Photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

Jacob Johnson, of Saco, paddleboards with his dog Murphy shortly after sunset at Pine Point in Scarborough on Sept. 21.
Photo editor Michele McDonald called to say that not only did we need a feature photo for the next day, but we needed one worthy of the front page. It was late in the day so I took my go-to drive when I’m desperate, the coastal route between my hometown of Saco and Portland. I had found lots of summertime features by the time I got to Pine Point, but nothing that could carry page one. It wasn’t  until shortly after sunset that I saw Johnson paddling by with Murphy. They saved the day and ended up on the newspaper’s front page the next morning.

Photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

Pavlo Shakhov, 8, shares a laugh with his friend and neighbor Tymofii Cherednichenko 11, in a chair in the upstairs landing of their Auburn apartment building in March. Shakhov and Cherednichenko came to Maine with their families from Ukraine. Nine families escaping the Russian invasion settled in Auburn, creating a community in a city built by immigrants while their own futures here remained unknown.

While spending time with the families from Ukraine for a story, I was able to make this image of Pavlo and Tymofii enjoying a light moment together, just being kids. I loved the way they laughed as they played together. Kids can be so resilient, whatever  they have been through. They had left their war-torn country behind and started again in a new country with a new language and they were  still able to laugh together. On another visit, I photographed the Shakhov family as they ate dinner together. The Shakhovs came to the U.S. in part because Pavlo, 8, has serious health issues that require regular medical treatments, and traveling to the hospital in Kyiv had become too dangerous.

Photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

The Shakhov family, one of the nine families from Ukraine, has dinner together in their Auburn apartment on Sunday, March 5.

Photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

Portland’s Paulo Joao reacts after scoring the game’s only goal in double overtime to defeat Scarborough on Oct. 25.

The game came to a dramatic ending with Paulo heading in the only goal during the second overtime. I made several images of the celebration, but I thought this one had many elements that made it work the best. I love the reaction of the Scarborough players as well as the Scarborough goalie sprawled out on the turf. Covering a game like this (0-0 at the end of regulation) is difficult. Up until this goal, I really didn’t  have a good storytelling moment. I was hustling up and down the sidelines following the action because in sudden death the game could end at any moment and you want to be near the action when it does. I’m glad I was able to get into position at the right time to make this image.

Photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

Caleb Johnson 4, laughs as he reaches for a balloon while playing pass with Catherine 94, and Fred Bliss 97, (center) during activities at the Gorham House in May. For the residents at the senior living community, as well as the preschoolers, intergenerational learning makes for joy, compassion and special connections.

The Gorham House is home to older adults as well as a preschool. For a story about this unique arrangement, I visited  on a day when the preschoolers would be attending activities with the older adults. After photographing from the perimeter of the room, I decided to get into the middle of it all and shoot with a wide-angle lens. You can see the laughter and smiles as the two generations enjoyed one another’s  company.

Photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette

Surfer Omer Sferra of Biddeford is reflected in the water along with the Ferris wheel at low tide in Old Orchard Beach on Nov. 20. 

While photographing features in Old Orchard Beach, I spotted Sferra walking toward me with his surfboard at his side. I started looking at backgrounds,  and when I noticed the reflection of the Ferris wheel, I positioned myself and waited. I was hoping he would walk by at the right distance and angle to make the elements work together. After some minor adjustments to my position, I was able to make this image as he walked by.

Photo by Brianna Soukup

Bartholomew O’Dwyer leans down and kisses his wife, Babette Ladd O’Dwyer before they blow out the candles on their 25th wedding anniversary cake on July 31. O’Dwyer has provided care to his wife since she had a stroke in 2018. His only break was when hospice care nurses came to help a few times a week, but in July he found out the hospice service was ending.

Meeting Bartholomew and Babette was one of the highlights of my year. I was so moved witnessing the care and love Bartholomew showed while helping Babette every day and the way she looked at him while he did it. Reporter Eric Russell and I were at their home the week before this photo was taken and Bartholomew casually mentioned  that he was going to have a little anniversary celebration for the two of them the following week. I immediately asked if we could come and I’m so glad I did because I think this photo tells the story of their love.

Photo by Brianna Soukup

Pigeons fly out of an alley off Congress Street as snow falls on Jan. 12. The forecast for the day called for the snow along the coast to turn into rain as the night progressed.

I  had only about 45 minutes left on my shift and it had just begun to snow really beautiful big flakes. My photo editor, Michele, told me that another photographer had already found a snow photo for the next day’s paper so I didn’t have to worry about it. But I had already parked  downtown and I figured I would walk around and enjoy the snow. If I saw something, great. If not, it would just be a nice walk. About two minutes in I noticed a ton of pigeons in an alleyway. They were eating birdseed but every few minutes they would all fly out, circle around and then fly back in to eat more. I thought it was kind of a funny scene and because I had no pressure in terms of a photo for the next day’s paper, I put on my flash and turned my aperture up quite high so that the snowflakes and birds would all be in focus. I took a few frames of them eating in the alley and then they started to fly out and I took one or two photos of them flying. I really didn’t think they would want to use the photo in the paper, but I turned it in just in case.

Photo by Brianna Soukup

A few family members sit around the bean holes watching Corey Wheaton and the crew ready the fires for the beans the night before the 100th anniversary of the Smith-Smart family reunion at Alan and Donna Smart’s  home in Lincoln on July 14.

This was my first bean-hole supper and I was very excited about it. I’d lived in Maine for seven years and I had yet to attend a proper bean supper, so when I got the opportunity to head up north with food writer Peggy Grodinsky for a story about the 100th year of the Smith-Smart family reunion and their traditional bean-hole beans, I jumped at the chance. The reunion was wonderful, but the night before when this photo was taken was my favorite part. It was a beautiful summer night. The family members watched as the fires in the bean holes were lit before the pots were dropped in. I think what I like most about this photo  is the age range of family members present. You have a teenager toward the right of the frame and on the far left is Owen Madden, who is 94 years old. This tradition has been going on for both of their entire lives and I just have a deep appreciation for that. It all just felt very Maine.

Photo by Brianna Soukup

People react as the Monument Square holiday tree lights up for the first time on Nov. 24.

This was a very long night. It was the day after Thanksgiving and I thought the tree lighting was going to take place at 5 p.m. so I arrived around 4 p.m. to start taking other photos. By the time the actual tree lighting happened around 6:20, I couldn’t really feel my fingers. But I knew the photo I wanted of the moment the lights came on was going to be of the crowd and not of the tree itself. That moment is probably better on video. This is an event I’ve covered before without making an interesting photo, so I was really thrilled when I captured this nice moment of joy on a dark and cold night.

Photo by Brianna Soukup

June 25th was the 40th anniversary of the Franco-American La Kermesse festival in Biddeford.

I really love photographing small fairs and carnivals, and La Kermesse in Biddeford is no exception. This photo is of 84-year-old Dick Coffin, a professional performer who has been a festival staple for years. He sang French songs as well as some oldies in English and did impersonations of famous performers like Elvis. The smiling ladies in the audience sang along with him. I wanted to get  the point of view of his fans so I sat down next to some and took this photo.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Joshua Deprez is reflected in a rain puddle as he pauses before using the crosswalk at Congress and Free streets in Portland on Oct. 23. Deprez, who was holding a 12-string guitar wrapped in a blanket, said he planned to busk downtown for spare change.

Years ago, at my first newspaper job, my editor issued an edict: “Don’t ever bring me a picture with no one in it.” When I spotted this puddle on an October morning, I had a hunch something magical might happen, but I wasn’t sure how I could include a person within the frame in a naturalistic way. To get the full effect of the reflection and capture the entirety of the historic Hay Building, the camera had to be as low to the ground as possible. But if I was lying on the pavement holding the camera and peering through the viewfinder, I would attract more looks of concern than candid action. My mere presence would affect what I was trying to quietly observe. The solution was to use a remote. I set the camera on the ground with the lens hood resting on the water’s edge. Then I took a few steps back and – using an app on my phone – was able to change the exposure and focal points and then press the shutter. I pressed the shutter a lot that morning. Whenever a pedestrian used the nearby crosswalk or stepped into frame, I pressed. If a frame looked promising, I would stop the person and ask their name. I repeated this hundreds of times throughout the morning as the clouds drifted away, as the sky changed color and as shadows crept along the walls. I only stopped when my phone’s battery was on the verge of dying. This image of Joshua Deprez pausing before crossing the street was the standout of the bunch, perhaps because he is faintly illuminated by sunlight reflected off a window on the nearby Westin Portland Harborview Hotel.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Children dressed in foul-weather gear approach the playground equipment at Portland Youth and Family Outreach during a light rain in mid-September.

From the moment they donned their rain gear I thought, this could be a Photo of the Year. In mid-September, I was at a preschool with education reporter Lana Cohen, working on a story about the end of a pandemic-era federal aid package to child-care operators. We were talking to the center’s executive director when teachers began zipping children into bright yellow coveralls to head to the playground under a light rain. The sight of them was just too perfect. In the words of my college photography teacher, it was “like manna from heaven.” I turned to Cohen and said, “I’m definitely following these kids outside.” Normally in this type of situation, I would try to be the first person out the door to have a better view of the children’s faces as they exited the building  – but the kids were much faster, and I was last in line. This turned into a happy accident because I was still at the top of the front steps as the kids scrambled toward the playground equipment, and I captured this moment from an elevated position. I spent the next 30 minutes roaming around the bark mulch hoping for another moment of symmetry, but it never materialized in quite the same way. The chaos of children doesn’t often translate into straight lines.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Late-day sunlight illuminates Max Bachvarova as they stand in a forest alongside other concertgoers listening to a performance of Isabella Leonarda’s `Sonata a Violino Solo e Organa, Op. 16 No. 12′ at a summer solstice concert by Vigorous Tenderness at Range Pond State Park in Poland.

I’d been reluctant to embrace the latest in camera technology. A few years ago, I dabbled with a Sony mirrorless camera, but I found the body was too small for my hands and I didn’t like peering into a video viewfinder rather than through the pure, clean glass of a DSLR. So I gave it up. But when one of my cameras showed signs of decline, I decided it was time to take the plunge. If I’d harbored any doubts about mirrorless cameras, this moment at Range Pond State Park obliterated them. I was assigned to cover this  Vigorous Tenderness concert – a museum-like aural experience held four times a year, on solstices and equinoxes, at different outdoor locations. On this day, seven separate musical performances were spaced throughout the park along the sandy shores of the pond and deep in the sun-dappled woods – and concertgoers moved from one to the next listening to soloists and groups perform chamber music. When I approached this installation along a wooded trail, I saw the audience members from behind. The edges of Max Bachvarova’s fiery red hair were glowing in the late-day sunlight, and I quickly stepped to the side of the group to get a glimpse of Bachvarova’s illuminated face. Two aspects of mirrorless cameras made this image possible. First, the video viewfinder allowed me to immediately see the effect of increasing the shutter speed to correctly expose for the ray of light. Second, the silence of the electronic shutter allowed me to capture this scene without disturbing Bachvarova’s sun-drenched reverence.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Rylee Knight, a member of Equality Maine, waves a Pride flag while marching on Congress Street  in the Pride Portland parade in June.

I’ve ruined too many cameras in the rain. When it was certain this year’s Pride Portland parade would be held during a torrential downpour, I made the decision to shoot with just one camera rather than risk two cameras and lenses to the elements. I wrapped my gear in a plastic garbage bag, held together with gaffer  tape. After I arrived in Monument Square for the start of the parade, I discovered I had stretched the plastic too tightly over the camera, which made it difficult to turn the aperture wheel. With steady rain falling, there was no way to make adjustments to the plastic covering, so I painstakingly turned the wheel notch by notch until it reached f8 – a relatively versatile setting. But this meant I was basically stuck with a point-and-shoot camera. Everything within each image would be in focus, like photos from a cellphone. Instead of being able to blur busy backgrounds by selecting wider apertures, I would have to rely on finding clean backgrounds behind the subjects – not an easy task amid towering buildings on either side of Congress Street. When I saw Rylee Knight athletically waving a heavy, rain-soaked Pride flag, I knew I wanted to make a picture. I left the sidewalk, centered myself in the roadway and got as low to the ground as I could without causing the parade to grind to a halt. When Knight’s face appeared within the narrow gap between buildings, I pressed the shutter.

Photo by Ben McCanna

Obie Spear, right, Eric Donahue and Topher Pidden offload pogie gear from the fishing vessel Tenacious onto a trailer at high tide in the Old Port before heading back out to haul lobster in October. Spear said the landing – located behind the Thomas Block on Commercial Street, between Custom House Wharf and Portland Pier – is a rare and crucial stretch  of working waterfront where commercial fisherman can transfer gear directly from boats to ground transportation.

Photography is a combination of skill, hard work and good luck, and this photo is among my luckiest. I started my morning looking for a standalone feature – a photo to run in print on the front of the Local section. I found something quickly: a woman walking her dog on the Eastern Promenade silhouetted by the glare of the rising sun. It was a satisfactory photo, something I ordinarily would have  been happy with, but I got it so soon, with so much time left in the morning, I decided to see if I could improve on it. I parked in the Old Port and meandered  on foot, turning toward the landing, one of the most picturesque sites in our city. I almost decided against going there. Over the years, I’d made some memorable photos from the landing and I try not to overuse it. But because I already had something in the can for the day, I figured it couldn’t hurt to check it out. Maybe something interesting would be happening.I couldn’t believe my luck. Three fishermen were taking advantage of high tide to offload gear onto a flatbed truck. The sun was glorious and at a favorable low angle – and even though I was shooting directly into it,  the men stood near a brick wall and windows that reflected the warm sunlight back onto them, subtly illuminating their shaded side and preventing them from disappearing into inky silhouettes.

Photo by Gregory Rec

Fred Stone pets Marybell, a two-month-old Swiss Limousin calf, at his Arundel dairy farm. Stone’s farm was the first in Maine to shut down due to PFAS contamination, in 2017. In February, a bill that would require the state to buy farms rendered unsafe for food production because of PFAS contamination got a lukewarm response in a legislative committee hearing. Stone had to kill off most of his milking herd due to the contamination but has kept a few heritage breeds.

I first met Fred Stone in 2019 when a press conference was held at his farm to raise the warning flag about PFAS contamination in Maine. The contamination came from state-licensed sludge  he had used to fertilize his fields for almost two decades, and it led to the closure of his farm in 2017.  The contamination  decimated his health and left him in dire financial straits. Given all that, I was surprised to see Stone’s enduring fondness for the few heritage breed cows that he keeps, even though he has to dump their milk. I think this photo shows that the animals obviously have affection for him as well.

Photo by Gregory Rec

From left, Christian Silva, 16, Mariano Prado, 15, Ezekial Iraoya, 16, Jojo Silva, 15, and George Mbungu, 16, sit on the back of the Sea Smoke as it motors through Casco Bay  after an afternoon of lobstering in July.

Lift All Boats, an apprenticeship program launched by Luke’s Lobster, gives young people of color access to Maine’s iconic lobstering industry. This past summer, 18 teens participated in the program, which taught them how to prepare, bait and set traps and how to haul  them to check for lobsters. Once a week, on rotating days, groups of  teens would head out into Casco Bay aboard the lobster boat Sea Smoke to check their traps and replace bait bags. When they caught lobsters, they learned how to measure them to confirm they were big enough to keep. They were also shown how to check to see if a lobster was an egg-bearing female or had a notch in its tail,  meaning it had to be returned to the ocean. In addition to getting  a stipend for participating in the program, the teens earned money by selling the lobster they caught – and could earn around $100 on a good day. I went out with the groups four times and witnessed their progress over the summer. In early July, they were tentative and uncertain about stuffing smelly fish into bait bags or retrieving lobsters from traps. But by mid-August, they performed all the lobstering tasks, including cleaning the boat on their way back to  Portland, without question, working efficiently as a team.

Photo by Gregory Rec

Ben Conniff teaches Flora Magaya, 18, how to navigate to lobster buoys seen on a GPS aboard the Sea Smoke in August.

Photo by Gregory Rec

Sarah Kasprzak, Rebecca Roberts and Juliet Altham, left to right, clean up the labyrinth at the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust on May 5.

I knew that the Kennebunkport Conservation Trust would be holding guided weekend walks in its labyrinth, and I stopped by the day before on the chance that someone might be cleaning up the footpath in advance. Volunteers were clearing leaves and pulling weeds from around the rocks that shape the labyrinth’s paths. I made a few images from ground level but quickly realized the best angle would be from above using a drone. Because drones make an annoying noise in flight, I would never launch one at a labyrinth when people had come to its spiral paths to meditate and reflect.  But the volunteers were chatting while they worked, and they were fine with me putting up the drone. Labyrinths have intrigued me since college, when I read the collection of essays and shorts stories by that name by Jorge Luis Borges. Borges’  pieces are philosophical and  mind-bending at times and are best read slowly – just as labyrinths encourage a slow walking pace to foster contemplation.

Photo by Gregory Rec

Jillian James of Falmouth twists through a back dive with one somersault and one twist in the free position during the diving competition at the Class A girls’ swimming and diving state championship at Bowdoin College in Brunswick in February.  James won the diving competition with a score of 414.70.

I don’t regard myself as a very good sports photographer and I would likely be sunk without the advances camera manufacturers have made in autofocus technology over the years. When I first started at the Press Herald 27 years ago, many of the older photographers still preferred to manually focus their lenses while covering sports. I had the utmost respect for their ability to capture tack-sharp images of fast-moving players at games because it was a skill I sorely lacked. Photographing diving can be particularly difficult because, with all the twists and spins, it is hard even for autofocus to track where the diver’s face is. One of the newest advances in autofocus technology in mirrorless cameras (I use a Sony A1) is the ability to prioritize focus on a subject’s face, a setting I used during this championship. Without either that technology or enormous luck on my side, I don’t think I would have been able to capture this image.  Then again, to paraphrase an old adage, luck might favor those who avail themselves of technological advances.

Photo by Gregory Rec

Bill Stafford, of Dover, New Hampshire, rides a wave in his kayak in July at the Limington Rips on the Saco River in Limington. Frequent rains in June and July brought high river levels and surging rapids, creating a playground for kayakers.

Spring and early summer saw more rain than usual and rivers were running relatively high. After finishing an assignment nearby, I decided to check out this area of the Saco River known as the Limington Rips and was happy to find two kayakers taking advantage of the waves that form there during high water. I decided to use a slow shutter speed, 1/15th of a second, to blur the motion of the fast-moving water. But using a shutter speed that slow will also result in the kayakers being blurred as they move through the waves. The trick is to capture them when they are almost perfectly still in the trough of a wave. That stillness doesn’t happen often and it can take hundreds of frames to get one in which the kayaker is sharp. Pushing the boundaries to make an image like this one makes me appreciate digital photography, which allows me to easily delete all the frames that don’t work.

Photo by Derek Davis

Lisa Badger of South Portland calls out to Daisy, her 15-year-old dog, while walking at Bug Light Park one evening in March.

The practice of finding good features often involves a lot a patience and can take what feels like an eternity. I imagine it’s much like waiting for Daisy as the last remaining light of the day fades away. The best things though are worth the wait. I was at Bug Light Park to get  photographs to run with a story about daylight saving time and legislative efforts to do away with the practice. I had what I needed for the story and was getting ready to leave when I saw this gorgeous tree, bending  into the vibrant, blue sky. The benches on the hill lent some symmetry to the scene and the snow on the ground added dimension. It was a strikingly beautiful sight, but it just needed some action, like a person riding a bicycle or going for a jog. I waited and nobody came. It got darker and my hands started getting cold. Keep waiting, I told myself. Darker, and darker. I dialed up my ISO sensitivity and dropped my shutter speed. In a few more minutes, I would have to give up. Just then, a person walked into my frame. No bicycle or flailing arms and legs, but at least it was a subject. Then, she turned back, lifted her arms and I saw Daisy. Bingo!

Photo by Derek Davis

Abel Celestino of the Baxter Seagulls leaps in joy after making a basket during the team’s final season game against Pine Tree Academy.

It was their last game of the season, a game they would lose by a wide margin, but you would never know it from the reaction of 11-year-old Abel. He had just made a first-half game-tying basket for the Seagulls, representing the Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing/Governor Baxter School for the Deaf. I was at the game working on a story about the team, which is made up of deaf and hard-of-hearing students from different middle schools across southern Maine. It was the first season for the team after a hiatus of  six years because of  budget constraints and the COVID-19 pandemic. I was really happy to capture Abel’s  expression of  elation and triumph as he looked towards his team’s bench to see the reaction. The look on his face is a testament to the positive impact the team has on the children.

Photo by Derek Davis

Jennifer Dugre hugs her son Matthew Perkins, 11, before entering their home on Elm Street in Sanford to retrieve belongings after a fire destroyed the building three days after Christmas in 2022.  

When I got to the apartment building, there was no one in sight. The fire had destroyed the building overnight. The holiday decorations were still up, and some children’s  toys were scattered on  the property. Then a mother and son showed up to salvage their belongings. The boy seemed OK as he got out of the car but became emotional after seeing their home. I knew this was an important photo and quickly took a few frames. I later learned that the boy had been up the night before, unable to sleep, and had alerted the family to the fire, possibly saving their lives. While covering these stories, we walk a fine line between  trying to capture emotion without being too intrusive or invasive of personal space. I think this image was successful because even without their faces, their emotion is present and the story is told through the layers of the burned roof, boarded-up doorways, holiday decorations and their grief.

Photo by Derek Davis

A pedestrian walks on Exchange Street in Portland on Jan. 23 as wet snow falls.

The Old Port is never lacking in charm, but it is arguably at its finest during a snowstorm. As I walked around making images, I found myself in a  little alleyway on Exchange Street where decorative lights had been strung between the brick walls. I selected a wide lens and waited for someone to walk by. Extra bonus for the brake lights that add a pop of  color to the scene.

Photo by Derek Davis

Christi Holmes of Gray tests the Mpemba effect, the name given to the observation that hot water can freeze faster than cold water, at Pine Point Beach in Scarborough on a Saturday morning in February.

What to do when temperatures drop to double digits below zero with a wind chill of minus 45 degrees? For Christi Holmes, it was obvious: Get up before sunrise and head to the beach for a science experiment! I also got up before sunrise and headed to the beach to look for features, and I am glad that I did. The shoreline was otherworldly, with sea smoke rising off the surf and the sand crunching underfoot. Frozen waves lined the beach as thick, slushy waves crashed to shore. Wearing two pairs of gloves, several jackets, many layers of socks and several hats on my head, I headed onto the beach, which was completely devoid  of life forms except for a woman who was opening a thermos. I asked what she was doing and when she said throwing hot water in the air, I did a fist pump in my head and positioned myself to make a silhouette of the moment. Then came another imaginary fist pump and I headed to my car to warm my freezing body.

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