Portland ranked one of America’s ‘most inspiring cities for photographers’

The afternoon sun glints off a building, while pedestrians tread the brick sidewalk on Congress Street in Portland in late November. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

The afternoon sun glints off a building, while pedestrians tread the brick sidewalk on Congress Street in Portland in late November. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

Printaholic.com — a website that reviews printers, among other things — published its ranking of America’s 10 most inspiring cities for photographers, and wouldn’t you know it, Portland made the list.

Tip of the cap here to Ben McCanna, a top notch photographer in his own right, for pointing this latest listicle out to me.

Here’s what Printaholic Editor-in-Chief Lindsey Carlton wrote about Maine’s largest city:

“This small sea town is a great place for photographers to snap shots of small town life and the ocean. Settled on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, Portland, Maine features some of the best opportunities for nautical photography.

From historical architecture to the peaceful shoreline, photographers will fall in love with the scenery. Portland is a unique city to capture the beauty of the northeast while enjoying the small town atmosphere.”

The blurb on Portland is accompanied by a photograph of Portland Head Light, frequently described as the world’s most photographed lighthouse, but technically not in Portland.

Others on the list of most inspiring cities are — in no particular order, as far as I can tell — Seattle, Honolulu, New Orleans, Savannah (Georgia), the other Portland, St. Augustine (Florida), Newport (Rhode Island), Ann Arbor (Michigan) and Anchorage (Alaska).

If you’re familiar with any of those cities, you can probably attest that they are indeed picturesque.

There are lots of places online to look for great photography around Portland, including Ben McCanna’s photography blog on local metal music, Corey Templeton’s Portland Daily Photo, Tyler Aldrich’s photo journal Machigonne, and two different Bangor Daily News blogs featuring the work of our own Troy R. Bennett, Collage and BennettThereDoneThat.

Click here, here, here, here, here or here to thumb through some galleries of Portland photos taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Robert F. Bukaty.

A man performs a skateboard trick in Portland's Congress Square one Monday in December. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

A man performs a skateboard trick in Portland’s Congress Square one Monday in December. (BDN photo by Troy R. Bennett)

Seth Koenig

About Seth Koenig

Seth has nearly a decade of professional journalism experience and writes about the greater Portland region.