ANGELA B. PAN

This image is very different for me in two different ways.

1. It broke my instagram silence. Which I was not planning on doing for a while but it was such a good sunrise on Saturday that I couldn’t help myself.
2. Because its of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. A place I haven’t photographed in YEARSSSS.

Let me explain. I think most of you found me because of my Vietnam Veterans images that went viral a couple years back. If you don’t know what I mean, you can see one here and the other one here. When that happened it was probably one of the most surreal moments in my life. I had no idea those images would be shared or even liked as much as it did. And I’m forever grateful for it. Those images really changed my photography career in the best ways possible.

And for a long time I had this fear in my head that I could never go back and take a better image than I had in 2012. 6 years later and I’m still not over it and I walk past the memorial almost on a weekly basis. Its kind of nuts the kind of tricks your brain can play on you.

So I finally did. I went down the the Vietnam Veterans memorial and tried to capture the sunrise as best as I could. It started off with me taking the same exact images I had before but then I started getting creative. I started thinking about all the things that I’ve learned about composition and my new favorite techniques to capture an unique cityscape. And I felt as excited and inspired as I ever have about photographing this beautiful memorial. I learned that I can’t let fear of not being good enough hold me down from doing what I love.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/160th of a second at ISO 800 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.

From what I heard last week, today has been the day I’ve been waiting for all winter. If all goes well and all the wind and cold air that we had over the weekend didn’t effect anything then the Magnolias will start to peak today. Cash me ousside.

My favorite Magnolia trees are the ones at the Enid A Haupt Garden behind the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall, but you can really find them all over the city. This image was taken at the George Mason Memorial facing the Washington Monument adjacent to the Tidal Basin. To be honest, spring time is really the only time that I spend time at this memorial. It’s a pretty small memorial compared to the others but the landscaping around it is fantastic. Its a great place to just sit on the bench and listen to the birds chirp.

So I’m really looking forward to spending more time here as spring goes on. Actually, that’s an understatement. I think the word really is anxious. I’m really anxious to spend more outside in general. I still have the list I created last year of all the places that I want to photograph. Like spending more time at Dumberton Oaks, the National Arboretum, Enid A Haupt Garden, so many! OMG I can’t wait. So see ya later cold weather. Time to go. Make way for the cherry blossoms. What’s up with March being so cold? 

My camera settings for this image is F9 at 1/60th of a second and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens handheld.

Like I said yesterday, I’ve been consuming so much information. However listening to audiobooks was something I’ve always done. I didn’t need to go on an instabreak to appreciate a good story. I love listening to books when I’m in the car or even on photoshoots. It’s a great way to get your mind off of things going around you and just focus on what you’re doing.

To be honest, I had never heard of Phil Knight. I think the first time I ever heard his name was in the song by Wale with Lady Gaga called, “Chillin” (as an added bonus, Wale is from Washington DC and the music video is filmed all around the city). But Andrew and I share an audible account and he had previously listened to Shoe Dog and was telling me so many great things about the book. We’re both huge fans of Nikes. So about a month ago I decided to download it and listen to it.

This book is all about taking risks, following your passion and not letting anything get in your way. I love how Nike did not start off with the goal to make billions of dollars. It started off by Phil Knight being a super passionate runner and basically just wanted to bring good footwear to athletes everywhere. To me, he didn’t seem like anyone special growing up. Just a regular guy who loved sports. But it was his determination, his will to make his company a success and overall love of running that made Nike what it is today.

The book was inspiring and at times an emotional roller coaster. I’m not afraid to admit that I cried at the end, twice. If you plan on reading it, I won’t ruin the ending for you but one time when something tragic happened and the second time was when he was summarizing his life and Nike as a company. I could not help but feel so proud and happy for him and I don’t even know the guy. 10 minutes ago was the first time I googled him just so I could see what he looks like. If you ask me, kinda like a Richard Branson looking guy. But he is definietly someone I look up to now. One of my favorite parts of the book was hearing about his personal relationships with the Nike athletes like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Steve Prefontaine. It just goes to show how much he cared for everyone who was around him. I wish I could give him a hug.

Overall, I highly recommend reading or listening to this book if you like learning about how people made it. 4.7 stars out of 5. I still think Steve Jobs is my favorite biography but this is a close second.

As for the image, this was taken at the National Art Gallery in Washington DC. My camera settings are F6.3 at 0.8 seconds at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

So it’s been one week since I decided to delete instagram off my phone. To be honest, I never expected all the kind comments and emails. I appreciate it sooo so much. You have no idea. Everyone has been extra supportive but I have decided that Ill download Instagram again for the Cherry Blossoms at the latest. Don’t get me wrong though out of the 7 sunrises that have happened since my instabreak, I’ve gone out to shoot 4 times. So even though I’m not documenting it all on social media, I’m still at it as much as I can.

What have I learned from the break? I spend entirely too much time staring at my phone! I don’t need to catch up with my friends by seeing what they’re doing on the internet. I can simply call them or text them and find out what’s been going on straight from the horse’s mouth and its so much better that way. I’ve also learned to be more present. At times I’ll be walking around and think to myself, what should my next instastory be? or this would be great for an instastory. This past weekend while I was walking around I thought, wow that tree is beautiful, I’m just going to take a picture of it because I like it. No one else has to see it, but me.

Now I’m not sure if this has any correlation or not, but I’m also taking the time to learn more too. I’ve been consuming so many youtube videos, listening to audiobooks and just reading in general. I’ve been learning a lot about mindset, wealth and photoshop tutorials. It’s been great!

Overall, I am so grateful for the break. It was definietly a recharge and I feel more inspired than ever. I do miss instagram and I’ll be honest, I have checked it out once or twice on my desktop computer which I justified by saying, it’s not really the same LOL. So this is just a thank you so much for all your support. I’ll be back soon and probably by the end of the week! As of now, I’m not in a rush. Instagram will always be there 🙂

PS that tree I was talking about was a cherry blossom tree in Alexandria, VA. They’re starting to pop up in different places and I’m so excited!

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/8th of a second at ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle len handheld.

Taken back in December, somehow I missed the rising of the supermoon. I’m not sure how it happened since I marked in on my calendar but I wasn’t able to capture it. In my opinion, catching the moon rise is always better than the moon set. I think the moon appears to be much bigger or maybe that just depends where you are standing, but it’s always exciting to watch it come above the horizon. And if you miss the moon rise, the next best thing is moon set, right?

So I woke up super early in the morning. 3:30a to be exact. I met up with my friend, Larry, who seems to have no trouble waking up at that time since he does it on a regular basis. Not always to shoot, but I swear, this guy does not sleep. We wanted to try to capture the moon setting over the Lincoln Memorial but when you’re up that early, it’s still going to be a while. We decided to walk around the National Mall and find some cool compositions in the mean time.

I really like the way this one turned out. Although the warm red color is caused by light pollution, it’s a really cool effect that showcases the color transitions that I’m always talking about. You may not have noticed this but there are some cherry blossoms growing on those trees too! It’s weird because some of them actually start blooming in the beginning of winter. They die off pretty quick but you know me, if there are cherry blossoms, I will shoot them.

Speaking of which, they’re supposed to be peaking in two weeks! Can’t waittttttttt. First comes the magnolias which is like the pre-party. Then the main event! Holllllaaaaaaa

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 6 seconds at ISO 80 on my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Not every photo shoot turns out well. Sometimes I’ll go out and not even pull out my camera and just end up walking around aimlessly. Sometimes I’ll snap a few pics but know that they won’t be my favorites. Other times the images need a little creativity in post processing and I feel like thats what happened with this image.

I went out one morning last week hoping for a colorful sunrise but ended up with some very blue, cloudy skies. The good news is that I found a new puddle and I’m really looking forward to capturing this same scene during a nice sunrise. There are a lot of puddles all around the US Capitol. So many great reflections to be found but I think what makes this one so unique is the fact that you can still see the US Capitol and some car trails to go in front of it. Very cool, if you ask me.

It was a little difficult to capture. Luckily I carry all my extra batteries and memory cards in this cheap, Forever21 makeup bag that is made of entirely plastic. I emptied the entire contents into my backpack and placed it in the middle of the puddle so that I could use it as a resting place for my camera without it getting wet. The key to this image was to get as low as possible and that was basically sitting on top of the puddle.

I liked the way that the image turned out but I thought that rotating it made it look even cool. It sort of adds an interesting element to it and reminds me of those ink blot tests. What do you see actually see in this image?

My camera settings for this image is F11 at 6 seconds with ISO 125 on my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.