Silicon Valley Stock Photography Blog – Page 3 – Stock Photography of Silicon Valley & Beyond

The End of Project Firefly

I’ve had a good time documenting Google’s adorable little self driving pod car. Just having read that Waymo’s prototype was being retired I was reminded of chasing those cars all over parking lots and streets of Silicon Valley from nearly the beginning of the project.

Google Self Driving Car, Mountain View, Silicon Valley

It’s fun to see the progression over the years. The stubby LIDAR in the beginning, then the clear plastic dome, and later a black dome.

Mountain View, Silicon Valley, California, USA - 15 October 2014: Google Self Driving Car Prototype being Driven in Silicon Valley Parking Lot.

In the beginning when I first found the car being (illegally?) tested in a public City of Mountain View parking lot I got some grief from the testers for photographing their vehicle.

Google Self Driving Car, Mountain View, Silicon Valley

Later, as Google moved on to a new building and the prototypes became ubiquitous I could just sit on a park bench near their “garage” and wait for my subjects to come to me.

Autonomous car being tested in Silicon Valley parking lot

While the Chrysler self driving minivans may be more practical, frankly their aesthetically boring! The “pod car” design by YooJung Ahn really stood out as futuristic.

Self Driving Car

I wasn’t too keen on the “artwork” that was placed on the doors a few years back aesthetically speaking.

Self Driving Car

But the most recent “Firefly” with the Waymo logo on it and the lit teal bar on the door struck me as pretty cool.

Around the Googleplex

I’ll miss you firefly!

A Belated May Roundup…..

I’ve been trying to dump all relevant stock photos from a month of stock shootin’ on the web. A while back Godaddy- one of my hosts, changed some settings screwing up my “imagefarm” that I setup a couple years back.

But alas, I finally found the setting and fixed it.

So here’s a Lightroom Web Gallery for last May:

Tesla Testing

Intel Museum

A Bitcoin ATM

Knightscope Robots

Hacker Dojo

Nvidia

That Android Graveyard again

Mercedes-Daimler Silicon Valley Research

GM- Cruise Automation

Legion of Honor

~~Google~~ ~~Alphabet~~ Waymo Chrysler minivan in the wild

Intel’s “Garage” in Silicon Valley

http://imagefarm.siliconvalleystock.com/imagefarm/2017/2017_May_Roundup/index_15.html

Testla in Alameda

I was just minding my own business, or actually just looking for a spot near my house to do some video testing. Stopping at a park on the old Naval Air Station (NAS) I noticed a car out on the old runway.

Normally, there should be no cars out there. This time however I spotted a Tesla stopped conspicuously on the tarmac.

Turns out they were testing something. What exactly I’m not sure. There were two extra sets of tires at the ready. Closer inspection of my photos (taken at quite a long distance with a super-telephoto lens) show a red wire coming from the engine compartment to the passenger side (held on by a bit of black tape- somewhat third world style for such a fancy bit of tech!

Guess Where in Silicon Valley: June

A fountain in a historic park in Silicon Valley- where is it? First correct commenter wins a bag of good will from me.

Municipal Rose Garden, San Jose, Silicon Valley

Android is Broken

Going back in the archives, sometimes I find a photo I especially like. This photo of the Google Android Robot statue was taken back in 2012. Back then the statues were in a spot that was especially bad. They were almost constantly backlit, and constantly muddy ground despite the long drought in California.

Android Robot Statue at the Googleplex roped off with Caution Tape

I’m not sure why the Droid is surrounded by cones and caution tape. Maybe they just did a paint touch up?

In any case a couple years later they moved all the old statues to a new location (I was fortunate enough to have caught while still in preparation) that I refer to as the “Android Graveyard.”

Now the new mascot (presently Nougat) is at the entrance to the main building at the Googleplex. The old one is “buried” at the “Android Graveyard” a block or so away.

The new location for all previous Android Mascot Sculptures under renovation

Tearsheet: CityWire

I’ve been busy doing reverse image searches and here are a few resulting tearsheets. This one is from CityWire by Peter Smith.

CityWire Blog: Advice profession requires robotic regulation

Around the Googleplex — Self Driving Car licensed via Alamy

Tearsheet: The Telegraph – That Self Driving Podcar (again)

Google Self Driving Car, Mountain View, Silicon Valley — Source photo from SiliconValleyStock.com (sold via Alamy)

Tearsheet: The Telegraph – Government backs driverless car trials in London

Spotted one of my photos in London’s The Telegraph newspaper:

Tearsheet from SiliconValleyStock.com Government backs driverless car trials in London

Cruise Automation Autos

After doing some homework, I found GM’s Cruise Automation garage in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood. Two decades ago I worked not too far from the garage at Faulkner Color Lab. I think Faulkner collapsed in the first wave of the Dot Com hysteria of the late 1990’s and was leased to a pet food website.

Cruise Automation Self Driving Car (Chevy Bolt) Spotted on the Streets of San Francisco

In fact it was in this very neighborhood that I first experienced the graphical internet in the mid 1990’s at Icon Byte Bar and Grill. Prior to seeing the new W3 (World Wide Web) on Icon’s projection screen I got email on a command line browser over the phone line with a modem and a program called Pine, downloaded files with Gopher and Telnet. That was a long time ago!

Now SOMA is again at the forefront of technology. Here you can see GM’s Cruise Automation Bolts driving by. As is typical with these garages, they make a point of laying low. At least as best they can when trying to test out a billion dollar car research project in the middle of San Francisco! The garage still has the name of the previous company over the entrance.

As a photographer, I know I’m doing something good when the corporate lawyer walks across the street to talk to you 😉 A gentleman (after later researching I believe to be Matt Gipple,) asked if I minded letting him know what I was photographing. This happens a lot to me, and I really find it strange…. like you are in public, driving a car that is in dozens of news stories every day for a multi-billion dollar company working on a billion dollar project….. why wouldn’t you expect people photographing you???

In any case, here are the photos. I’ll be back to try and get some variety of locations and include the actual garage and any other relevant photos next time.

[Show slideshow]

Animated GIFs of Autonomous Cars

Google did it again!

I went to my photos.google.com page and the assistant made some super-cute animated GIFs from the photos I took of a couple of different self-driving cars.

If you’re interested, take a look:

Waymo Self Driving Chrysler Pacifica on the Streets of Silicon Valley — Waymo Self Driving Chrysler Pacifica

Waymo Chrysler Minivan Animation – on the Streets of Silicon Valley

Delphi Self Driving Audi with "Intel Inside" — Delphi Self Driving Audi with “Intel Inside”