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Ben McCanna has been a staff photographer and occasional writer at the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram since 2015 and has been working for newspapers since 2010. Ben studied creative writing and literature at Emerson College and embarked on a decade-long career in publishing after graduating in 1997. In his mid 30s, Ben shifted careers by taking a job as a reporter at a small newspaper in northwest Colorado and never looked back. Over the years, he slowly transitioned from writer to photographer - his true passion. Ben is a 2018 winner of an Award of Excellence from Pictures of the Year International. He lives on Peaks Island with his wife, a nurse practitioner, and two sons.

Latest
  • Published
    June 14, 2023

    In photos: See the action from some of Wednesday’s high school playoff games

    Check out some of our favorite images from Wednesday’s high school baseball and softball playoff games.

  • Published
    June 12, 2023

    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.

  • Published
    June 9, 2023

    In photos: See the action from some of Friday’s high school playoff games

    Check out some of our favorite images from Friday’s high school baseball and softball playoff games.

  • Published
    May 27, 2023

    In photos: View some of the best images from ‘Long Way Home’

    In ‘Long Way Home,’ Press Herald reporters and photographers told the story of the large influx of asylum seekers arriving in Maine in recent years, fleeing their homelands and embarking on dangerous journeys to make a new life in Maine.

  • Published
    May 15, 2023

    In photos: Seeing blue

    Blue skies were smiling and bluebirds were singing for Irving Berlin, but blue is actually nature’s rarest color. Blue flowers are less than 10% of the world’s 300,000 flowering plant species. Even some of the few animals and plants that look blue don’t actually contain the color. Blue jays and Morpho butterflies, for example, have developed unique features that distort the reflection of light to appear blue.
    Humanity has been obsessed with blue for thousands of years, from ancient Egypt when blue, the color of the heavens, was used in temples, ceramics and statues and to decorate the tombs of the pharaohs. In Medieval Europe, ultramarine blue was highly sought after among artists but was as precious as gold. Johanns Vermeer, who painted ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring,’ loved the color so much that he pushed his family into debt to purchase the paint color. Art historians believe Michelangelo left his painting ‘The Entombment’ unfinished because he couldn’t afford to buy more ultramarine blue.
    In 2009, Mas Subramanian and his then-graduate student Andrew Smith discovered a new blue pigment, YlnMn Blue, by accident, the first blue pigment discovered in more than 200 years. He had published hundreds of scientific articles and applied for dozens of patents, but it was his accidental discovery of a new vivid blue that excited the popular imagination and resulted in everything from a new Crayola crayon to a music festival in Atlanta.

  • Published
    March 7, 2023

    In photos: See the action from Tuesday’s high school postseason games

    Check out some of our favorite images from Tuesday’s high school basketball tournaments.

  • Published
    March 6, 2023

    In photos: See the action from Monday’s high school postseason games

    Check out some of our favorite images from Monday’s high school basketball tournaments.

  • Published
    February 4, 2023

    Year of the Rabbit: Maine group helps celebrate Lunar New Year

    The Chinese and American Friendship Association of Maine hosts its 32nd annual celebration.

  • Published
    January 29, 2023

    In photos: After some dustings, snow finally makes clean sweep over Maine

    Winter made itself known slowly this year, with only a few light snows by the time the season officially began. By then, some of us were already muttering that Maine winters as we once knew them were over.
    That all changed in recent days, with storm after storm blanketing everything in white, and Press Herald photographers were there to chronicle the season’s first big performance.

  • Published
    December 14, 2022

    In photos: Best of November

    As the year neared its end, November brought unusually warm days, but also the first snow – even if most of it was man-made at ski areas. Like every year, there were veterans to honor and winners and losers in high school sports championships. We got to see the United States play, and even score a few, in the World Cup. On Election Day voters went to the polls in a high-stakes race for governor. These events, plus more moments of beauty and intimacy captured by Portland Press Herald photographers, are in this photo gallery.