ANGELA B. PAN

Ok a little break from the moody weather pics in Washington DC and onto a moody weather pic in Aruba. LOL.

While in Aruba, if we wanted to go anywhere, we’d most likely be traveling by foot or taxi. I love taking taxis because you’re able to talk to the driver and get some local information that only they know. For example, one of our taxi drivers told us that they don’t have weathermen in Aruba. Isn’t that crazy? It’s because the weather is pretty much the same everyday and there would really be no need for him or her. It’s consistently 85 degrees with no humidity and a slight breeze all the time. It’s like a dream. If it does rain, it will only rain for a 20 minutes and it’s back to sunny skies. The really nice part about Aruba is that it’s right outside of hurricane belt so that’s not even really a concern either.

But then why did it rain on our trip? LOL 2 out of the 3 full days that we were there, there was some crazy down pour. It was sunny at some points in the day but overall, it was pretty overcast like it is in this image. Oh well, you can’t win them all…

I love looking at this image. It totally reminds me of what it’s like in Aruba. Palm trees everywhere and I can just imagine them flowing in the wind with that amazing breeze. It’s like I have been transported back. Which reminds me, I’ve been working on the Aruba vlog. Expect that to be coming out very soon! At least before the end of the month. Pinky promise!

My camera settings for this image is F6.3 at 1/500th of a second at ISO 64 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

So remember how in May I said I was so excited for summer because there’s going to be so many rain storms and I can’t wait to practice my lightning shots? I thought that since they started so early this season there would be plenty of opportunities to photograph them for the next few months.

Well guess what? After that one week, we’ve haven’t had any! Actually I take that back. We’ve had a few here and there but they have all been in the middle of the day. I think the best lightning storms are at night so they light up the night sky. There’s more contrast so it will be easier to see them and photograph them.

So this was the last time I was out photographing the lightning. There must have been some kind of event or something going on at the US Capitol because the whole time I was out I kept on seeing people all dressed up walking in and out. No one really seemed to mind that there was lightning going on. Everyone was so giggly and trying to take selfies with the clouds. I can’t imagine them coming out that great but at least they tried.

The forecast this week looks promising though. I hope that we can get at least 1 good night. Although last week I sent in my Sony camera in for a little maintenance. I’ve been using the camera almost everyday for the past 3 years. It needed a good little tune up. I wanted to get it done before my next trip so I thought that this week would have been a good week to do so because I didn’t have anything major planned. So if we do get lightning, I’ll be photographing them with my Canon. I kinda remember how to use it… so this should be interesting. LOL

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/6th of a second ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

PS If you are in the DC area, check out Sospeso. The Community Collective currently has a show going on and were kind enough to feature one of the images from this series. And if you feel like it, you can even purchase the printed frame. So grab a glass a wine and check out all the beautiful artwork.

Before I left to Aruba, I mentioned the fact that I was really looking forward to seeing the flamingos on Flamingo Beach. And I’m so glad we had the opportunity to see them. To be honest, they were a little smaller than I thought they would be and there wasn’t as many but that didn’t stop me from following them around everywhere to capture their every move. LOL.

They were so fun to watch. Their little habits like stomping on the ground to get food and even biting themselves even while walking was so interesting to see. I think the funniest part was when they would get in the outdoor shower and wait for someone to pull the chain down so they can get fresh water. These flamingos are definietly not wild. There was even a little gum ball machine that had flamingo food that you could pay and feed them, but I was not trying to do that. I think that would be getting a little too close to the birds. My friend was trying to pose for a picture with one and she probably got a little too close. The flamingo actually bit her! She laughed about it while she was backing away and said that it felt like a little pinch but nuh-uh. No way would you ever find me that close to a bird. Even if they’re pretty and pink. Birds are birds. 

You can see in the background there are a few rain clouds. It did rain for a bit while we were in Aruba. It went away in about 20 minutes but it gave us a nice break from the constant sun. I think it worked out well though because I love the tones that it created in this image. 

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/6400th of a second ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens. PS you’re going to be seeing a lot of the 70-200mm in my Aruba images. It had way too much fun with that lens. 

It seems like everyday this summer has either been super hot and humid or super rainy, right? There hasn’t really been an in between in a while. This image was actually taken on one of those rainy days. It rained the night before and it rained right after this image was captured so I was really surprised when color actually came through the clouds during this sunrise. And as a side note super lucky that I left the Reflecting Pool right before it started pouring. The whole morning was really dark so I love the way the pink and purple hues brought out the contrast.

Now that I have my 70-200mm, I’ve been challenging myself to keep the lens on my camera without switching to one of my defaults.  It’s actually a lot harder than it sounds but I think it’s really interesting how subjects that I photograph all the time seem so different. I’ve always talked about getting really low or getting high could help make things look different. Well, getting a new lens can do the exact same thing. I captured this image at focal length 112mm.

Besides the color and the reflection, my favorite part about this image are the ducks. I always get so happy to see them, especially in the summer time. There seems to be new baby ducks all the time. Of course they could be the same ducks that I’m seeing over and over again, but they’re just so tiny that I can’t even imagine being more than a few weeks old.

My camera settings for this image is F4 at 1/60th of a second and ISO 1600 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm. The reason the ISO is up so high is because this image was captured handheld.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

This week has been kinda crazy, weather wise. During the day it is hot and humid and at night time we’ll get these awesome lightning storms. In fact, it was so bad on Tuesday morning that it woke me up from my sleep around 3a. Craziness.

To be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention to the weather like I should have. I have been busy with Snap DC and things that I didn’t think these storms were as intense as they actually are. Holy cow was I wrong. Around 6p on Monday I was getting ready to go workout when this loud alarm started going off on my phone. It was a tornado warning. It took me about 20 minutes to change out of my gym clothes into some long pants and long sleeves, eat dinner and I was out the door! I really didn’t even hesitate to leave the house because I knew I’d get some awesome images.

I made my way over to the Jefferson Memorial. Actually, no. I ran to the Jefferson Memorial from my car and was soaked head to toe. The winds were so strong that it actually got all my clothes inside my jacket soaking wet. Once I actually stepped into the memorial it was like it was still raining because all the wind was blowing the rain inside. CRAZYYYYY….. fun.

Once the wind settled down I was able to set up my tripod in between two columns and started shooting. I was probably out there for 2 hours and this was the best image I could come up with. I definietly would have considered this storm a practice run and it is getting me even more excited for the summer. I can’t wait!

My camera settings for this image is F4.5 at 0.3 seconds ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens on a tripod.

If I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, 2018 is the year of the FOG. Forget the dog. LOL. It’s all about the fog and this past weekend did not disappoint.

Holy cow did we have fog on Saturday morning. There was a dense fog advisory all night so obviously that meant that I had to wake up super early and capture it all. It reminded me of driving in San Diego because at times while driving into the city it was difficult to even see the highway signs.

I met up with my friends Albert and Austin to shoot around the Lincoln Memorial. It was so great to meet up with them because there were points in time where the fog was sooo thick that you couldn’t see anything and if we were shooting, it was into big, grey nothingness. So we basically just stood around and chatted. But once it lifted the fog created this great atmosphere around the monuments.

This was taken right before the fog was about to cover the Lincoln Memorial again. It’s crazy how fast it went in and out. I like this image because its so monotone without me having to do anything to it. This is basically what you saw if you were there. You can see a little bit of the brown in the Canadian Geese butts and that’s it. That’s not true, there’s a little more color than that. I just wanted to say Canadian Geese butts. LOL.

My camera settings for this image is F5.6 at 1/500th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm zoom lens handheld. To be completely honest, I find myself still carrying around my tripod all the time but using it less and less. If you’re interested, I can talk more about that in a future blog post.