ANGELA B. PAN

Ya’ll know that I don’t shoot a lot of portraits. I love looking at them but I’m just more of an exploration person where I’d rather be out walking around and looking at stuff than to be tied down to just one subject. When I was first getting into photography, I was totally against having people in my landscapes. I just wanted the scenery to speak for itself but lately I’ve been changing my mind. Sometimes I think it’s cool to have people in your shots to show scale. Other times I think people make for some happy accidents and they really add to the image. In this particular case, I couldn’t help but capture this image. That’s my friend, Zack. While we were waiting for lightning (which never came), he made it appoint to show us the cool lighting that the Lincoln Memorial has to illuminate it at night. I’ve noticed it before, but never really ‘looked’ at it either. Then, in the middle of the rain, Zack jumped down to show us that it’s even cooler than what I thought it was. He’s crazy though. He stood there for a good 5 minutes while Dave and I shot him. My favorite part is the light coming from his jacket and the shadow casting onto the ground. You can tell it was a longer exposure by the car trails on the top passing by. By the end he was soaking wet. He’s crazy though because he could of at least put up the hood on his jacket. Of course, that wouldn’t of made for as cool of a shot as it is. He looks like a rain god. LOL

The camera settings for this image was F7.1 at 2 seconds with ISO 320. Thanks so much for standing so still while shooting this, Zack! I still think you’re crazy 🙂

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I love shooting the fog. *but knowing me, I’ll probably tell you a 100 more times so just pretend it’s like your first time hearing it each time I tell you. You know that scene in Cinderella when all the birds and mice dress her up for the ball? It’s like a whirlwind of magic and then all of the sudden, she’s ready? That’s what it’s like shooting in the fog for me except I really hope there are no mice circling me and I pretty much look exactly the same as I did before it got all foggy. But what I mean by the Cinderella reference is that I feel like I’m being wrapped up in this warm magical cloud whenever I’m walking through the fog. It’s absolutely amazing. But what it does to the scenery is even better. Everything is so muted and reduced down to the bare minimum. If I could wake up everyday to fog, I’d be a happy photographer.

That’s why I was super excited when I saw the Jefferson Memorial like this. Just a tiny hint of reflection in the Tidal Basin water with a bit more of the top of the Jefferson Memorial and cherry blossom trees peaking through. You have just enough information to know where this is. You may think this is black and white, but it’s not. Just the way the scene presented itself. I was standing on Kutz Bridge literally in awe of it all.

This was shot on my tripod with camera settings F/9 at 1/30th of a second with ISO 200. Not much photoshop editing with this one either. The hardest part was getting rid of all those dust spots! Man am I the only one who can never keep a clean sensor?

Oh snap! I can’t believe I still haven’t blogged this image yet. I’ll let you all in on a little secret. I have a folder on my computer desktop called “Haven’t blogged yet” (very creative, I know). It’s the place where I dump all the images that I’ve worked on but haven’t blogged about it yet (hence the name of the folder). Usually all these images have already been on my instagram. It’s just so much easier for me to throw things up on there but when it comes time to blogging, I am a lot more thoughtful and careful with what I’m saying. So I need to keep a folder to make sure all these cool images end up on the blog. When it was time to write today’s blog post, I went back into my trusty folder and found this one!

I took it the day I left for New York. It was the only day of the week that called for cloudy/slightly rainy skies. Those are words are like music to my ears because that usually means colorful sunrises/sunsets and I was right! But the best part of this morning was that the colors lasted for so long. Probably a good 20-30 minutes of amazing color. I was surprised and super grateful to have the extra time to try to come up with different compositions. So in case you were wondering, this was shot close to Netherland Carillon in Arlington, VA. Its one of the only places I know of that you can get all three of these iconic DC monuments all lined up like this. I tried my best to use my “cherry blossom skills” to frame the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument and Capitol building all in one image using the trees around me. I’m pretty happy with the results. What do you think?

Am I the only one who never knows how to pack clothes for New York City? I mean you check the weather and it will say it’s 80 degrees. So obviously I’m going to pack t-shirts and tank tops.  But once you’re there, it actually feels like 65. It’s the most deceiving thing ever. All the tall buildings and walking through the shadows make it feel so much colder than it actually is. But above all else, sneakers is an absolute must. Props to all the women who walk around the city all day in high-heels. You have my respect, big time.

This image was taken en route to Grand Central Terminal from the New York Public Library. One of my favorite parts of walking through the shadows of all the tall buildings is seeing the different kinds of reflections. Reflections in puddles, reflections in glass windows, etc.  It’s almost like a game to find some really cool ones. But I thought this one was particularly cool because you can see so many different building reflections in this one building. The sun burst to the side of it was just an added bonus that I didn’t even notice until I was shooting. No idea what the name of this building is but I believe it was on 42nd street if you wanted to check it out for yourself.

My camera settings for this image was F22 1/15th of a second at ISO 200. The only reason my aperture was so small was because I wanted to make sure I could get the sun flare to be as large as possible.

So while you’re walking around the city, definietly make sure to look up AND down whenever possible. You won’t be disappointed. You may find special treasures like this that make you really happy 🙂

Last week I said ‘goodbye’ to my friend, Navin. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that we’ll randomly meet up and shoot together. He was one of the first people I ever met in the DC photo community and it’s so crazy to think he won’t be here anymore. Our mutual friend, Joe threw him a little going away party and what do photographers do when they’re moving away? Obviously we get together and shoot one last sunset before heading off to get some drinks at a near by bar.

It was the perfect send off. All day we had crazy weather. I think I saw weather reports saying we had three tornados touch down in DC on that day. At some points it was even hailing. Luckily, when we met up the rain had stopped for a little bit. The clouds were racing above us and we were able to get some super moody shots. Then without any warning, it started to downpour. It wasn’t so bad because even through the downpour, there was still this amazing light that shined through the clouds that made everything illuminate and it was so beautiful.

This image was shot at F7.1 at 1/200th of a second ISO 400. Again, the clouds were pretty crazy and dark this day but I was super excited to get that one little clearing above the dome. Its my favorite part of this image because it looks like a little halo over the United States Capitol Building.

Its always fun shooting with people who have the same interests in photography as you. It was just a bonus that you ended up being a cool person as well. Best of luck in the Bay Area, Navin! Come back and visit and we’ll shoot again 🙂

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend. So glad it finally warmed up in the DC area so the cherry blossoms could really bloom. So guess I did over the weekend? I’ve been out shooting the blossoms 🙂 But this one was actually taken on Friday morning just after sunrise and just before it started to rain. The morning started off really cold. So cold that when I checked the weather app on my phone and it said “feels like 22 degrees”. *shaking my head* I can still feel the chill in my bones. My first reaction was to just stay in my warm, cozy bed, but I knew I’d regret it. I met up with my friend, Larry and had a great morning just walking around, talking and taking pictures of the flowers. They were looking a lot better than previous days so I’m glad I got my butt outta bed.

My camera settings for this image was F13 1/80th of a second ISO 250 with my 28-70mm. I was trying to get as much as I could in focus but the cherry blossoms were so close to me and the Jefferson Memorial was so far that it was difficult to get both. So I chose the cherry blossoms to be really sharp. When shooting the cherry blossoms, I try to use them to frame the memorials or as leading lines to them.

I hope you’re not getting bored of these. My blog posts have been pretty cherry blossom heavy lately. But tis the season 🙂 They’ll get back to a normal travel/DC images soon. Maybe in like a week-ish or so. But not right now, I’ve got cherry blossoms fever. Even my dad has been asking me to text him cherry blossom pics. Obviously, he doesn’t read my blog or follow me on my social media. *shaking my head again*