The 2024 edition of photographer Robert Mitchell’s “Around Boothbay Harbor” calendar is hot off the presses. Can this really be his 23rd? Yes, he published his first in 2001.

There’s more to each calendar’s creation than taking 13 strikingly beautiful photos. Each year, Mitchell carefully selects images that reflect the seasons, and he makes sure to include a mix that traverses the peninsula from Southport to East Boothbay. The result checks all the boxes for a useful calendar, including a large format and an extra page to kickstart January 2025.

Unique to Mitchell’s calendars is a page that’s very personal. For 2024, he writes with appreciation of the places and people that make this region special, of how the subjects inspiring year after year of photos are limitless and ever changing, of the variations he’s observed in the weather, and of the year past and future plans for his family members, complete with a family portrait taken near home on Southport Island.

Not far from where the family gathered for that photo, but in a vastly different season, is the January image of Hendricks Head. Recent snowfall on branches, ledge, and the lighthouse glitters in the sun. Ghostlike sea smoke is a sure indication of how cold the day was for the February image; evergreens and a fishing boat seem to float above the white vapor rising from the water off Signal Point in Boothbay Harbor. March takes us to a breezy, chilly day at Robinson’s Wharf on Southport, where lobster boats are lined up, basking in the sun.

Neutral tones prevail in the April photo of a gray skiff tied to the end of a float at Cape Newagen. Cape Island is barely visible in the fog and drizzle in this near-abstract photo. The weather brightens up for May’s East Boothbay image that extends from a tall lilac bush in the foreground across a neat, fenced lawn to the water and far shore. The next page offers up a perfect June day as just the right amount of breeze fills the S/V Angelique’s red sails and takes her past Juniper Point.

With more full sails and flags flying, Victory Chimes is a beautiful sight – and the star of the July photo. Brilliant white waves splashing on granite ledge on the Damariscotta River in East Boothbay are a cooling image for a hot, sunny August day. A fiery September sunset fills the sky and is mirrored in the water off Spruce Point. In contrast are a silhouetted pier, ready for winter, and the hill beyond.

October brings a change of pace and of the weather with a view of tall grasses and trees in their autumn colors at Penny Lake in Boothbay Harbor. We return to East Boothbay for a tranquil and tawny November scene of a quiet cove overlooked by a rustic bench. The calendar’s brightest spot of color arrives in December with a jaunty cardinal perched among snow-covered pine boughs. The bonus January 2025 page is a monochromatic view of Boothbay Harbor packed with windjammers and other vessels.

Mitchell ends his 2024 letter with “Welcome home.” Anyone with an attachment to the area will find that paging through the calendar does feel a good bit like coming home.

Around Boothbay Harbor is available throughout the region and at www.mitchellphoto.com. As always, a portion of proceeds will go to Teens for Trails to help young people enjoy Maine. As Mitchell writes, “Yay!”