Seattle Photographer Daniel Sheehan

With extreme precision, a Blue Angel pilots his jet through the ether over Lake Washington on a very hot summer day. The U.S. Navy Blue Angels are back in Seattle again this year to perform their amazing air show routine in conjunction with Seattle’s annual Seafair celebrations. They have been practicing their runs since Thursday and will repeat their runs every day through Sunday.
Photograph by Seattle Photographer Daniel Sheehan specializing in photojournalism, portraits for publications and corporations, and  photojournalistic Seattle wedding photography.

NASA’s LRO Spacecraft Gets its First Look at Apollo Landing Sites
This photograph shows the first imagery of the Apollo 11 lunar landing site taken in 40 years. The picture is one of many photos taken by NASA’a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter . and posted on their website. I find it so interesting I had to post it here. Can you believe Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left their lunar vehicle parked on the moon for 40 years and no one took it? Actually it was their lunar module descent stage that was left. On the NASA website they have photos of the landing sites of Apollo 11, 14, 15, 16, 17. Check it out. Below is a shot taken by Neil Armstrong of Buzz Aldrin in front of the lunar module

Apollo 11 Revisited Above, view from Apollo 11 command vehicle “Columbia” of the moon with the earth rising on the horizon.

I find it hard to believe that it is 40 years ago since we first went to the moon. Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the July 16, 1969 launch of Apollo 11, with astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. aboard. The entire trip lasted only 8 days, the time spent on the surface was less than one day, the entire time spent walking on the moon, a mere 2 1/2 hours – but they were surely historic hours. Below are a few of the 40 images that the Boston Globe blog “The Big Picture” has collected from this event and posted. They are amazing to reconsider.

The Saturn V rocket lifts off on July 16th, 1969.

Robert Shiller, American economist, academic, and best-selling author was in town a little while ago and I was assigned to make a portrait of him. Shiller is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University and is a Fellow at the Yale International Center for Finance, Yale School of Management. But perhaps he is best know for writing on economic topics that range from behavioral finance to real estate to risk management. His insight led him to correctly predict the coming bursting of the last couple of bubbles our economy has suffered. His book Irrational Exuberance (2000) – a New York Times bestseller – warned that the stock market had become a bubble in March 2000 (the very height of the market top) which could lead to a sharp decline.
In CNBC’s “How to Profit from the Real Estate Boom” in 2005, he noted that housing price rises could not outstrip inflation in the long term because, except for land restricted sites, house prices would tend toward building costs plus normal economic profit. Meanwhile, co-panelist, David Lereah, continued to cheerlead. In February, Lereah had put out his book “Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom?” signaling the market top for housing prices. While Shiller repeated his precise timing again for another market bubble, because the general level of nationwide residential real estate prices do not reveal themselves until after a lag of about one year, people did not believe Shiller had called another top until late 2006 and early 2007.
His most recent book is (with George Akerlof): Animal Spirits, Princeton, 2009

As Michael Jackson’s memorial service is being held in L.A. as I write, I felt moved to go to the files and pull up an old negative from the time I got to see him perform and photograph him. We were all so much younger, and his music was a dominant note on the soundtrack of our lives. He was everywhere on the radio and MTV. It is almost incredible to remember how really big he was then. Seeing him and photographing him on assignment was a big deal. He was a major force and influence in popular music.

Michael Jackson performed at the Gator Bowl Stadium in Jacksonville Florida before 45,000 people for each night for three nights July 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 1984. I was there on July 23rd on assignment to photograph him for the Black Star Photo agency. It was a big news story everywhere Michael went.

He was on his Victory tour at the top of his game. He performed with his brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Tito, Marlon, and Randy. The tour reunited all Jackson brothers including Michael, who had just released the highly successful Thriller album in 1982, two years previous to the tour, and Jermaine, who had not recorded or toured with his brothers since they left Motown in 1975. The Jacksons’ Victory Tour was the group’s final concert tour of the United States and Canada.

The tour commenced on 6 July in Kansas City and concluded on 9 December in Los Angeles. The tour consisted of 55 concerts to approximately 2 million fans. It was named after the newly released Jacksons’ album Victory although none of the songs from that album were on the tour’s set list.
The set list consisted of songs from the Jacksons albums Destiny and Triumph, but not the Victory album. There were also songs on the list from Jermaine’s and Michael’s solo careers. Michael’s albums Off The Wall and Thriller were both represented.
Here is the set list.
“Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’”
“Things I Do for You”
“Off the Wall”
“Human Nature” (with “Ben” introduction)
“This Place Hotel”
“She’s out of My Life”
“Let’s Get Serious”
“You Like Me Don’t You”
“Tell Me I’m Not Dreamin’ (Too Good to Be True)” (duet with Michael Jackson)
Jackson 5 Medley: “I Want You Back” / “The Love You Save” / “I’ll Be There”
“Rock with You”
“Lovely One”
Interlude
“Workin’ Day and Night”
“Beat It”
“Billie Jean”
“Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)”

The tour reportedly grossed $75 million and set a new record for the then-largest grossing tour. Michael Jackson donated all of his proceeds ($5 million) from the tour to three charities, including the T.J. Martell Foundation for Leukemia and Cancer Research, The United Negro College Fund, and the Ronald McDonald Camp for Good Times.

There was one other reason for the concert to be memorable. They rounded up all of the photographers and video folks and put us in a fenced in area about 40-50 yards away from the stage.
Normally covering a concert the press would shoot from a spot just in front of the stage, so it was a little dismaying to find out how far way we were to be. A 600mm lens with an extender was kind of the only way to get a decent sized image at theses shows. We were all a little miffed. Dennis Hamilton of the Florida times Union newspaper brought along a bag of white gloves which we put on and posed for this photo below. Dennis is in the top row center and I am just to his right. Carol Guzy, three time Pulitzer prize winning photographer at the Washington Post, is third from left. Will Dickey of the Florida Times Union is to the right of her. And down in front is Tom Burton from the Orlando Sentinel. Just to the right of Tom is Don Dughi, of UPI. and with the gloved hand sticking out, is John Coffeen of the Tampa Tribune. Can not recall who every one else is. If you recognize them let me know in the comments. I was just reminded of the pyscho Public Relations woman who kept shouting at us to point our camera at the ground after we shot some photos. We were only allowed to shoot a couple of songs as I remember it.

The Buckets performed at a rare appearance at High Dive in Seattle Friday night. Fantastic.

I was out at a bar in the Fremont section of Seattle having a beer and watching a local band called “The Buckets” . When the show was done I headed out the door and saw these Zombies at a table and photographed them wondering why they were let in there. Then I hit the streets and it looked like the Zombies had taken over the city. I started taking photos as they walked by and here is a selection of them. There were thousands of them around. I made it out of Fremont ok. It seems that more than a thousand people participated Friday night in an attempt in Fremont to break the record for most people in a zombie walk. How many exactly will be determined by officials at the Guiness Book of Records who need to verify signatures and pictures of people before announcing if the record was broken. Stay tuned and I will post the official number later. After the walk the zombies went for a viewing of some outdoor movies, Shaun of the Dead, and playing of Michael Jackson’s Thriller for zombies to dance to. More than a thousand zombies danced to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The event was scheduled before his death, and so it turned into a tribute.
This just in. Fremont has broken the world’s record for the most zombies in one place with the new official record of 3,848 zombies