Wedding Cake Photography

It was shot two weeks ago for a bakery in Burlingame that sells wedding cakes. I figure I'll proudly post this image that represents warmth, texture, sweetness and class. It's definitely a beautiful cake.

A Victory at Trader Vic's

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

Wedding Cake Photography, the natural way

Making food photography look better than before using natural AND artificial lighting!

I hope you didn't blink. This is the last shot of the day where the baker made an amazingly beautiful wedding cake in less than 2 hours!!!

We were using the stone background when the setting sun started shining it's warm golden light onto the wall (top right), casting the shadow of the structure 50 feet above. It lasted mere minutes.

I whipped out my 35mm lens to include more background in the shot, change the 5 lights setup in 2 minutes (if you've done wedding or engagement photography, that'll improve your reflexes and thinking speed. Anything "wedding" has to be done in lightning speed, both physically and mentally.

The lighting on the cake itself was controlled to show the depth of a white cake that still has texture within itself.

The light behind the cake was carefully metered to be subtle and to accent the background, lighting what was supposed to be dark. Its dual purpose is to light up the "La" in "La Baguette" as well. Now, it glows a halo around the cake. Nice! Just what I needed. Within 2 minutes, all the lights were setup to show the white cake on white tablecloth nicely while the composition is surrounded by darker shadows (except the La Baguette paint). Perfect.

I took 4-5 shots and the light that hit the wall was there no more.

Could I recreate it? Of course!

How much would it cost me to recreate a cookied shot like that using the best equipment?
$10,000. (A high end Fresnel light + powerpack + a nice tall lightstand + a cookie board)

Uh, any cheaper way?
$3000. (A fresnel light modifier, the light of course, a tall light stand and a cardboard)

Still expensive?
$300. (Two really tall light stand, a cardboard and a light source but you need to do it at night.

How much would it cost to do it with nature's help?
Priceless!

- MS

Food Photography & Styling Step by Step

During my food photography session at La Baguette, Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, I decided that I might want to blog part of the process (the initial 3 of the 9 hours, at least).

This is also a proud first debut of my spanking new Profoto D4 battery pack that I just got. The alpha wolf of power packs, this baby could channel the power of a whole city for your most challenging photography needs.

9:00am : Arrived at the bakery, found Food Stylist Randy Mon, scurrying away to his wagon with a large loading cart. Went to help him unload so that he could park. Carted his stuff to the bakery. Randy got the better end of the deal as I had to cart all my photo gear by myself. Next time, I'll be sure to swap out some of his pretty wares while carting his pretty props.

9:20am : La Baguette is located smack in the center courtyard, directly across Tiffany & Co.. So, they had to ensure that the mall management is aware of the shoot. We setup right outside the store. This shoot is somewhat different since I am not doing it in the studio. So, Randy surrounded our working area with tables.

It was fun working outside too as curious passerby gets interested and stop and lengthen the already long line that is forming outside the bakery throughout the entire day!! Business is really good. I told Scott the owner, photoshooting outside is always a great publicity.

10:00am : Since we had to shoot in the open, the sun sprinkling its beams unto the set make lighting the set quite challenging. I had to shade the entire set with a scrim. However, throughout the shoot, I get to harness the ambient light to fill the shadows instead of using some stupid white cards. I had to be extremely precise with my metering as the day changes and light, along with it.

The tables and backgrounds are somewhat put together and the shoot begins. I used between 2 to 5 lights on most of the images. My proudest shot of the day incorporated the sunlight into the image. I'll explain later.

**Be aware that these sequence shots are straight out of the camera with zero touch up. These shots are meant to be documentary in nature.**


10:30am : Here's the first run through as Randy threw the french bread, baguette, loaves of bread (the brioche loaf smells fantastic) together. He thought we might want to use an earthy dark green cloth as the background. So, I took my first shot. We didn't like the background and decided to use a darker theme.


A tanned background is brought in. I casted a touch of light unto it to make it look like a dark tanned background.

I noticed that some accent light is needed on the right side of the brioche loaf. I'm also looking to cheer up the overall ambient of the image by bringing the overall lighting up.

Randy decided to move some of the props around for a better look, maybe add a loaf behind that is out of focus.

I will also need to swap out my short lens for a longer reach around 135mm to create a nice depth that has less background in it.


The out of focused loaf looks too big (ok, partly the fault of a longer lens. And it's not out of focus enough and lie right behind the brioche. Not very attractive.

Also, I informed the stylist that the cloth in the left basket was sticking out wierd.


"How does this look?", the stylist asked me while holding the out of focus loaf further behind the table while I stared through the viewfinder. We struggled to find a position for it to rest on and finalize on a spot that we cleverly constructed on the fly. ;)

The image is coming together very nicely so far. There just needs to be something in the foreground to create a beautiful depth. Something bready...


Not bad but the white sesame created a wierd out of focus texture that we didn't like the look of when we were looking at the computer monitor. It's also too bright, detracting attention from the hero, which is the french bread in front.

Randy agreed and swapped it out with three raisin breads. Much better.


Stylist then noticed that the direction of the knife is pointing parallel to the french bread. Something bad that I missed. Well, actually, I wasn't even aware that causes bad composition. But now that he brought it up...he was quite right.


The knife was rotated but the tip was showing. I protested right away. It look "scary", not in the horror movie sense but you don't want any form of scary in a food image. So, we moved the tip away, right away. Can you say that really fast, three times?


11:15am : I think we are nearly there. This is one of the last shot we took for this set before we tore it down for the next image.

Post processing had to be considered too since I had to clone out the handle of the basket, working out the best crop, tuning the colors, etc. But as you can see, a lot of these tedioius work can be made simplier when the lighting is setup well, a professional food stylist present, some art direction, patience and fun while doing it.

This may appear like a simple process but the entire process I explained above took 2-3 hours.

As you can imagine, this is a pretty tedious process and some clients may not be aware of how much time this takes. I suppose you can shoot 30 dishes in a day (been there, done that) but it is pretty much just "documenting food", not photographing it. The amount of time you take to perfect a shot is a true representation of "Quality vs Quantity".

In my next blog, I'll show an image from this same shoot, incorporating and utilizing light from the setting sun into the shot. So, don't blink, cuz we have some bling bling coming right up!

- MS

Swirl Culture (aka Honeydoo) Frozen Yogurt

Food Photography for Swirl Culture, frozen yogurt. Yum!

I never ever really had a thing for Fro-Yo. The occassional time when I had yogurt was when I bring my wonderful little Ethan to Sweet Tomato or once in a blue moon, TCBY. Granted, these are not top of the line yogurt out there (I assume). But you gotto give me credit for even trying. I'm more into gelato or ice-cream where the taste is a bit more enticing, mmmph, the smooth, rich vanilla bean ice-cream smothering the palate in a creamy linger. That's what I'm talking about.

Christopher of the new Swirl Culture changed it all, this past weekend during my food photoshoot with them. Their grand opening is on June 29, 2008 at Northbeach, between Grant and Green, in San Francisco.

One of the greatest perks of food photography. I get to sample their yogurt all day. ;) I did not expect yogurt to produce the tanginess that lingered. Being yogurt, it's guilt-free. What a bonus! One more place to add into my repetoire of places to go in San Francisco and with the imagery that I captured I'm certain that it will help them expand throughout the bay. Why stop there? Go nationwide! ;-)

This photoshoot was one of the more challenging one, especially when it comes to lighting white yogurt on a white background, a la white-on-white. Lighting knowledge plays a HUGE role in capturing the texture of the white yogurt, on white bowl sitting on a white background. Katie Christ and her assistant were the food stylist that day and they definitely rocked it.

- Michael Soo

Photographing the oh, so pretty Japanese sushi

寿司, or sushi has evolved from a traditional food base for the japanese to now an artistic dining experience. In its earliest form, dried or pickled fish was placed between two pieces of vinegared rice acting as preservative. The nori (seaweed) was added later as a way to keep one's fingers from getting sticky.

Photographing a creative and beautifully styled food such as sushi is a great experience by itself. Since most sushi are colorful to begin with and each piece is an art form, sitting them on a clean white plate opens the imagery to its simplest form of art.

I was in the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo at 6am one morning while the fishes were being hauled into the pier. There are many little drop-in sushi bars that one can just sit in while pieces of sashimi or sushi are being sliced and served. Toro (fatty tuna), the filet mignon of sushi, was what I ordered all morning. The thin slices of ginger cleansed my palate while I sipped hot green tea and dipped slices of toro into soy sauce and wasabi. It was heaven on earth.

Takara Japanese Restaurant that I shot for serves these wonderful pieces of fishes in bulk. What amazes me is that despite its heavy operation in a huge 8,000 sq feet location, they were incredibly organized. They were able to maintain a fresh load of fishes every day. On top of that, their staves are highly trained and thus their service, impeccable. They encourage the creativity of their chefs by creating new dishes every Friday. These dishes go through a battery of palate tasting and tests. The winners can end up in the ever changing menu. The losers may never see the light of day.

Their Nutty Shrimp, for example seems to have withstood the test of time. They serve 2,000 of them each day. THAT is a lot of roll. The Sunrise/Wasabi Sunrise dish on the right, is a testament to the artistry of sushi in the new generation that combine food and art.

Takara Japanese Restaurant
3775 Capitola Road (Next to Capitola Mall)
Capitola, CA 95010
(831) 464-1818

- Michael Soo

Food Photography for Birk's Restaurant

Shooting meat seems to have its good set of challenges in today's health conscious world. How do you shoot a rib eye, which is supposed to have fatty portions to entice the viewer without overdoing it, tipping a balance between alluringly delicious, and health.

One of the key lies in the positioning of the meat and the position of the light(s). Do not show too much fat smack in front and control the oil content. Using light to not fully expose the oil content (think light position and family of angles) but keep it subtly reflective to show the natural juice of the meat and not oil. That'll entice the viewer AND at the same time, display freshness and tenderness.

Now, dessert, on the other hand is easy as a cheese cake. People ordering desserts wants to be feel defenseless against the smooth decadence of chocolate, submit to their natural aphrodisiac qualities and smooth textures. Melting and swirling in sweet surrender.

Desserts have to look gorgeous, saturated and by the Gods, sexy! Oh yeah baby! To render those qualities, they have to be done in multitude of steps. First of which, is the smooth quality of light. They can't show as harsh of a texture like the entrées. They almost have to be done the same way as when I shoot models in a glamour setting. The smoothness of the light and the settings is extremely crucial here.

See all other images from the Birk's Restaurant.

- MS