A few years two back, we photographed a huge group of Whole Foods Market employees in their Cupertino branch at Stevens Creek Blvd. Boy, it was a challenge especially the shot was backlighted and we had to raise to 5 stories high to take that shot for over 350 employees! The good part is that since the store was not opened to the public yet, we can photograph outside the store without having to disrupt the flow of business.

However, this year is different. Whole Foods Market raised the stakes on me on multiple fronts! Switching out hundreds of employees during business hours require significant coordination and they can only do it in the late evening.

Not only do we have to content with horrible light, we had to work in the the loading dock. This time, a rickety ladder became my only source of support that I hold on to my dear life. Beneath me, a large garbage container filled with organic fish, meat, vegetable and eggs, ready to sniff my non-organic diet. Yes, it probably wouldn’t surprise you that I have only 15 minutes. You really don’t want to photograph a large group in more than 5 minutes anyway as people do get restless. And you’d think a photographer’s work is glamourous.

Now, did you think we are done? Would corporate want a photo of their employees in a loading dock? Here’s the final shot after hours and hours of photoshop, removing the rails at the bottom and the background. Groan, I hate fingers…

So exhilarating is the experience of getting to know two people in love. We felt very blessed photographing Jed & Becca’s engagement session in San Francisco and San Jose. The photos are possibly one of our best so far. We strive for unique photos every time and it makes us super delighted.

Oh, about the best shot, here it is. Thoughts?

And here are the others shot in San Jose’s HIstorical Park, beach, Palace of Fine Art, etc. So MUCH fun! At the end of it all, Jed, Becca and I had a blast. They also decided that they also wanted us to be their wedding videographer. It’ll be fun doing photography and videography / cinematography in the Stanford Memorial Church in Palo Alto and the San Mateo County History Museum. Can’t wait!!!

Mark practices his first dance with his groomsmen in the Four Seasons Hotel of Palo Alto / Silicon Valley while Janet practices her walk up the stairs in the prestigious Stanford Memorial Church in Palo Alto. Their beautiful first dance in the Palo Alto Golf Club is a small part to what makes this wedding so elegant.

The wedding photos in the Four Seasons, Stanford Memorial Church and Palo Alto Golf Club are a real match to Mark & Janet’s style.

We chose a cinematic musical piece with Scottish intonation and blend to showcase Mark and his cool British accent (when they are entering the church). Check out their cinema!

What I found endearing is how Mark holds Janet’s Victoria Secret’s bag proudly as he exits the ceremony with her into their Rolls Royce.

“The Untouchables”, “Air Jordan”, “The Rush Street”, “The Sears Tower” are all names of pizzas at Pizza Chicago. Restaurant locations are in Palo Alto, San Jose and Santa Clara. These pizzas have a few thing in common. Beyond fresh ingredients, their meat (sausage, for example) are the size of small apricots, tender and delicious. The pizza served here are deep dish. The dough rises to a beautiful golden brown.

They serve 16 variety of pizzas. We photographed only 11 of their pizzas and 7 other dishes, total of 18, all in under 2 full days. For a normal shoot, this may take all the way up to 3 days. Most restaurant owners are astounded by how long food photography and styling takes until they experience the process. In extreme cases such as the BigMac^TM by McDonald’s, would take one full day to photograph that single image.

Why does it take hours or days to photograph food? Isn’t it just clicking the shutter? Some reasons aren’t just the photography itself but a team, working together to create the perfect images to represent your company, as much as a perfect logo to showcase what you believe in.

1. Composition of the photograph. Knowing where the image will end up, allow us to compose the shots to the final composition. If you look at this shot, the area where they want the photo is extremely horizontal. Where most photos are 4×6″, this is a 4×14″ !!! Without compositing for this shot, the image will not fit at all in the space allocated. A close working relationship with the graphic designer is necessary.
   
   Notice how we leave space on the right for the bottom of a coke glass and allow the “Order Online” promotion to seep into the image without disrupting the image of the pizza. Pizza Chicago’s new website (like what you see in the image below) should be online soon.

(Click image to Enlarge)


2. Marketing direction determines the lighting, props and the environment on how the product should be photographed under. We used the pans used by the restaurant, creating a rustic and homey look, and we photographed the pizzas on the same table that their customers will see in the restaurant instead of a white background or a beautiful wood table, like what we did for Sam’s BarBeQue in San Jose.
   
   Since these are deep-dish pizzas, we have to showcase how thick the pans and hence, how thick the pizzas are. Only by going lower on the shot can we achieve that.
3. Photographed food sells better. Go to a restaurant and open up a restaurant menu. Nine times out of ten, you’ll point to a photo (if there is one) of a dish that looks delicious and say, “I want that”.
   Understanding this point allows the owner to either select the dishes that they want to sell more or the food item that are more colorful and attractive.



4. Lighting. The make-it or break-it to a food photograph. Mediocre lighting technique makes the food photos look like it was photograph for facebook and yelp. It makes the food and restaurant look cheap and that they can’t afford a food photographer. Check out the salad below, the greens, rings of onions and tomatoes screams freshness and glows in the light. There is a definite wow factor that makes you want to eat the menu photos! Setting up each shot and moving lights around for the next shot can take some time to gobo, flag, reflect, etc.
5. Food Stylist Since we’ve worked closely with numerous food stylists, we have a great idea of how to coordinate the dishes coming out of the kitchen, styling, photographing, review process. Everything becomes smooth and the owner learns a great deal on how to present their food after the shoot. In this case, Juan of Pizza Chicago decided he now wants all their Cookieza (A buttery chocolate chip cookie baked when ordered, topped with a Haagen-Daz vanilla ice-cream & drizzled with caramel sauce) to now come with a cute mint behind the ice-cream.
   
   Depending on how crucial the image is, we can spend hours arranging each sesame on a bun to ensure the perfect look to the image. Understanding composition and art appreciation goes a long way here. Beyond the rules on “hero” food item, separation, etc., there are many other things that comes into play, such as market trends, colors, etc.



6. Review and approval of images – With new technology, we can now wirelessly photograph the food and then immediately upon clicking the shutter, see the photographs. However, this also means that the lighting for the photographs need to be spectacular that they come out fantastic, straight out of the camera. These images in this blog are nearly all straight out of camera, what the owner saw during the shoot itself. Without this process, it’s going to be a shoot in the dark. Why would you pay someone money to photograph your food when you don’t even know if the image will turn out well.

Investment in time and money on better food photographs yields a high ROI (Return On Investment). Images that you get from a food photographer will pay itself back, years and years after the initial investment. These images ends up on the menu, website, reviews sites, brochures, banners, tradeshow booths, coupons, etc.

Staying ahead of the curve with marketing and smart investments will allow a restaurant or a food company to be extremely successful.

I always thought I’m getting a little old. But standing next to possibly the oldest person in Canada, Mrs Fung, a good 112 years old, I felt like a baby, still in diapers. Born in 1899, Mrs Fung lived in 3 centuries. These family portraits that we photographed in Los Altos, California during Mrs Fung’s visit are now all over the web. They were first published by The Vancouver Sun. As for photographing a legacy of a beautiful family, multiple generations of amazing people, I only have Dr Barry Fung and his lovely wife, Dr Lien Nguyen to thank.

Trader Vic’s is a wonderful Polynesian-themed restaurant that has locations worldwide. The founder of the chain, Victor Bergeron Jr, is reputed to have invented the notorious Mai Tai around the time of World War II (yes, this restaurant chain has been around a LONG time).

As you’ll see from this collection of photographs, what the restaurant needed from me, a food photographer, was pictorial representation of a number of its menu items for use at international locations to standardize the look of their food. And with restaurants in locations ranging from Palo Alto to Los Angeles to Atlanta to Abu Dhabi to Beirut to Berlin to Tokyo…and the list goes on, you can see how the customary local cuisine presentations might vary and would benefit from these photos!

(Click on an image, then use your RIGHT and LEFT arrow keys to go through all of them)

As we all know, kids and animals are the traditional bugaboos for photographers. At Trader Vic’s in Palo Alto, I discovered a third problem model: the lowly sterno. As I mentally prepared my blog before this shoot, the titles “Mai Tai, Oh, My” or “Oh, My, Mai Tai” were rolling around in my head. However, this next picture—which took nearly FOUR HOURS to shoot—changed all that.

This photograph contains many elements that are typically a challenge to get right. Reflective containers dare not reflect the camera gear, for one. The beverage ice cubes in the Mai Tai at the front had to be frozen and the mint had to look refreshing to the eye. Minutiae required attention…burning faux grill marks on the skewers, for example. Food stylist, Randy Mon and I had our hands and eyes full indeed.

But I’ll cut to the chase. The dancing flame over the little silver kettle took the most time of all, and it became a head game between us and the can of sterno. Everything would be set: lighting, ice cubes, Blue Hawaiian, skewers…and the sterno would die down. Reset. Sterno wouldn’t flame well. Reset.

I think you get the idea. It was either the sterno, or us. And a picture tells a thousand words. Michael+team: 1; Sterno: 0!!

— Michael Soo

The picture I shot for La Baguette finally showed up as a huge 10 feet x 5 feet billboard in the walkway of Stanford Shopping Center.

I was taking picture of this billboard when the Stanford security started questioning my intentions of taking the secret layout of the shopping center. They were then on their radio for a while looking really serious. I think they called Homeland Security or the Director in Pentagon to check my name against their list of top 100 most dangerous terrorists.

I don’t think it’ll ever get old to see my work in magazines and on the walls of a super high end shopping center.

- MS

“I am booked on 8/18 with a Bat Mitzvah”, I told Yi Ching, the bride.

“I can’t shoot your wedding,” I continued.

But she insisted on having me, even for a mere few hours of the ceremony.

Yi Ching already had an engagement shoot back in Taiwan but after seeing my work in Cypress Hotel, Cupertino, I think we were just meant to work together. It was fate, what’s meant to be! She is an artistic graphics designer and she seemed to know what she wanted. What the bride says, what the bride gets.

The only issue is that I needed an assistant badly because most churches has severe restrictions on photography and boy, was I right. Patty, the director of First Methodist Church in Palo Alto listed the things I can’t do. I was not allowed anywhere nearer to the bride & groom when the ceremony starts. I was, however, allowed another photographer behind the choir benches. He/she, must not even flinch during the ceremony. No flashes either. The list goes on.

Yi Ching got the wedding dress from Taiwan. Very unique and different. Lots of sparklies that got me interested to take a closeup. She was having a sweet conversation about the ceremony with her mom when I shot this.