2021 Photos of the Year: Photographers’ Choice
2021 was a roller coaster ride. It started with mobs attacking the Capitol to try to overturn the presidential election and is ending with a new surge of the coronavirus. There was enough bad news – fires, floods, disasters of every natural and manmade kind – to make you want to bury your head under the covers and stay there. But there was also the miracle of vaccines – by the end of June, hardly any vaccinated people were dying of COVID-19. We gained a new appreciation of the simple but deep pleasures of meeting with family and friends, going to a country fair or a high school baseball game, looking for beauty in the flight of an owl or a solar eclipse at dawn. For our 2021 Photos of the Year collection, Portland Press Herald photographers voted on one another’s photos, then selected their own favorites from the top vote-getters. We hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we enjoyed taking them.
2021 Photos Of the Year: A Pandemic Story
The wide availability of vaccines was supposed to get COVID-19 under control in 2021. Instead, the pandemic has worsened. With high levels of transmission and the arrival of the omicron variant, the winter months look bleak. But Mainers are resilient and resourceful. Children are in school, live entertainment has returned, and restaurants and other businesses survived - and in some cases thrived. Wearing masks has become commonplace, as has caring for our neighbors. Take a look back at the pandemic in Maine in 2021 through the eyes of Portland Press Herald photographers.
2021 Photos Of the Year: The Lobster Trap
Lobster is king on Vinalhaven, Maine’s second-richest port, but with the inhospitable effects of climate change and costly demands to protect right whales, those who make their living on the water wonder how long that can remain true. Their way of life is on the line. Photographer Brianna Soukup spent much of the summer on the island, photographing island life and lobstermen Frank Thompson, 65, and 15-year-old Tanner Lazaro.