Shawn has been a staff photographer at the Portland Press Herald since 2002. He previously worked for the Journal Tribune in Biddeford from 1993 to 2002, and as an intern with the Miami Herald in 1992.
During his years with the Portland Press Herald Shawn has traveled to Iraq to document the work of the Maine Army National Guard, photographed the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, and was the lead photographer on a year-long project chronicling the challenges of aging in Maine. This project earned the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram the prestigious Scripps Howard Award for Community Journalism, as well as Regional Emmy Award for one of the videos that documented a family’s journey with Hospice.
He and his colleagues have recently focused their attention on the Coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. As a native Mainer, whose family has been in Maine for seven generations, he feels fortunate for the opportunity to help tell the stories of Maine for the past 28 years and looks forward to many more.
Shawn lives in Saco with his wife Amy, who is a fifth-grade teacher, and has two grown daughters.
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PublishedMay 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. -
PublishedJanuary 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. -
PublishedDecember 28, 2022
2022 Photos Of The Year: Seeking new lives in Maine
Hundreds of asylum seekers continued to arrive in Maine in 2022, overwhelming cities and towns’ ability to house them and provide basic needs. While asylum seekers fleeing violence in their own countries are allowed to remain in the U.S. while making their case to immigration courts, federal law requires a months-long wait for work permits. Throughout the year, Press Herald photographers documented their new lives in Maine.
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PublishedDecember 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.
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PublishedDecember 11, 2022
One of Us: Why this artist’s young students are her muses. ‘They just go for it and have fun and push it.’
‘You can feel the energy in the room, and it’s so fun,’ says Amy Goodness of Saco. ‘I feel like that just fills me up.’
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PublishedOctober 19, 2022
Photos: Maine shows off in the fall
Our state, looking glorious in the colors of autumn.
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PublishedOctober 5, 2022
In photos: Best of September
September is our transition from summer into fall, a time of fairs and apples, classes and school sports. But this September also saw a wave of violent crime in Portland, a public housing high-rise that was without electricity for days after a storm, and the arrival of rescued beagles. Here are some of the best photos of the month from Press Herald photographers.
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PublishedSeptember 11, 2022
In photos: A good-humored man continues a summer tradition
Ryan Lowe might be the last of his kind in Portland: An ice cream truck driver who still makes the rounds in the summer, driving through neighborhoods, bringing icy treats to all comers.
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PublishedAugust 19, 2022
In photos: The best of July
Hot and dry, that was July. But we’ll take summer in any weather. Here are some of the best photos from the Press Herald photographers for the month.
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PublishedJuly 17, 2022
In photos: In the summertime
There is no better place to be than right here, in Maine. Press Herald photographers capture the season in all its sun-soaked goodness.
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