Cali | Jeff Wong

Street Photography in SF

September 24, 2016 / Cali, Me, Photo

Homeless man with a sign that reads, “I need $24 for bus so I can make family court hearing on time and not lose my parental rights to my daughters”.

On my way back to the Apple store, I snapped a couple of pics. this is my attempt at some street photography in San Francisco. I need to read up more about street photographyâ€”it seems that SF could provide an incredible canvas to explore.

Photographer taking candid portraits of strangers walking by.

Photographer taking a picture of a woman and offering to show her his work.

This is probably some famous street photographer… or he could be a creepy old man taking pictures of random peopleâ€”I’ll let you decide. He snapped a picture of an asian woman walking by and offered to show the photo to her.

Oh yeh, he’s using a pretty serious telephoto lens. I’m going to take a wild guess and say he’s using a Canon 200mm F2. That lens retails for $5,699 on B&H.

The sun setting between the streets of San Fancisco.

Man preaching religion and his faith in the busiest part of Mission St.

Everyone here has some sort of story. One of my buddies (Aram Taghavi) recommended to check out Humans of New York. This photographer captures candid stories told by individuals living in New York. It could be a good inspiration point for some of the stuff I’m working on now.

A Short Stroll Through Shoreline Park, Mountain View

September 22, 2016 / Cali, Me, Photo

Joe and Rudy posing next to the water reservoirs at Shoreline Park.

After our visit to the Computer History Museum, we grabbed some lunch and then did a quick hike over at Shoreline Park. I didn’t realize all of this was so near. The scenery was gorgeous, and it was nice to get a little sunshine and talk about tech.

A view of the lake with the mountains in the background.

A restaurant/bar next to the dock on the left.

The city of Mountain View bought the site in 1968 to build a recreational facility, but the cost of importing earth to raise it by 20 feet in order to prevent flooding was too high, so it was instead operated as a landfill accepting garbage from San Francisco. Shoreline Park opened in 1983, with some initial problems from methane fires. –Wikipedia

Rudy and Joe enjoying the view, with a slight breeze against their backs

Rudy mentioned about the landfill underneath the landscaping… and yes, there was a distinct hit of “fart” smell all around us. Other than that, it’s a lovely place.

After our short hike, Joe shares ideas about the future while sipping on his drink in the shade.

I’ll probably be out here again. Days like this make me wish I had a car or motorcycle so I could explore a little more.

AWS Pop-up Loft

September 21, 2016 / Cali, Me, Photo

Apparently, there’s a free workspace in the middle of San Francisco, provided by Amazon. Here’s some more information about the AWS Pop-up Loft.

It’s a pretty cool looking space, but there’s a weird vibe to it. It’s just way too quiet. Yes, that’s a foosball table, but it’s garbage.

Yes, it’s a free work space, but I think I’m happier just chilling in a coffee shop.

After our visit to MOMA, we walked around and then ended up working out of Phil instead.

We toured through the seedier part of town, but it was well worth it.

Lots of great ideas emerged yesterday afternoon. We should definitely do this more often.

Lunch With Dennis

September 21, 2016 / Cali, Food, Me

After MOMA, we grabbed lunch with Dennis Yang (a friend of Rudy’s). He’s been working on a couple different projects over the last year and a half, and it sounds like his team found traction with their latest project. ^_^

He recently had a brainstorm session with his team as well. He shared his greatest insight with usâ€”he realized that he was most passionate about new spaces/technology/industries. He weighted towards undefined stuff like chat bots, deep learning, etc.

Dennis, thanks for giving us some advice. We’re going to keep at it. ^_^

By the way, did I mention that today was absolutely beautiful? There was some sort of Oracle event happening today too. They pretty much took over two city blocks of SF.

Ps. I’ll try to find the name of the restaurant we went to. That sandwich was pretty damn tasty.