I just returned from 2 weeks in San Francisco. I am growing to love this city. I used to visit when I was in the US Coast Guard and stationed about 40 miles north of the city in Petaluma for training for a year. I was not making very much money then so it was a very expensive city to try to appreciate on a very limited budget.

I bumped into a funny street side band that were serenading people eating in their Italian restaurant...

...this time it was the San Francisco PD.

I was out shooting with my friend Kevin and we were mesmerized with this alley. I think I shoot about 25 photographs of this alley figuring out focus area and the right mix of settings to get the balance of light I wanted and was seeing. I thought this was a perfect blend of lighting conditions. I am really trying to spend more time focusing on light as I really impacts your images.

Jet lagged and a bit red faced after a few beers with dinner...I found staying up when you first arrive in a city helps you to overcome the jetlag very quickly. Sadly it didn't work this time. I went to bed at 11PM and was wide awake by 1AM...

I had a bit of free time on Saturday and headed over to mission to check out the street art.

Taking a graffiti break...

I found the neatest photo store....Photobooth. They had a very cool selection of cameras.

Photographer Michael Shindler...

They have some really fun staff as well...

When I walked in this girl ran up to me and said 'Is that a Leica?!'. I said 'It is...do you like Leica?' to which she replied 'My dog is named Leica!'...I get that question a lot but that is by far the best response I have gotten.

I chatted with this woman for a while. She does animation at Pixar. A very cool job...

They were doing TinType photos so I though I would give one a try...

My Tintype from Photobooth...!

I saw this and it made me think of my mom. She used to drive a 1964 1/2 green convertible. This car is beautiful. Perfectly restored...

I stopped for a while and watched this kids doing tricks on their bikes... ah to be completely fearless again. I just kept thinking things like 'if you broke your finger how would you type?". Clearly we have different priorities.

Then I saw this amazing young man - Gabriel Angelo 'MasterBlaster G'... This kid was rocking out on the sidewalk. I spent a while watching him and photographing him. He is only 13 years old and plays to raise money for his music school.

The main reason I was in San Francisco was to attend my companies conference Dreamforce. It is the largest vendor held IT conference with 96,000 attendees this year. It was amazing. If you are in Business, IT or want to see how technology is changing the world we live in watch the Keynotes. It is amazing...Forbes wrote a glowing article about the event today.

The opening day was kicked off by MC Hammer! It was awesome....

The opening day was kicked off by Salesforce.com's CEO Marc Benioff. For Dreamforce he brought together some of the world's business leaders to speak about business, technology and transformation. Just to name a few Chairman of GE Jeff Immelt, Sir Richard Branson, General Colin Powell, CEO of Burberry Angela Ahrendts, Tony Robbins, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It was great to hear General Colin Powell speak...

One night there was an after party held inside City Hall DJ'd by Will.I.AM from the Black Eyed Peas...

...and MC Hammer!

The last day was Tony Robbins Day. I am a complete Tony Robbins convert after listening to him. What he says makes so much sense. I imagine I will be buying all of his books. He was truly great!

He had the entire room of 90,000+ people jumping up and down...

The biggest surprise of the day was when I saw the young trumpet player Gabriel sitting next to Marc Benioff. Apparently he tried to get into Dreamforce but was rejected because he was only 13. He didn't think that was fair and emailed Marc. Marc didn't think it was fair either and told Gabriel he could attend with him. You can watch his performance on his Facebook Page and hear the story.

After a very long week I decided not to do my photowalk at Google and will hold it on my next trip. I ended up catching up with some colleagues for drinks on Friday. I was taking some photographs for a charity project I am working on and as this guy put his glasses back on I saw a great shot! More on my charity project in an upcoming post.