ANGELA B. PAN

A couple of weeks ago, I was planning on meeting a friend for a quick get together. Something informal but still fun. So when it came down to picking the place to meet, I chose the Sculpture Garden at the National Gallery of Art. For real, if you’re in the DC metro area and you need a good place to talk, I’d definietly recommend this place. We sat at the benches right around the water fountain under some shade and it was perfect. The meeting ended quickly and I still had time on my parking meter so I decided to walk around the National Gallery of Art for a little bit.

The East Wing has always been my favorite. It’s the modern art part of the gallery and every time I go, I fall more and more in love with this space. It is just so beautiful. The light that comes in through the glass roof in the middle of the day along with all the shadows they create are so amazing. Just every corner of this wing is spectacular.

It has come to the point where I come to the gallery so often that I never try to see it all at once. I’ll pick a floor and take my time there. Really soaking in everything the exhibit has to offer. Then I’ll probably go to the rooftop terrace if it’s a really nice day and then head home. I never feel rushed and it makes it feel brand new every time I visit if I see something new. Regardless, it’s always inspiring and a great way to spend an hour or so.

The settings for this image is F7/.1 at 1/125th of a second ISO 160. Obviously it was a nice and sunny day out so I was able to capture everything with a low ISO.

Let me know what you think about this image. Its really different from what I usually do but I still really like it and it was a total accident. I didn’t even know that I took this until the other day when I was looking for another image to edit.

So on the same foggy morning that I took this picture of the Washington Monument, I was out with my camera on my tripod shooting. Obviously. But I actually went to the tidal basin with the intentions of shooting the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial. When I arrived, I saw that the fog was so amazing that I couldn’t resist taking a few shots of the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial. So in the series of images, this was the very last image I took right before I began shooting MLK JR. memorial. I know I was bracketing my shots because this was a long exposure and I’m assuming I just got impatient for the last shot to finish and just picked up my tripod. Pretty cool, huh?

My favorite part is how aligned everything is. I literally must have lifted the tripod up straight in the air for that to happen. I didn’t do much in processing either. I just added a little bit of contrast and that was it.It’s basically straight out of the camera. I also like how it’s kind of monotone grayish blue. What do you think. Should I try some more experimental long exposures? For some reason, it reminds me of this meme from SpongeBob SquarePants of Mr Krab. Like you just woke up from a really long nap and you don’t know what time it is, what day it is, or what is actually going on. LOL

My settings for this image was F/32 at 2 seconds ISO 50.

So weird that it’s Wednesday, right? I feel like long holidays always throw off my sense of days. Not that I’m complaining at all. I love them. I got to spend time with family and friends and there’s nothing better than that!

Saturday we had a lot of rain. It rained all day and was super gloomy. So in my head that meant that Sunday would have a good sunrise. Even though I was still in my ‘long holiday mode’, I still managed to wake up in time to catch the sunrise from the Lincoln Memorial. I was super lucky too. The sky only had a little hint of pink for a minute and then it was gone. The rest of the sunrise was cloudy and gloomy. But you know what’s funny? Around this time of year, I always see young people hanging out on the steps of the Lincoln. I can only assume that they just started collage and it’s the first time that they have complete freedom. So they stay up all night, doing who knows what, and then thinks its a great idea to watch the sunrise over the reflecting pool. They’re never rowdy or disruptive, but you can definietly tell that they’re struggling to stay awake. LOL. I’m sure I did similar things when I was in college. But hey, at least they’re taking the time to appreciate the new day 🙂 Which they’re probably going to just sleep through anyways. You can see what I mean on the bottom left, next to the column. You may not have noticed it, but there’s someone laying down there “appreciating the new day”.

My camera settings for this image was F13 at 8 seconds ISO 200 on a tripod. Luckily, this early in the morning, no one cares about about your tripod.

Back home from our trip to New York City. We had a blast but I think Frankie had the best time out of all of us. It was his first time in the city and he loved every smell of it! As for me, I’m pretty sure I’ve gained about 10lbs while we were there. That’s what happens when you go anywhere with Andrew. He’s a master at Yelp and does his research before we go anywhere. LOL. I’ll share photos soon! Time to recuperate and fit in a little, I mean a lot of cardio. HAHA.

In the mean time I took this image a couple of weeks ago at the same time I took this image. If you scooted over to the right a little more than the rainbow looked like it was coming out of the United States Capitol. I thought it looked really cool to have it as the backdrop to such an amazing piece of architecture. So I busted out with my 70-200mm to make sure I could get the details that I wanted. I usually don’t carry that lens with me, but ever since I decided to carry my 100mm macro lens around with me on rainy days, I figured it would be good practice to carry the 70-200mm all the other times. It definietly paid off this time.

The settings for this image is F/6.3 1/250th of a second at ISO 320. I did not shoot with a tripod which made it a little more difficult but still very happy with the way it turned out 🙂 The lens is just so long that it would have been easier to keep it steady on the tripod so I could mess with the settings and focusing.

Have a great and safe weekend everyone! What do you have planned for the long weekend?

First of all, I just wanted to say thank you sooooooo much to everyone who commented, left messages or called me yesterday. You all really know how to make me feel special. I had the best day with Andrew yesterday in New York. If you follow me on instagram, you may have seen a little bit of it on my stories. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I am just so happy right now.

And to completely flip the script, remember when this was like the worst day ever?! This past winter was so nice and mild. I really thought we were going to get away with no snow at all. But March hit, all the flowers started budding/blooming and BAMN winter snow storm Stella. I’m still shaking my head as I’m writing this.

Man, I was so worried that this snow storm was going to effect the cherry blossoms. I mean look at them in this picture! Don’t they look so sad and cold. I’d never seen anything like it at the Tidal Basin. But as my friend, Bob Marley would say “Don’t worry about a thing, cuz every little thing is going to be all right”. And it did! It ended up being the best cherry blossom season I had experienced! The weather was absolutely perfect after the storm went away and a lot more of the cherry blossoms survived than expected. And don’t get me started on that one day we had fog! Holy Crap! The best part was that since a lot of people thought the cherry blossoms weren’t going to make it, the tidal basin was definietly not as crowded. It was just so freeing! Ahh I’m so happy just thinking about it.

And I’m happy that it was my birthday.

I’m just happy all around. Thank you again! <3

I had the pleasure of getting a sneak peak of the Freer and Sackler gallery before the reopening in early October. Shout out to IGDC for the amazing invite. It was so cool to see all the beginning stages of the museum. I say the beginning stages because it is currently under reconstruction and some of the exhibits had been taken down. So it was interesting to see the ‘before’.

You can’t tell from this image, but one of my favorite parts was all the natural lighting. The museum is shaped like a square with an inner courtyard in the middle. All the hallways have these amazing windows that lets you look out to the center. The coolest part is that it even housed peacocks at one point! I would have loved to see them. Hence, the peacock room! We got to see it with the windows opened which brought in this amazing light. I’ll have to share an image of it later. But if you get a chance to see the museum when it reopens, definietly check it out. It was very beautiful and all the gold gave me the chills.

One interesting fact that I will always remember is that though it is a predominately asian art museum (with a little bit of American sprinkled in), the architecture is Italian Palazzo. This was because Charles Freer, the museum’s designer stopped in Italy on his way to Asia. He was heavily influenced by the asian cultures but wanted to incorporate the Italian architecture. I think marrying these two cultures was such a unique idea. If you walk around the museum, make sure to be looking up as well. The ceilings and arches are beautiful!

It was my first time visiting this museum and as you can see, I really enjoyed it. I can’t wait to visit again when it reopens. The image of the staircase was just a small detail but loved the texture and lines that it formed.