Robert Mitchell’s annual calendar is a very personal endeavor – for him and for those who will use it and enjoy the photos month after month. After flipping beyond the stunning sunset on the cover of Around Boothbay Harbor 2025, readers find a letter from Mitchell. To his observations on weather conditions the region faced in 2024 are added updates on the busy lives of each family member, even their three-year-old dog, Leica.  

This year’s letter ends, “We send our best wishes and hope that the calendar days are full of good and happy memories” – a sincere wish for anyone who views his carefully selected photos and fills each page with personal notes of their own. To quote the photographer, “So, now, on to a new year with hopes that our calendar will provide adequate representations of this magnificently special place.” 

January’s page offers a sun-drenched view of the properties at the western end of Commercial Street in the Harbor as seen from the water. By February, we’re deep into winter with a haunting black-and-white image of an orchard in the snow. March’s shot of The Tugboat Inn’s namesake boat on a snowy day is enough to make you put on a sweater and hike up the thermostat.  

The snow is gone in April’s photo, but the towering piles of lobster traps lining the Barrett Park seawall are testament to the fact that spring has not yet arrived. In May, Mitchell gives us a lone, spindly chair sitting incongruously on the rocky edge of a Southport cove under lowering skies. June brings a cluster of lobster boats at their dock on a calm, foggy day in Boothbay Harbor.  

In July’s scene, wind fills the multiple sails of a boat heeling impressively in choppy waters off Southport Island. The sails in August’s photo are also full as a slew of young sailors ply the outer harbor in their small craft with Burnt Island Lighthouse in the background. Mitchell takes to the air for September’s birds-eye view of Southport land and water with boats sitting quietly at their moorings and a tinge of autumn color on the trees.  

October brings us the cover photo of a brilliant sunset and foamy surf at Cape Newagen on Southport. The iconic rocky coast with a feel of fall is the subject of a Boothbay Shores shot for November. The year ends with another sunset, but this one is viewed from the ledge on Ocean Point and stars the sun itself as it turns the sea to gold.  

But that isn’t all. After a page with three mini calendars for planning convenience and another with ordering information for a variety of Mitchell’s notecards and additional copies of the calendar, comes a bonus – a page to start the year 2026. The black-and-white photo is of four dories lined up at Barrett Park. They’re overturned and dusted in snow, and the trees are stark and bare. Winter is again under way.   

Around Boothbay Harbor 2025 is available in locations throughout the Boothbay region and at mitchellphoto.com and 207-633-3136. As always, a portion of sales goes toward Teens to Trails, enabling young people to enjoy Maine. As Mitchell says in his letter, “Yay!”