ANGELA B. PAN

Happy Monday! I may be the only one who’s counting down the days but 6 more days til the release of Snap DC!!!!! I can’t hold back the excitement. You are going to love the guide book. It’s seriously everything I know about shooting in Washington all in one book. I don’t think there was anything more I could have added to it except for maybe this image! LOL

As a side note, there are images in Snap DC that you’ve never seen before! Images that I’ve never posted anywhere or anything. They’ve just been living on my computer so I’m excited for you to see those too!

This image was taken in December, way after the content of the book was complete. But I love it. Obviously it was taken super early in the morning. Not sure exactly the time, but this was the day that I woke up at 3:30am to shoot. See other images from this day here and here. It was so worth waking up that early too. I love how the image is pretty dark except for that gorgeous glow that’s coming up on the horizon. A few minutes later all the color was gone. So to say we were lucky to get the color is an understatement.

To be honest, it has been a while since I’ve seen a great sunrise in Washington but I’m not complaining. The weather has been fantastic lately. So even waking up super early (like 4:30a) on a regular non-spectacular sunrise day is worth it just to walk around and enjoy the outdoors. It just makes the day feel like it’s super long and I’m a huge fan of eating lunch and then taking a nap. You just sleep so much better on a full stomach. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 3.2 seconds at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens on a tripod.

Yesterday was a great day. The kind of day where you go out and get ice cream to celebrate – Dairy Queen vanilla soft serve and dipped in chocolate to be exact. So after Andrew and I basically inhaled our ice cream we set off to go to the Tidal Basin for a little walk around at sunset.

First of all, it was DEFINIETLY tour bus season. I don’t think I have seen so many people at the National Mall at one time. It was kind of insane. But that didn’t even matter because as soon as we parked, I noticed this amazingly bright rainbow. I walked over to the pedestrian bridge as fast as I could and saw how the rainbow was coming right out of the Jefferson Memorial. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything so perfect. Andrew ran to the bathroom while I was having the time of my life capturing the rainbow. I didn’t want to move because I was afraid the rainbow would fade away but I saw it for a good 20 minutes before it started disappearing in the clouds.

It was all good because the sunset that followed the rainbow was equally as cool. It’s been a while since we had such great weather conditions. Thank you lightning storm that passed earlier in the day. But I am so grateful for that rainbow and sunset. It made for the perfect ending to an already great day. I won’t even mention the gummy bears we got on our way back home. LOL

Have a great weekend everyone, especially to all the mamas out there. I appreciate you! Special shout out to my mom. The more I grow up, the more I see you in me. It’s especially evident when I look in the mirror. OMG.

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/125th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Sometimes its good to just wonder.

The other day I was out by the Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial shooting the red tulips. They are so beautiful when they’re fully bloomed. Can you imagine just red on red flowers all lined up at sunrise? It’s like a dreammmm.

Typically when the sun has come up for a while, I’ll head back to my car. But on this day I was not ready. I didn’t want to go back. It was such a beautiful Sunday morning that I felt the need to go on a walk. So walking along the trail next to the George Washington Parkway, I found myself capturing the willow trees with the Washington Monument. I loved how linear everything was. I probably stopped at like 5 willow trees to use the branches as framing pieces. But then there was this one tree where the sun light was hitting it just right.

Wow, check out those leaves on top of the image. If that ain’t an image all on it’s own then I don’t know what is. But then mister bike guy came rolling past and made it even more perfect. I had no idea he was coming and once I saw him in my camera frame, I just kept on clicking, clicking, clicking.

LOL I waited a bit longer to see if I could recreate this moment with another biker. But I waited a good 10 minutes and no one showed up. I lady ran past but it just wasn’t the same. I don’t know what I was looking for with the other biker. I guess I just wanted options. Either way, it was the perfect Sunday morning walk.

My camera settings for this image is F/18 at 1/100th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7Ii and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

I know that it is not healthy, but a lot of times when I get sad, I just bottle it in. It’s hard for me to truly express how I’m feeling so instead of trying to explain myself or avoid a super long conversation, I’ll keep it to myself. It’s awful, I know and I need to stop.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling a little down and decided that I’d work on some images to hopefully make me forget about things. If I try to think back on it now, I have no idea what I was sad about. I just remember trying to evoke that emotion into this image I was working on. I did it by adding super dark tones into the shadows of this image but I knew the feeling would pass so I wanted to keep the cherry blossoms light. My FAVORITE part of the image is the little bit of light that’s hitting the front tree trunk. I think that glow is so special.

Well, I posted it on instagram and Vanessa suggested that my friend, Christopher and I should collab on this piece. If you’re not familiar with Christopher’s work he’s thehappiestswamponearth on instagram and he takes images and composites Disney characters in to them. You have to check it out if you like images that will make you smile.

We talked about it a little over dm and we both agreed that the image had a little bit of sadness in it. A couple of weeks later he sent me this!

OMG this image turned from sad to something so sweet and magical. I love, love, love the way that it turned out. Bambi and his mom look so precious in that little corner, I can’t even  express how happy this makes me. SEE I’m not good at expressing my feelings but I LOVE IT.

The camera settings for F5.0 at 1/30th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony a7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

What’s crazy is that I’m still not even close to done with all my cherry blossom images from this year! We had great bloom and I tried to go out as often as I could. You would say that I went pretty hard! Out of the two weeks, I think I only missed two sunrises. Even if it was really grey and windy, I still went out to see what I could find.

This was captured at the National Gallery of Art. The same time I took this image. But at this point the sun had already come up so there was a little more light available. If you’re not familiar with the gallery, then it may be a little difficult to see what’s really going on. The blue part is just the side of the building. The orange/warm part is the inside of a corner of the building. It goes in a little bit and it has it’s own special uplighting which is causing the warmer tones. I love how the cherry blossom branch just unifies everything in this image.  I have a couple more variations of this image that I still need to play around with but if you’ve been following my blog then you’ll know I love the contrast between warm and cool tones that this image is bringing. It would be really neat to see this as a series. So many ideas, so little time! One day.

And the cherry blossom vlog is coming! It’s been taking me a while because I finally downloaded Final Cut Pro X. I figured it was time to upgrade my video workflow as well. Thanks to my friend, Andy for the extra push! I love how creative you can get with the videos but it’s just taking me a while because I literally have to google every single thing that I want to do. It will be worth it though. Just taking time… apologies.

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

I spent yesterday afternoon in Dumbarton Oaks photographing the wisteria there. Can I tell you that Wisteria Hysteria is a real thing? They are so beautiful in real life. I must have taken a million pics. Not really but I can not wait to look through those images. It was actually my second time there this season and I can’t get enough of that place. Ever since I visited last year with Andrew, I made a mental note that I had go in the spring. I bet fall is nice there too. Let me know if you’ve ever been in the autumn time. I wonder if there are a lot of colorful trees.

Well anyways, this image was from my first trip this season. I think my favorite part of the gardens at that time were these magnolias. They were so big and hardy (is that the right word to describe them?) that I don’t think I could hold one in one hand alone. *cat heart eye emoji* Obviously I didn’t want to touch them but I spent a significant amount of time staring up and circling these trees with my camera until I found the perfect sun flare. Love you, spring!

PS Happy Cinco de Mayo mañana. I usually don’t celebrate holidays unless it’s Thanksgiving or Mothers day or something like that, but I’ll be celebrating tomorrow. I had the best week ever! Thank you all so much for the positive feedback to Snap DC. I could not be more excited about it and I am even more excited for you to hold it in your hands! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! And yes, celebrations always include pizza 🙂

My camera settings for this image is F22 at 1/25th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35 mm wide angle lens.