Monday, July 13, Southport Town Hall welcomed photographer and photo archivist Kevin Johnson for a presentation on his book, "Boothbay Now and Then: New and Historical Images of the Boothbay Peninsula." Residents gathered to hear Johnson discuss the three-year process of creating the book; his passion for preserving local history; and the stories hidden within the peninsula's historic photographs.

For the book, which pairs modern photographs with historical images from the same locations, Johnson sorted through nearly 700 photographs before deciding which images to publish. The selection process required balancing historical significance with visual storytelling to best capture the evolution of the Boothbay region.

Johnson said his inspiration for focusing on the Boothbay Peninsula came from the area's rich history and the number of unique communities it has.

"I had this opportunity and had this big area with all these villages," Johnson said.

The hour-long presentation traced Johnson's journey into historical photography and photo restoration. His interest began in college, where he discovered a passion for restoring damaged and aging photographs. Over the years, that hobby developed into a career dedicated to preserving historic images and recreating them through modern photography.

Every contemporary image featured in "Boothbay Now and Then" was taken by Johnson. One of the biggest challenges, he explained, was determining where the original photographs had been taken. While some sites were easy to identify, others required extensive research and careful observation.

Finding those locations was, as Johnson put it, "a lot harder than most people might think."

He explained, many historic photographs referenced local landmarks or nicknames that were commonly used by residents but never appeared on official maps. In some cases, communities even created names for certain locations to make them more appealing to tourists, making it even harder decades later to pinpoint where a photograph was taken.

As he compared historical images with their modern counterparts, Johnson highlighted how dramatically the Boothbay Peninsula has changed over the last century. He pointed to the decades following the 1950s as a particularly significant turning point in the region's development.

"You can really see the town start to change after about the Fifties," Johnson said. "The fishing started to shrink back and the tourism started to grow."

Throughout the presentation, Johnson shared stories behind photographs, explaining how the area's economy, waterfront and neighborhoods gradually transformed while still retaining much of the character.

Johnson concluded the evening by displaying several image pairings from the book and inviting audience members to guess where the historic photographs had been taken before revealing their modern counterparts.