ANGELA B. PAN

So the cherry blossoms are not the only flowers that you will see by the Tidal Basin. Just to the other side of the Paddle Boat Parking lot will you find the Floral Library. It’s easy to walk right past it, but it’s one of my favorite places to be. I remember being a young girl and my mom would take us to the Tidal Basin to just take pictures in front of all the flowers. Photo evidence #1. LOL. Believe me, if you could see all the photos we have in our albums they all did not turn out as cute as this one did. HAHAHA

I took this image last year when they had some beautiful yellow daffodils. The Floral Library pretty much has something beautiful blooming all year around except for winter. My favorite way to capture these flowers is by getting down real low so that you are sitting in the grass and your camera is propped up. Basically it is resting on the dirt. The point is to get down that low to make it seem like the flowers are as big as the background and in this case, the Washington Monument. I love the play on perspective and it makes your viewer look at the image for a little bit longer so the can figure out what’s actually going on. But I think my favorite part of the image is that one daffodil facing the Washington Monument and it almost looks like it’s kissing it 🙂 Or is that just my imagination?

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/60th of a second and ISO 320 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens. Obviously this wasn’t taken with a tripod only because I can’t find one that will go that low. Do you guys have any recommendations?

If you’ve signed up for my newsletter then you already know, but I have a super exciting announcement to make. I am this year’s Ball for the Mall’s official photographer! AHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I am so thrilled and so grateful. If you don’t know what the Ball for the Mall is, it’s a fundraising event that the Trust for the National Mall puts on every year to raise money for the National Mall. This year the tent is going up right in front of the Smithsonian museums. Being the official photographer does not mean I’m photographing the event. It just means that the Trust for the National Mall is featuring my images on all their materials for the event like the invitation, save the dates, etc. I’m honored to be helping with such a beautiful cause that’s so close to my heart. I’ve spent so much time at the Mall and it’s given me so much. I’m grateful to be able to give back. Plus I heard there’s going to be some super cool people like Wolf Blitzer emceeing the event. I am going to try to take a selfie!

I’ve never been before and I’m really looking forward to attending the event with Andrew later on this month. Now, to go ball gown shopping. AHHH!!!! 🙂 I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m so excited.

This image was taken on morning on a super cold winter morning at the National Mall (obviously). I love it because the sky reminds of tie-dye. I mean when you see a scene like this, how could you not fall in love with our national parks?

The settings for this image is F9 at 1/10th of a second at ISO 200 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 17-40mm wide angle lens. You know this is an older image when the Canon 5DmII is mentioned.

The cherry blossoms haven’t bloomed this year. I’m hoping they’ll be out at this time next week.

So this is an image I took last year around this same time. I have tried working on this image several times in the past year but I could never get it right. It’s really different from other images I create because of the lighting. I don’t have much practice with artificial lighting, especially outdoors like that. So whenever I edited it, the colors would look funny and didn’t like it. I’m so happy with the way this one turned out. It’s exactly what I had envisioned from the very beginning. Finally.

It was that same super foggy day that I took this image and this one. This just happens to be the very first image I took that whole morning. The fog had not fully settle in yet so you can see how it’s covering half of the Washington Monument. Little did I know that later on in the morning the entire monument would be covered. So cool!

And little did I know, I would drop my tripod in the Tidal Basin that day too. *face palm* #neverforget.

Anyways, hope you all have a great weekend. I am about to send out my monthly newsletter on Sunday the 1st so if you aren’t subscribed, please do so here. You won’t want to miss out on free calendar downloads, an updated cherry blossom guide and so much more! And if you do use the free wallpapers, screen shot them and send them to me! I would love to see it!

The settings for this image is F8 at 2.5 seconds and ISO 160 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens on a tripod.

This image! This image was taken just a few minutes before I took this one. Do you see how the yellow glow from the fog just made us walk down that path? It kinda felt like you were in the movie, ‘Ghost’ where that light shines on you and you know it’s your time to go. LOL. But definitely not as serious.

Fun fact about Ghost: My mom used to sing Unchained Melody  ALL THE TIME on the karaoke machine while I was growing up. I could probably sing you the whole song without even listening to the music because she sang it that much. And it will sound almost the same as the Righteous Brothers. LOL JK. It will be better.

Obviously my favorite part of this image is the fog that is coming out of the trees. I love looking at that one section of the image and then it leads my eye to the person walking next to the reflecting pool. I don’t know why but it just makes everything seem so big, especially compared to that person. The 70-200mm lens that I was using definietly helped with the compression and made the scale look that exaggerated.

This winter has been great for fog and crazy gloomy weather like that. I wonder what it will bring for spring. So far it’s been so cold that it doesn’t feel like the seasons have changed at all. The cherry blossoms have now been pushed back to expected peak date 8-12th of April. Hopefully it will actually bloom at that time but who really knows with this crazy weather. In all honesty though, spring can’t come soon enough.

My settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/640th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm lens 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.

I didn’t take this image this past Saturday, I took it a couple years ago but it is still one of my favorite snow images I’ve taken.  There are so many things going on in this image but its still so simple. I love the white on white tonality. I also really enjoy how you can barely see the Washington Monument. But my favorite part is seeing the little bit of reflection on the floor surface of the Lincoln Memorial with the little puddles of water and snow blocking the entirety. I think it’s little details like that make the image so interesting to look at.

But what do you think? Would you rather have one more good blanket of snow? or are you ready for spring flowers? I think I could go for one more snow day. But please keep it in February. I don’t want them messing with the Cherry Blossoms again like it did last year.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/125th of a second at ISO 100 with my Canon 5D Mark II and 24-105mm lens. LOL I told you this was an older image. You know because I shot this on my Canon.

Which is funny because recently I’ve had quite a few people asking me about switching camera brands. To be honest, I love my Sony and I can’t imagine ever going back to Canon. No offense to Canon but that camera is just a beast. Its so big and bulky and after a while it just got to be too much to carry around on my back. I’m so happy with Sony. I love how easy and free I feel with my camera now. I really can’t imagine shooting with any other camera other than a mirrorless one. I’m hooked!