Seattle Photographer Daniel Sheehan

Crossing the Columbia I was heading back to Seattle from an editorial assignment in Spokane, Washington, when the sky started turning darker. I could see many miles ahead since the land is so flat and the rain storm was massive, but the sun would peak through in place. There was a rainbow but by the time I reached the Columbia River and a place to pull over the rainbow was gone. Just the mass of dark clouds and rain squalls over the Columbia running down in the gorge below

I photographed  Dianne Reeves and Kurt Elling last night at the Belllevue Jazz Festival. What a treat.  Two of the top jazz vocalists around today. Dianne Reeves performed last night in the Meydenbauer Center with her Strings Attached ensemble featuring guitarists Russell Malone and Romero Lubambo. They were fantastic. I last photographer Russell at the Triple Door back in March playing a duet with Bill Frisell.

Kurt Elling performed with Laurence Hobgood on piano, Rob Amster on bass, and Ulysses Owens Jr on drums. The trio created a great sound backing Kurt in a marvelous performance. He was so cool and suave.

The New York Times ran an unusual note from the editor last Friday stating:

“A picture on May 5 with the continuation of a front-page article about the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and the strategic advantages it offers to Taliban insurgents fighting American troops, showed a silhouetted Taliban logistics tactician, who was interviewed for the article, holding a rifle, creating the impression that the weapon belonged to him. The Times subsequently learned from the photographer that the rifle belonged to the owner of a home in Pakistan where the interview took place, and that the Taliban tactician had held the weapon only for the purpose of the photograph.

“Had The Times known this information at the time of publication, it would not have used the photograph to illustrate the article.”

I was wondering about who had made the picture and what the circumstances about it were. I found out today well known and respected Washington DC photographer John Harrington posted some information he dug up about the controversy. I think it is especially interesting to read what he has to say about the relationship between what the NY Times  stands for and what they pay the photographers who contribute to their newspaper.

He says:

“ Zackary Canepari has a pretty big problem. At the ripe old age of 30 or so, he is likely now persona non-grata at the New York Times, and his journalistic ethics will also likely give other editorial publications pause to hire him.” Then he continues ….Unfortunately, when publications pay a pittance for their photographers, and do not pay a living wage, the photographers with the integrity necessary to work for the top publications in the world do other things – their own projects, books, commercial work, and so on. Heck, even a few teach classes and workshops. Because the New York Times has not, well, pardon the pun, kept up with the times, in terms of pay, they have reapt what they have sown. I would not be surprised that there are others they didn’t catch, and in an era where photographers are driven to compete, whether Zack’s posed photo, which is over the line, to the Reuters photographer with the “enhanced” smoke , which is egregiously over the line, until photographers are paid fairly enough that they can do their jobs – and, it should be said, are staffers with job security, pressures like this will continue to errode the public’s trust in journalistic works. The problem is, once people realize this and think about course-correcting, it will be too late, and visual journalism will have been dealt a mortal blow around the world.

PDNPulse first reported, in New York Times Withdraws Posed News Photo (5/19/08), about the photo above, and the Times’ withdrawal of the photograph, including an apology that PDN ran.”

I used to do assignments for the Times over the years. In fact I believe my first assignment was back in 1981. The going rate for a days assignment was $200. The last time I worked for them was a few years ago and the rate more than 20 years later was still $200. I stopped because they stopped paying for the expenses of making the photos like reimbursement for film and digital processing they used to pay for and then a year later they demanded that all freelance photographers who wish to get work from them sign a contract that gave them the right to uses the photos again without paying any compensation, and they wanted to sell the rights to use the pictures to third parties and take a 50% share of the third party payment. I think my memory is correct on these details. I am sorry to see how they treat photographers because otherwise I enjoy reading their paper. It is sad that some succumb to the temptation to make their photos more sexy by staging news pictures in the hope of getting a good reputation as a photojournalist. All it takes is getting caught once to lose it all. This is only the most recent incident we have heard about.

Go to John’s excellent blog Photo Business News & Forum to ready the whole thing. It is at

http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com

Rob Callaway

With ubiqity of photoshop experts abounding today it is almost quaint to pull out my tilt shift lens for a portrait, but that is what I did last week for this protrait of Rob Callaway who was in Seattle for a brief visit before returning to Georgia.

We really like the way he talked – real slow.

Jon Rosochelli and Eduardo Mendoza

I was assigned to do some creative corporate Portraits for the residential staging residential staging firm of Rosichelli | Mendoza recently. The portraits were for a redesign of their website. Above is one of the portraits I did of Jon Rosichelli and below is one of the portraits I made of Eduardo.

Photographs by Seattle photographer Daniel Sheehan, a photojournalist specializing in jazz photography, photojournalism and portrait photography and a Seattle wedding photographer with an unobtrusive, story-telling approach. For a Seattle family portrait photographer go to grestkidpix.com

Recently I photographed the legendary bass player for Guns N’ Roses Duff McKagan for Playboy. The Seattle native is writing a column called “Appetite For Investment” financial advice for Playboy.com readers. I made this photograph outside the Seattle climbing outfitters shop, Feathered Friends, where Duff was shopping for some warm clothing and sleeping bag for his upcoming climb of Mount Rainier. He is really into the whole climbing thing. It was a fun afternoon hanging out with him.