ANGELA B. PAN

While in Aruba, we stayed at the Renaissance Resort and Casino. I’d recommend it if you really want to go to Flamingo Beach and stay in Oranjestad. I liked it because the location was really convient to a lot of shopping, restaurants and bars. It made life so much easier when you could just walk across the street and get the best dutch pancakes on the island.

This image was taken on our first morning in Oranjestad, just like this one. Apparently Sue and I had a great photowalk because I got so many images that I am happy with including this one. This building is right by our hotel. We could actually see it from our balcony everyday. If I remember correctly, it was a church. But I just loved the vibrant yellow color with the black trimming on the windows. It made it a very unique looking building. The red sign was just the focal pointed need to make this even more interesting. It took a couple of frames for me to get it just right but I love the way it turned out.

I hope you’re liking these Aruba images because I still have a ton more to go through. I’ve literally just scratched the surface. I’ve been pretty busy lately working on a couple of projects here and there but hopefully I’ll have some time to work on those images soon as well as an Aruba vlog! I can’t wait to check out the gopro footage of when we went snorkeling in the ocean 🙂

One last reminder, if you’re not busy tonight, come join me, my friends Geoff and Focus on the Story International Photo Festival for an Evening with the Monuments. Click here for the details.

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/1000th of a second at ISO 320 with my 70-200mm lens.

It’s that time of year again! Sunflower season!

If you haven’t seen them already, I’ve made two vlogs in the years past from McKee Beshers in Poolesville, Maryland. They’re linked here and here.

But this season is a little different. This year I have my drone! Muahaha. I ended up taking more drone pics and video than I did with my Sony camera. I think I was just excited about having a really beautiful place to go and legally being able to fly. It’s funny though because I wasn’t the only one who had this idea. There was at least 3 other drones flying around. One guy commented that he has never seen so many drones in one place before. It’s all good though. They’re just so much fun to fly.

And they make for the best selfie sticks! Here’s another pic of me with my friends Sue and Birch. The sunflower squad. No, we didn’t actually call ourselves that but it would have been funny if we did. LOL.

If you don’t have a drone, make sure to bring a step stool. The flowers are over 7′ tall this year. Way better than it was last year. It’s pretty overwhelming to try to capture it all so I highly recommend trying to get on a higher level. And as always, don’t forget your bug spray! I accidentally brought bug bite relief as opposed to repellant and my ankles got torn apart. I hope those mosquitos enjoyed the extra cooling sensation. *waves fist in the air*

My camera settings for my alone selfie is F2.2 at 1/13th of a second ISO 978 (?) with my DJI Mavic Pro.

That question mark is in reference to the weird ISO number. I’ve never seen anything wasn’t a multiple of 100 on any other camera or film. Weird…

About a week or two after Snap DC came out, I cut my hair short. It hasn’t been this short since high school. Andrew has never even seen my hair short before. I’ve always had it long, way past my shoulders, almost to the middle of my back. But I felt like I needed a drastic change. I don’t know, I felt like I was a point in my life where I needed to shake things up a bit and cutting my hair was the answer.

What I didn’t expect is how much I would look like my mom in the process. OMG it’s kinda scary. This picture looks EXACTLY like her except her hair is even shorter than mine. Either way, I’m still undecided about it. I definietly will keep it for the summer but after that, I may just grow it out long again. What do you think?

This image was taken on our last day in Aruba. My friends Sue, Neena and I were walking around Oranjestad trying to get last minute gifts for people back home when we came across this amazing yellow wall. I think it’s the side of someone’s house. Whatever the case is, I love how vibrant the color is. The palm tree made for a nice frame as well. Now that I think of it, my mom’s favorite color is yellow. LOLOL.

So shoutout to Sue for creating a picture that’s meant for my mom.

Don’t forget, a week from today I’ll be cohosting a photo workshop with my friends, Geoff Livingston Photography and Focus on the Story International Photo Festival on night photography. We’ll be walking the National Mall and talking about long exposure, street photography at night and so much more! Its going to be a really fun event with a lot more photo instruction than the regular photowalks we’ve been doing this summer. Plus there will be 3 instructors instead of one. So if you’re interested, check out all the info here.

My camera settings for this image is F7.1 at 1/1000th of a second at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

A little break from all the pink spring flowers for some yellow ones. I captured this image behind the George Mason Memorial. It’s a little hidden gem that’s so close to the Tidal Basin but I don’t know how many people actually know about it. It’s kind of an empty space and I believe there’s still construction going on in the very center of the memorial. Regardless, it’s a great way to escape the crowds of the Tidal Basin but still capture some beautiful flowers.

What originally caught my attention about this space were all the beautiful magnolia trees. You can see them sort of in the center layer at the edges of this image. But once I actually started composing, I liked the yellow flowers more. They were just so beautiful and whimsical. I love how there are even more yellow flowers in the center layer, in between the magnolia trees.

The whole time I was editing this image, I was thinking of my mom. Her favorite color is yellow and she loves gardening. She doesn’t grow flowers or anything but she has a full fledge garden in her backyard of all kinds of fruits and vegetables for the spring/summer. In fact, she’s had a garden in every house that we’ve lived in and I have so many memories with her in those gardens. Whether it’s picking the fruit and vegetables that I wanted to eat or her making me pull weeds and laying out the soil because I was eating her fruits and vegetables and I had to contribute in some way. We’ve spent a lot of time outdoors together and that may be one of the reasons why I love being outside so much. Interesting that I never put those two things together before…

My camera settings for this image is F8 at 1/250th of a second at ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 28-70mm lens.

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.

Speaking of fall colors still hanging around! Heart eye emoji! (P.S. Is it weird that I say what the emoji is instead of actually using the emoji? HAHA) One of my favorite places to go to for fall colors in Washington DC area is the Tidal Basin. I don’t know if many people know it but the cherry blossom trees are gorgeous in the autumn season. We were so lucky to have gone at the right time on this particular morning. The tree colors were poppin but the sun hitting the leaves made them look like they were glowing this amazing gold color. I’d say this was probably 30-45 minutes after the sunrise.

At first I thought this season wasn’t going to be great for fall foliage. I had heard somewhere that we didn’t get as much rain as we usually do so that was going to somehow negatively affect the leaf colors. That was definietly wrong. I think all it really did was delay it for a couple of weeks because they are out in full force right now. You can even see the trees on the opposite side of the Tidal Basin and so many of them were this beautiful red color. We didn’t walk that way but I’m sure they’re just as beautiful as the yellow tree I was standing under. So if you’re in the DC area, I’d highly suggest checking them out soon before they all go away.

Shout out to Brandon, his cousin, and Jarrett for the early sunrise shoot. It was a fun morning walking around the National Mall with you guys! A morning filled with photos, camera talk and colorful leaves- what could be better?

My camera settings for this image is F/11 at 1/320th of a second and ISO 200 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm lens.