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.
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 inMaine, News
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.
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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 inMaine, Sports, Varsity Maine
In photos: Highlights of the spring season’s high school sports
The sound of a ball smacking a glove or a bat, feet pounding up dust, fans cheering on a warm evening, it’s all ours again as life returns to normal. Peruse these Portland Press Herald photographs of high school sports this spring season.
Posted inMaine
In photos: Prom Night 2021 – at the farm but closer to normal
On May 15, Old Orchard Beach High School held a ‘senior celebration’ at River Winds Farm in Saco, a combination of prom and senior night. About 50 students came to the celebration, with only seniors and their dates, who also had to be Old Orchard Beach students, allowed to attend. Students were even able to dance outside. Staff photographer Brianna Soukup was there to capture the evening.
Posted inMaine
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.
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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 inMaine
Photos: Portland Public Library reopens to patrons for first time in a year
The Portland Public Library partially reopened for patrons to visit in person on Wednesday for the first time since March 2020. Patrons wearing masks are allowed to come inside for up to 30-minute visits to pick up requested items, browse selected mini-collections or use a computer. Twelve people are allowed inside at a time, and […]
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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 inMaine
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.