Portraits of winter in Maine by the Press Herald’s photographers
Brianna Soukup
Staff Photographer
Brianna was born and raised in Nebraska and became interested in photography in elementary school when her art teacher gave her a camera to document their fifth grade class.
After college she interned at the Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, Florida and the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, VA. She was hired by the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram in 2016 and moved to Maine where she quickly fell in love with photographing the people and places in our beautiful state.
She’s been awarded by the Hearst Journalism Awards Program, Society of Professional Journalists and in 2020 received the MacGregor Fiske Award for early-career journalists in New England.
Posted inLocal & State, News
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.
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Posted inLocal & State
In photos: The last races at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway
Drivers and fans packed the stands for Beech Ridge Speedway’s last days of racing. The Scarborough mainstay closed on Sunday after 73 years of racing. Beech Ridge owner Andy Cusack announced during a post-race awards ceremony on Sept. 11 that the track had been sold to a real estate developer. With the closure of Beech Ridge there are now only three auto racing tracks in Maine: Wiscasset Speedway, Oxford Plains Speedway and Speedway 95 in Hermon. “It feels like losing a kid to me,” David Wilds said after his race on Thursday night. Wilds is a driver from Limington who has been coming to Beech Ridge since the 1960s when he was a child. “This is a home to us,” he said. Photos by Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: Maine teens who got vaccines
Press Herald photographers caught up to Portland-area high school students getting their COVID-19 vaccinations this spring. Here’s what they had to say.
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: Scenes of April give way to flowers of May
Our photographers capture the dreary and the glorious of April before it finally yields to the sunshine of true spring.
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: Portraits of newly vaccinated Mainers
Thousands of adults in Maine are being vaccinated every week, and the state’s COVID-19 vaccination program will be getting a substantial boost this week, with 10,010 additional doses, a 28 percent increase. On Thursday, a vaccine clinic was held at the Waterboro Fire Department, where Northern Light Health employees administered about 130 Moderna vaccine doses, most of them second doses for older Mainers. These portraits, taken by Press Herald staff photographer Brianna Soukup, are of just a handful of the people who came to receive their vaccine that day.
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: Despite a pandemic, Maine’s maple season remains just as sweet
Pure maple syrup is a beautiful thing, sweet, with complex flavors, and it can only come from boiling the sap from a tree, a time-consuming process dependent on the weather. This year was off to a slow start with a warm January and “stone cold” February, according to Michael Bryant of Hilltop Boilers in Newfield. But the sap is running in March, and the coming week should be a good one if it doesn’t get too warm. Maine Maple Sunday is March 28, but this year the 38th annual event will have adjusted hours and options because of the coronavirus pandemic. Press Herald photographers visited some southern Maine makers busy producing syrup last week.
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: Let there be light
Daylight saving time started again on Sunday, leading to dreams of those long summer nights in Maine, when the sun doesn’t set until after 8 p.m. There’s a bipartisan bill in Congress now, called the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021, sponsored by politicians as different as U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., that would make DST permanent. If it passes, we would not switch our clocks back in the fall. Meanwhile, Press Herald photographers took advantage of our lengthening days to look for beautiful light.
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: A winter wonderland just outside your door
It’s February, it’s cold, we’re in the middle of a worldwide pandemic (as if you could forget) and that spells cabin fever. So here are some photos to remind you of the many ways that Maine is a perfect place to be living through this. It’s a winter wonderland just outside your door.
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: Ice, an otherworldly beauty
Love it or hate it, winter is here, in all its icy glory. When you are freezing outside – your feet like stone, your fingers like marble – consider the miracle of ice. Water, liquid and gas, made solid. Look closely and you’ll find its otherworldly beauty.