Santa Rosa Press Democrat photo editor John Metzge suffered a heart attack and died Wednesday while enjoying a family reunion in Hawaii, the paper reported today. Metzger, 56, and his wife, Becca, were on Oahu visiting the elder of their two sons, John Jr., an Army specialist who only recently returned to American soil after serving a year in Afghanistan.

Metzger joined The Press Democrat as director of photography in 1993. Among his charges was staff photographer Annie Wells, whose photos of Santa Rosa firefighters’ rescue of a girl caught in a raging creek in 1996 won a Pulitzer Prize. Wells, now a photographer with the Los Angeles Times, said Wednesday, “No one I’ve worked with had the vision of what a photographer brings to the table that John did. “Had I not worked with him, I wouldn’t be half the photographer I am today,” she said.