Hearts Full of Love

Just a few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of photographing Karen and Joe’s wedding. Weddings are a big part of what I do, and I enjoy every one of them for the happiness and sense of celebration that ties them all together in a chain of love. I also love them for what makes them unique.

This wedding was no exception.

Karen’s dad is no longer with us, so understandably there was a lot of emotion around his not being there. In Chinese culture, the tea ceremony demonstrates respect for the older generations. Here, in Saratoga’s tranquil and elegant Hakone Gardens, we are at the same venue where our lovely Demara and Reynold got married. The guests witnessed the bride and groom serving tea to their parents. When Karen’s turn came, everyone—me included—was completely choked up. Karen knelt and offered tea to her mom and also to her dad whose tea cup was carefully placed on the empty chair right next to her.

Yes, the chair was empty, but the hearts of everyone at that wedding were as full as the cups of tea. I won’t forget this scene anytime soon or the tradition that it honors, and I know that Karen and Joe won’t either.

- Michael Soo

On the road again...

When I think about Chanel and Peter’s recent wedding, the first words that come to mind after “How great!” are “Wow, what a trip!” And I mean that in the best possible way. Here’s how it all came down…

This gorgeous couple’s ceremony was to be held at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in San Jose. Chanel checked into the nearby Fairmont Hotel to dress and have her make-up done to perfection. She was lookin’ absolutely great, and everybody was in high spirits and full of anticipation. So far, so good.

The next step in the plan was to head south—an hour’s drive—to the Cinnabar Hills Golf Club to photograph the wedding party. The shoot went like a dream, the shots looked great, and with our mission accomplished, we all jumped into our cars and hit the road back to San Jose.

Chanel, who had been pretty cool, calm, and collected up until then was beginning to get just a touch flustered. Think about it. There was her makeup to keep fresh, her dress to keep unwrinkled, and a million other things to keep straight.

But everything went great. After a beautiful ceremony at the historic church, we went back to Cinnabar Hills for the reception.

All in all, a 10-hour day just packed with action. Chanel and Peter had booked a couple of hours less, but I believe in putting in whatever it takes to get the job done right. Getting a great result is what makes what we do so worthwhile. That and the smiles of pure joy on the faces of the bride and groom and their families.

- Michael Soo

Photographing Glasses and Bottles

We've been asked by a few prospects to show them sample images that we took of reflective objects. We figure that we'll just post a shot we took for a fellow friend, owner of Vintagio winery, which he promptly used for his business card.

The biggest challenge for 99% of product photographers out there are photographing reflective products such as bottles, glasses and especially spheric items. It's really because with these surfaces, you'll see the reflection of anything and everything around the object, the sky, windows and even the photographer and his/her camera! The worst thing to do is to use the on-camera flash that creats a hotspot on the reflective objects.

The distractions are avoidable by surrounding the glass object with a surface that you want to see, such as white board or plastic. It'll help tremendously to create the perfect glass or bottle imagery you want.

- Michael Soo

Creative photos with creative filters

I was recently bitten by the slow shutter bug. As you may have noticed from some of my work such as, the previous blog posting, Feb 2007 issue and the most recent June 2009 (page 58) issue of of Popular Photography magazine. All of them using ND filters, at times, stacked with a polarizer.

Recently, I discovered the Singh-Ray's Vari-N-Duo filter, which I am now packing with me in my bag of goodies.

The interesting part of this filter is that I've been sandwiching a polarizer and 1-2 3-stops ND filter in the past few years of my life, with the polarizer being a slim version. This filter single-handedly remove those 2-3 filters from my bag of filters. Although I wouldn't call it a slim filter, it's pretty easy to handle and adjust.

As you may already know, sandwiching a combo of filters has its pains. Whenever I need only the polarizer, I'll need to unsandwich the filters. Then, there's the handling of three filters instead of one. More surface area exposed to dust, dirt and smudges.

So, the Vari-N-Duo solves all that issue. On top of that, it allowed polarizing effects (really great for waterfalls, reduce glare and reflections in your shots) and slows down the shutter for up to 8-stops!

The drawbacks? It's a thick filter (size of 3 filters put together), can cause some vignetting and it can be an issue fitting into some bags. However, since I'm using the 1Ds3 to shoot, I have plenty of pixels to play with. Thus, I often shoot wider than normal to allow myself cropping opportunities. Having that in mind frees me from having to worry about the vignetting. I'm also using a bag that fits 6 filters. So, there are definitely enough room for me to fit this baby in.

- Michael Soo

Love conquers all

It was late morning. Our absolutely adorable couple, Karen and Joe were waiting for the makeup artist, Tiffany to finish up Karen's look. We were headed out for their engagement session, a few spots that I photographed a mere few days ago. Legion of Honor, Palace of Fine Arts and Baker's Beach. Déjà vu. Karen loved the image I took above for Jen and Matt, and wished to recreate it for themselves. It's usually not an issue, weather permitting.

That was the beginning of the problem. Fog rolled in and covered every inch of the beach and especially the Golden Gate Bridge. The 20 minutes hike to the location began to look rather pointless. Neither the sunset nor the Golden Gate Bridge was visible. Even the path just 100 yards in front of us began to disappear.

I turned to Karen and said, "We'll not catch the beautiful sunset and the Golden Gate Bridge today. However, we'll capture amazing mood in our imagery that no other couples has!!!" Though skeptical, they did brighten up and continued the hike. When we reached the beach, I placed Karen and Joe peacefully on the exact same rock that Jen and Matt were standing a few days ago and I changed my angle completely. Their beautiful tranquil look were surrounded by angry waves that swirled and splashed around them like a perfect storm.

Same rock, different mood. I named the image, "Love conquers all"

- Michael Soo

Buccaneers' cheerleaders team photoshoot

Roseanne, a Buccaneers' cheerleader takes us behind the scene of Soo Photography's photoshoot with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' cheerleader's team shoot.

(Video by Ed Bottger)

Keeping engagement sessions engaging!

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Engagement sessions are not just bringing_a_couple_out_anywhere_to_photograph. It's a big deal for us. We plan the locations (nature versus architecture), schedule (time and location for the sunset) and wardrobe matching with the couples. We'll ensure that our most amazing makeup artist and hair stylist are on board for the shoot. At times, we'll go as far as to invite our couples for a home cooked meal while we talk about the upcoming shoot while we psyche each other up for the fun filled day of shooting.

I'm a foodie. So, it's not one of those mac-n-cheese dinner, but white truffle cheese, salad with drizzled pomegranate reduction dressing, shrimp bisque, medium-rare grilled tenderloin steak, banana fosters spread over grilled peaches-a la hot/cold/sour/sweet combo. Mmmmph..mmmmmph. :P~ Did I ever mention that we also photograph food? So, imagine how beautiful your wedding cake will look.

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I digressed... There are three important pieces to our engagement sessions that we always capture, which you'll notice through the images in this blog.

1. Love - It's about how he looks at her and holds her, how she plays with her hair when she talks to him, how she always laughs when he tells a joke. It is the most basic instinctive raw emotion. Yes, we capture the love and we know where to find it. ;)

2. Fun - The above images tells it all. We have a blast when we go out photographing our couples and by golly, you should too.

3. Art - We play tai chi with nature. We utilize natural sunlight in combination with flash photography to create the most beautiful and natural portraits, with a gorgeous backdrop in nature (see images below). By posing you a certain way in relation to the light, we help you shred 20 lbs without breaking a sweat.

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Engagement photography collection for us is to reach through the camera lens, pulling in the couple’s shared happiness, and recording that for them to remember.

Of course, the greatest fun with the engagement shoots is my collaboration with the couples themselves. They give me new ideas all the time. These collections of pictures reflect the freshness of relationships before the weddings, before the kids, before the mortgages. They are keepsakes as meaningful as wedding albums.

- Michael Soo

Wedding at Santana Row (part 2)

As mentioned in posts below about our Unique Selling Points, we are really proud to say that we deliver. Yes, we deliver! Every single wedding couple we photograph can expect to receive their highly customized album designs within TWO weeks. No kidding! So, you fly off to your honeymoon and by the time you return, you'll be invited to see your wonderous album.

Take our wonderful wedding shot on March 28, 2009, Roya and Todd was invited on April 7th to view their album!

Check out their album!

- Michael Soo

Duy's Funeral - Spangler Mortuary, Los Altos

My father passed away five months ago. Guilt flowed through me as the funeral was in Malaysia and I couldn't fly back in time to attend it. My brothers took the time to photograph the funeral and sent me the images. When I first saw those photographs, a flow of overwhelming emotions passed me and I was drenched in tears.

I have never photographed a funeral before. The thought of photographing one was never something that made me feel splendidly excited about, for obvious reasons. Last week, my ophthalmologist that I shot a year or so ago, Dr. Barry Fung of Los Altos wanted my help to retouch, repair and extract an image of his father-in-law from their archive for the funeral.

Soon after, my assignment was to photograph the funeral itself, held at Spangler Mortuary in Los Altos. The slideshow I created for Dr Fung made everyone cried and yes, my mindset towards photographing funeral did change after the event and especially so after reading what Dr Barry wrote below. I guess Capture the Love seem to capture an deeper word of love in it. Not very different than how one love one's spouse but a much more profound love, existing within us, towards our fathers, daughters, friends, neighbors and even our pets.

View the slideshow!

Hi Michael:

I was just thinking about what you said about doing wedding shoots. Obviously, it's more fun to do weddings than to do funerals. However, I would argue that the pictures from a funeral may have a far more important function than those from a wedding. If one's life is like a book, then a wedding is just one page of many more pages and chapters that are to come in one's life....

One's death is the coda or last page of that book - there will be no more life pages forthcoming. That is why it is so important to record the funeral. That is why it is also a time of high emotions, and why pictures can have such a profound effect on loved ones. The pictures therefore serve a much more important function than to just preserve a memory.

How do I know? Well, they say one picture is worth 10,000 words, so just have a look at this picture I am sending you. It was taken when we were at the temple this morning performing the last rites, and I was showing the monk and the family your slide show. Look at the faces and see what impact your photos are having on the people behind the faces. And to think that most of the people in the picture have already seen the slide show the day before! There is no doubt in my mind that you performed a function way more important than just being a photographer that day. Thanks again, Michael.

Regards,
Dr. Barry Fung

Hotel Valencia and Maggiano's Little Italy Wedding MTV Slideshow

Almost three days have passed since their two-days wedding at Hotel Valencia and Maggiano's Little Italy in Santana Row of San Jose.

Roya and Todd have not left my mind. They are now honeymooning in Waikiki, possibly splashing in Hanauma Bay. All our photographers have already sorted through 2290 images to come up with a slideshow for them when they return!

- Michael Soo