ANGELA B. PAN

Not too long ago, Budget Travel reached out to me because they wanted to use one of my images for their blog post. They were writing a piece on the best places in the country to see the sunrise and obviously, Washington DC made the list (because it really is one of the best places!). So I was honored that they wanted to use one of my images.

Click here if you want to check out the article.

You may have remembered when I took this image. It was at the same time as this one. Isn’t it crazy how different it looks with a vertical crop vs. a horizontal crop? They were obviously taken a couple of minutes a part but they look so different to me. What about you? Do you see a difference? If so, which one do you prefer? Anyways, I love the way that this one turned out as well. I think it’s so interesting to see the cloud formations behind the trees. The reflection from the reflecting pool could not be any better!

On a side note, we just got back from our trip to Orlando yesterday. I had a blast! A much needed vacation after a pretty stressful time in life. I’m ready to get back out there and shoot! More sunrises and sunsets like this please <3 I’ll be back home for a little while now. No real trips planned as of yet but I’m getting the itch to go somewhere in springtime. If you know of any cool places to go to, let me know. Especially places with some beautiful flowers!

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/30th of a second at ISO 250 on my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens on a tripod.

Thanks again Budget Travel!

Here’s a crazy example of how foggy the Tidal Basin can actually get on any given winter morning. I mean come on! You can barely see anything in this image which I think makes it pretty cool. Its like you have to look really deep and kind of know what you’re looking at in order to make any sense of it. If I didn’t tell you, would you have even known? The most interesting part to me is that you can still see a slight hint of the Washington Monument’s reflection but I love the fact that you can see the rain drops in the water. Look at the bottom right hand corner. I love that trail of drops leading to the Monument. It must be something special if you can capture fog and rain all in the same image.

Here’s what it would usually look like if it weren’t foggy.

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at ISO 320 at 1/640th of a second with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle handheld. As far as editing, I didn’t do much. I upped the contrast a bit just so you can see the monuments a little bit better and that’s pretty much it! Full on color image of what it looked like that one special Sunday morning.

PS Sorry not sorry there have been so many fog pictures lately. I love shooting the fog and the mood it brings. But I feel like 2018 has been especially foggy for me for some reason. I’ve never had so many wonderful opportunities to shoot in the weather and I’m taking full advantage! I just hope we get more days like this during cherry blossom season like we did that one time last year. That was seriously one of the best days ever. This is probably a close second <3

Somedays you get real lucky with sunrises. Somedays you don’t. This day I was EXTREMELY lucky.

I woke up a little bit earlier than I usually do and headed down to the US Capitol. Since it was kinda cold out, I decided to park on the street where I could keep my eye on the sunrise at all times but not actually have to get out of the car 🙂 I don’t remember what I was doing on my phone, probably on instagram or watching a youtube video or something when I noticed the sky change a little bit. I quickly jumped out of the car, grabbed my tripod out of the trunk and ran over to the reflecting pool. By the time I arrived, the sky had turned a crazy, vibrant color of pink. It was honestly one of the most exciting sunrises I had seen in a real long time. I grabbed a few shots and debated if I wanted to stay by the water or move closer to the Capitol Building itself. I noticed the water level was unusually high so I decided to stay by the water and take some images from right above. With it being so high and the weather being kind of windy, it was making the reflections dance a bit. I thought it was really cool.

But my favorite part of the whole morning was running into my friend, Erikson. He was on his way to work when the sunrise stopped him in his tracks. We watched the sunrise together and he even got this pretty cool behind the scenes shot of me. Click here if you want to check it out. It was so great just to sit and watch the sky with him. The color didn’t last long but it was so worth the early morning wake up call. I’m in love with how this image turned out <3

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/10th of a second at ISO 250 with my Sony A7Ii and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Going through some of my older images, I ran across this one. It is funny that I remember the exact day that I took it too. It’s the same day I took this image. You can’t see the sky or the sunrise as clear in the previous image but this is what it looked like from behind the peepholes. Pretty cool!

I also remember thinking that this particular day wasn’t going to be that great for sunrise. I arrived a little early and it looked like it was going to be too cloudy to have any kind of color. It’s ok, it happens sometimes. I figured I would just take the time to go out and try to find some new, interesting compositions and save them for when the sky was looking just right. By the way, the previous image was my “new and interesting composition” 🙂 Fortunately for me, I was wrong about the sunrise. The sky turned out to be way better than expected and I really love how this image turned out. I feel like theres every color of the rainbow represented in this image which makes me even happier to look at it. Even though I’ve shot this same scene a hundred times, I do not ever get bored of it. Its such a classic Washington DC shot and the reflection from the tidal basin is perfect. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start the day than this.

The settings for this image was F22 at 0.8 seconds and ISO 80 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm lens. Sorry I don’t remember if this was shot on a tripod or not. Knowing me it probably wasn’t. I was probably just using the ledge of the pedestrian bridge as a sturdy surface and hoping for the best.

I know I don’t usually do this but its my blog and I do what I want.

LOL

Last week I met up with my friend, Albert for what I thought was just going to be a regular, casual coffee date but turned out to be at this amazing new coffee shop that just opened up in DC. It’s an Australian inspired coffee shop called Bluestone Lane.

As soon as you walk inside, you know that it was going to be something special. I mean can we talk about these columns and that window wall? It’s literally like a pinterest/hipster dream. At one point in time the windows were reflecting this amazing rainbow on our table and on all of the floors. I mean how could you not fall in love? I’m just glad I had my camera with me so I could capture this as we were leaving.

I ordered the matcha latte and it was probably the best one I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve been craving it ever since we left. I don’t know if I’ve ever said this publicly, but I don’t actually drink coffee. I think in all of 2017, I may have had a cup less than 10 times in the whole year. It is not a secret or anything, I just don’t think it has ever come up. But I heard Bluestone Lane’s coffee is fantastic. Who knows, maybe next time I will give it a try. I do know that next time I go, I’m definietly trying more of their food. Avocado toast? YES PLEASE! 🙂

Welcome to the District, Bluestone Lane! Can’t wait to go back for more.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/800th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

Like I said yesterday, the fog that we had over the weekend was RIDICULOUS. And what was even weirder was the fact that it was raining while it was still so foggy out. I thought with the rain coming down that it will make the fog disappear. If you look closely at this image, you can even see the water droplets in the water. But no. At times it seemed like it got even foggier. We had a good 2 hours worth of this moody weather to photograph and I loved every minute of it. I was so excited to hear about it that I left the house without a jacket. Luckily I had a beanie in the car or else I would have been really out of luck. Thanks again to my my friend, Birch for telling me about it as it was happening.

I think my favorite part of this image is something I did unintentionally. If you look at the very right of the image there’s a tree bending like it’s trying to leave the image. I love how the person with the umbrella lines up directly with that tree trunk. I don’t know if anyone else wold notice it but I love that little detail that just accidentally happened.

Birch and I were talking about something unrelated to the scene that was happening in front of us but we were both shooting it at exactly the same time. As that person turned the corner, we stopped what we were doing and saying, looked at each other and said “that was awesome” like we both knew we got the shot! AHHH I LOVE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at 1/400th of a second at ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and my 16-35mm wide angle lens handheld.