The former members of the 133rd Engineer Battalion were part of the largest call-up of any Maine military unit since World War II.
Gregory Rec
Staff Photographer
Gregory got his start in journalism delivering his hometown newspaper, the Norwich Bulletin, as a teenager, reading the front page articles on dark winter mornings as he passed under streetlights.
Greg worked as a photojournalist at a weekly newspaper group in Connecticut for three years before attending the University of Montana to study journalism and Spanish. He interned at the Portland Press Herald in the summer of 1995 and the Boston Globe the following year.
He was hired at the Press Herald in 1997 and over the past 20 years, he has photographed throughout Maine, covered the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York City, twice embedded with Maine Army National Guard troops in Iraq, covered the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In 2004, Rec was named Journalist of the Year with columnist Bill Nemitz by the Maine Press Association for their work in Iraq. After only ten years at the Press Herald, he won the Master Photographer award from the New England Society of Newspaper Editors, an award usually reserved for veteran photographers.
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: Spring is in the air
For gardeners, it’s tilling the ground anew. For beachgoers, it’s the first bracing dip of the year. For anglers, it’s the first bite from a striper along Maine’s warming coast. And for the Press Herald’s photographers, it’s a little of everything as they capture spring across southern Maine.
advertisement
Posted inLocal & State
Special Surfers hit the waves in Kennebunk
Special Surfers, which introduces surfing to people with physical, developmental and emotional challenges, holds its third and final surfing event of the summer in Kennebunk on Tuesday evening.
Posted inLocal & State, News
Tagged white sharks can’t hide from 1st buoy of its kind in Maine waters
The buoy, which transmits real-time notifications when a tagged white shark is nearby, was put into Saco Bay on Tuesday by University of New England faculty and students.
Posted inLocal & State, News
In photos: Alewives return to Mill Brook in Westbrook
Alewives have returned to Mill Brook in Westbrook this spring, swimming upstream to get to Highland Lake to spawn. It’s the largest fish migration from Casco Bay and part of Maine’s success story in opening up rivers to allow alewives to return to their traditional spawning grounds. Press Herald photographer Gregory Rec was there to capture the beauty and action.
Posted inLocal & State
‘Like giant Legos going together’: Watch a time lapse of the I-295 bridge replacement
Watch the first 400-ton bridge section being rolled into place Saturday afternoon. Drone footage by staff photographer Gregory Rec.
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: A memorable February
It snowed, and thawed, and sleeted and thawed, and snowed some more. On the 23rd, we claimed spring for a day, breaking records when the temperature soared to the mid-60s. It was a month of bad ice, high energy costs, good skiing and great high school sports. Here are some of the best photos from the month by Press Herald photographers.
Posted inLocal & State
In photos: Scenes of a frozen Maine
Portraits of winter in Maine by the Press Herald’s photographers
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.
Posted inLocal & State, Religion & Values
Portland set aglow with celebration of first night of Hanukkah
Cars with menorahs on top parade through the streets of Portland to reach City Hall, where Rabbi Moshe Wilansky of Chabad Maine lit a 12-foot tall menorah on the first night of Hanukkah.