When we decided to renovate the studio, we wanted to create a cozy, inviting space with lots of natural light and elegant furnishings. But we weren’t just thinking about the inside environment; we wanted to do something good for the outside environment, too.

That’s why on top of all the other renovations we made to our studio—literally—are 28 SunPower solar panels. They are the most efficient panels in the business, and will help us save money and cut way down on greenhouse gas emissions.

I don’t want to bore you with too many numbers, but this is pretty impressive: the panels will offset our power costs by $300 a month. Over the next twenty-five years, we’ll save a whopping $92,000.

But the environmental benefits are even more amazing. By installing those 28 solar panels, we’re saving the equivalent of driving a car 354,000 miles. We’re saving the amount of CO² produced by 3,400 trees. Imagine if a family that never recycled anything started recycling all their cans and bottles and paper. Twenty-five years later, they have saved 98,400 pounds of solid waste from ending up in landfills. That’s the equivalent of how much energy we’re saving!

With all the lights and equipment we need to use, photography shoots can suck up a lot of energy. But we believe creating a beautiful photograph shouldn’t come at the expense of the natural environment. The new solar panels help us give back to the planet while bringing our power bill down—a real win-win!

We decided to go with SunPower because they have been around for over 25 years and offer the most efficient solar panels on the planet. They’re so efficient that they even generate power on cloudy days! The panels sit low over the roof, and their sleek design makes them barely noticeable. We don’t have to put in any extra effort at all. And whenever I want to see something that will make me smile, I can just pull up the SunPower app on my iPad to see how much energy we’re saving.

Come visit our newly renovated studio to see all the improvements we’ve made, inside and out!

As we say goodbye to 2011, we also say goodbye to the headache of renovating our photography
studio. We spent 3 months dealing with the fine white dust from the drywall, the teeth-shattering jackhammering, and the noise from dawn till dusk. Renovation is super stressful, especially if, like me, you’re someone who is meticulous about the tiniest details: light, color, the shape of the tiles, design, ambiance, and on and on.

But the good news is that our studio renovation is finally complete! Champagne all around, please! Happy New Year!!!

We decided to go through the remodeling process because we wanted to be able use the studio as an elegant backdrop in photos. Renovation of this proportion usually takes 6 months, but we
completed a majority of it in just under 3 months because we are utilizing the space as a studio and can’t have such a long downtime. We had to be extremely creative in making the renovations in sections.

We did all the interior design ourselves, and we’re so please with how it turned out! The studio used to be really dark, but now light pours in from skylights and windows. Glass doors open onto the yard, creating a flow between indoor/outdoor living space.

We created more light by adding 7 new skylights, and a bunch of new windows. We also installed at least 60+ new light fixtures into the studio, most of which are LED (energy efficient and non-toxic).

The interior has a wedding theme with a glamorous, contemporary, warm and extremely sexy feel. The furniture is modern and cozy, the perfect place for couples who are getting married to get comfortable, have some wine and cheese, and chat with us about their plans.

The fireplace is elongated, see-through and set into beautifully curved tiles, bordered by wood. The other side has a large black granite surround, sitting on a sensual red wall. The see-through fireplace is fun because it’s essentially 2 fireplaces in one.

The salon also received a facelift with new light fixtures, glass French doors and new flooring.

With its beautiful lighting, flowing design, comfortable furnishings and elegant touches throughout the space, visitors tell us the new studio has the feel of a high-end lounge.

We are very blessed to be one of Yelp’s highest ranked photographer in the bay area. Yup, with approx. 50 FIVE STARS reviews, we feel loved. However, today came an email stating that we now have a negative FAT ONE STAR review in Yelp! A one-star what?!!

We’re breaking the mold ! Making history and causing chaos in the industry. People officially now hate us on Yelp!

- Michael Soo
Sad Photographer of the Year

The past two months has been nothing but a truly humbling experience for us. We have been blogged, reviewed, voted and published. Here are some of our recent delightful encounters that made us blush to no end…

• As of today, we’ve been voted to TOP THREE of the BEST Wedding Photographer in the entire San Francisco Bay Area by San Francisco Chronicle. Help us Capture The Love become #1 !!!

• Queensberry saw our work and they love what they saw!

• Profoto, a high end international professional lighting company interviewed and blogged about us

• James Robinson, a fellow photographer found us via the Profoto Blog and went ahead to interview us

• Our work was published by both Gizmodo AND Engadget at the same time!

• We got into the front cover and numerous pages of the highly successful Nesting Newbies magazine!

• We’ve taught in several highly successful workshops in Santana Row and were requested by Smugmug to be the South Bay’s Smug Leader, proceed to give talks and organize activities for hundreds of local photographers!

We feel really blessed and we’re definitely counting our blessings and appreciate all the support and love we have gotten over the years from everyone!

(Click above to read the blog, retweet and comment)

So we are truly blessed to be blogged by Profoto. They are possibly the highest end and one of the largest lighting company for commercial and advertising photographers around the world. Their reach is quite phenomenal. We were working in Intel Developer’s Forum in Shanghai, trying to rent light for an on-stage demonstration to 10,000-20,000 attendees. We searched high and low in the metropolitan city for dependable lighting packs. The only ones that we are the Profotos.

We used to use monoblocks; however, our work on fashion, product, commercial and advertising means that the light source’s color rendition needs to be highly accurate. You really don’t want your blue dress to look magenta, do you?

Good Lighting is….definitely Priceless!

Remember the slashdot days, where a website gets completely overwhelmed when it was linked from slashdot.org. That’s where the term Slashdot Effect comes from.

This happened to our website today. Fortunately, there was no direct links to speak of. However, people still have a way of finding us via the photographs we took. Is it our style? They were, taken from the colorful shoot we did, just last week! Well, all the images from that shoot has been used in both highly publicized site, i.e. Gizmodo AND Engadget, on the same day!!!

Check out the articles itself by clicking the articles below in the Gizmodo site,

and the Engadget site,

How exciting can it be to be a product photographer, shooting say, 100 pair of shoes on a light table all day. Ok, if you have an assistant, you get to say, “Next!”. Otherwise, you’re fumbling opening boxes, taking a new pair of shoes out, propping it, stick them in a pose, take some shots, change the angles, adjust the lights, photograph some more, wrap the shoes back, stack the boxes properly, then repeat….times one hundred. Ugh! The thought of that makes me cringe!

What about photographing batteries?!? *groan* What could be worse?!

Well, what has batteries and fashion, colors, beauty have in common? Leave it to the owner of HyperMac to seed that idea, a mere 2 weeks ago. Did I go, “that sounds silly!”? No, we flew a rocket with it!!

(click on images to enlarge)

Too bad we only had one day. The idea _will_ continue with the next shoot, I guarantee it!! These were done using the Profoto D4 power pack, 5-6 light heads and the Canon 1Ds Mark III camera.

About photography lighting… my next class, Lighting for Photographers is on March 21st, 2010 and will be held in Maggiano’s in Santana Row. Both our classes, in the last 2 weeks, “Photography Made Simple” and “Model Photography Workshop” were filled to the brim. We expect this one will be as well. So, do sign up before it is filled up. Early bird (before Feb 15th) pays $20 less.

What a super fun weekend!! Over 100+ photographers attended our Photography Made Simple workshop in Maggiano’s Little Italy in Santana Row, San Jose.

Everyone loved the breakfast and lunch!

We got some great comments and emails from the attendees. Here are some great ones,

1. “Michael, the workshop exceeded my expectations. In addition to being very informative, it was also most enjoyable. From the first minute to the very end I was captivated. Thank you” – Trevor Ngo
2. “I especially liked Michael’s philosophy that to make pictures stand out, they have to be taken from the heart, and it shows in his work”…read more – Michelle Ma
3. “It was like 10 years of professional skills of composition, lighting, creative view, crop, portrait demo, to some photoshop retouching techniques packed into an injection. Voila!” …read more… – Dee Lee
4. “I want to give a huge recommendation for Michael’s photography workshops. I took Michael’s portrait and lighting workshop a few weeks ago and it was great! Whether you are just starting out or are an experienced photographer, there is much to be learned from him…”read more… – John Harrison

Here’s a shot of the back of my head, facing my class in Maggiano’s Little Italy, Santana Row, San Jose.

Now, doesn’t it reminds you of this product?

I’ve been really privileged to photograph NFL and NBA Cheerleaders for their swimsuit calendars for the past few years and have always look forward to the assignment. These sessions have produced gorgeous individual portraits and calendar shots. And I’ve had a fabulous time. The cheerleaders are just as nice as they are great-looking, and the energy, from start to finish, is totally positive and fun.

Maybe it was that energy that attracted the attention of MAXIM, the international men’s magazine. I was delighted to learn that 20 of my portraits of the Buccaneers cheerleaders recently appeared on its website. This is huge for a couple of reasons. First of all, Maxim usually features only 1-2 images from a photographer. And second, the Maxim website has content that never appears in the magazine. Because of that, it’s become very popular with masculine viewers around the globe.

In this positive spirit, I want to offer a few tips from my experience in photographing women. These tips work, whether you aspire to appear in a magazine or just want to have a great picture of yourself taken. Here goes:

Tip #1 – Unless you haunt the gym and have amazing abs, never face the camera head on. Always angle your body slightly away. You’ll appear slimmer and more buffed.

Tip #2 – Turn your face toward the main source of light, which could be the sun, a lamp, or a bright wall. That will throw some of your face into shadow, which is not a bad thing. This brings me to tip #3.

Tip #3 – Show off your strengths and minimize your weaker points. For example, if you think your face is too large, use the shadow created by the light source to make it seem smaller. You can also use your hair to hide parts of your face. Or, if you have beautiful hands, use them to cover areas you don’t want to emphasize. The possibilities are endless.

Tip #4 – Chin up! Yep, your mom was right. Lifting your chin just a bit will give you an automatic face lift and help you look self-confident and happy! Very appealing.

Tip #5 – Forget the camera. It’s not there. Yeah, right, that’s really good advice… The camera and the photographer ARE there, which is why you’re there. So here’s a trick to help you feel and look more natural and relaxed: Use your thoughts to create an environment that you love, like the beach or the mountains, and “go” there. You did that time and time again when you were a kid, and your imagination can serve you just as well now.

- Michael Soo

Behind the scenes footage of the NBA Warrior Girls’ swimsuit calendar shoot. Photographed in Napa Valley’s own The Meritage Resort. If you have not seen the Trinitas Wine Tasting Cellar of Napa, you have to check it out, it’s a cave, a wine tasting bar, a cellar, a spa and a huge traditional banquet hall, all in one.

(View in HD)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr9H-knq6YI]

Some shots from the calendar: