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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PublishedDecember 26, 2023
2023 Photos of the Year
Beauty comes in many forms. A diver suspended in midair. A flock of pigeons rising in the snow. The stillness of a lobster boat and a man and dog on a paddleboard in calm ocean waters at sunset. Portland Press Herald photographers uncover unexpected beauty every day. They show us the profound beauty of connection. The tenderness of a loving husband and his wife, who is in hospice, celebrating their anniversary. The resilience of families who have traveled from a world away trying to make a new home in a strange land together. The collective grief of a community experiencing enormous loss after an act of previously unimaginable violence. It is a great privilege to photograph the people and stories of Maine. Here is some of our best work from 2023.
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PublishedNovember 19, 2023
One of Us: His birdhouses have golf ball eyes and bottle cap ears
Claude ‘Frenchy’ Ouellet makes birdhouses for fun, with what’s lying around. “Whatever I got, that’s what I use,” he says.
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PublishedOctober 6, 2023
In photos: Looking back as summer draws to a close
Some people call it ‘local summer,’ the period after many summer tourists have gone but before foliage tourists arrive. The sun sets earlier and school has started, but the days are still warm – and often glorious. Portland Press Herald photographers capture its essence in this photo gallery.
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PublishedAugust 27, 2023
In photos: USM students move into new Portland dorm
Photos by staff photographer Shawn Patrick Ouellette.
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PublishedAugust 6, 2023
In photos: A gloomy start, then glory in our photo gallery of summer 2023
June was gloomy and gray, with almost daily rain. July was warmer, with wet weekends and high humidity – not the perfect New England weather we dream about all year. But the sun showed its lovely face as August arrived, and the glorious days of summer began again.
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PublishedJune 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.
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PublishedJune 7, 2023
In photos: See the action from Wednesday’s high school state championship and playoff games
Check out some of our favorite images from high school tennis state championship and lacrosse playoff games.
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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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