning.

My camera settings for this image is f4 at 1/15th sec and ISO 1250 with my Sony A7II and 16-35 wide-angle lens.

I don’t know much about clouds. I remember learning about them in middle school but nothing really stuck except for cirrus clouds. But I do like looking at them. And in the past couple of years of photography, I’ve figured out that mammatus clouds are pretty rare but highly sought after. Like the meteorologists go crazy over them. I’m not sure why other than they look super cool so now I’m always on the lookout for them.

These particular clouds came at sunset, right before full moon shooting. We had a pretty significant storm in the afternoon which caused these stunning clouds and color in the sky. Zack and I were going bananas over the color and running all around the National Mall trying to find different angles to capture it.

It just so happened that a bunch of airplanes were flying into Reagan as well. The storm caused a whole bunch of flight delays earlier in the day so I guess when the sky cleared up, the airplanes started coming in as quickly as possible. It seemed like every 5-10 minutes there was another airplane. But can you imagine looking out your window and seeing this? OMG, what I would have done to be one of the passengers on that airplane.

My camera settings for this image is f6.3 at 1/320th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

Last week was a pretty awesome week for storms. I’ll post more on that soon. But that doesn’t go so well with trying to capture the full moon rising.

Fortunately, I was out with my friend, Zack to capture it. It was his idea to head to Freedom Plaza to try to get the moon over the Capitol dome but things didn’t go as planned. It took a while for us to actually see the moon because of all the low hanging storm clouds. So I’m glad Zack was there to hang out with while we waited. If it weren’t for him, I probably would have just given up and left before we were able to see it.

I love how the moon looks like an orange ball of light in the sky. It’s a nice centerpiece to all the other lights going on in the image. By the way, I could have done without all the construction cones and lights. It seems like everywhere you turn there’s some kind of construction in Washington. This is along Pennsylvania Ave.

Anyways, I’ve made it an appoint to mark my calendar for the rest of the year for full and new moons. The best moons always happen in the fall time so I can’t wait to capture some more 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F5 at 1/5th sec and ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm on a tripod.