Who’s the audience for Robert Mitchell’s “Around Boothbay Harbor” calendar? Is it year-round residents who enjoy the photos as they keep track of busy days, in season and out? How about the summer folk who make sure they take it along to hang up where they spend the winter? Is it the weekend guest who offers it as a thank you for hospitality — and buys another to keep? Or perhaps the tourists who want to take something of the Boothbay region home to relive the good times they have here?

It’s all of the above, and more. Robert Mitchell’s annual photographic calendar is a work of art with a practical side – a useful tool for numbering the days and activities that comprise a year. As always, the 2016 calendar begins with a letter so warm and personal that even those who don’t know and like Mitchell must feel as though they’re hearing from a friend. What follows are a dozen pages of spectacular photos that take us through a year in Boothbay Harbor and environs.

Water figures in many of the photos that Mitchell selects for his calendars. In January, for instance, he shows us snow-crusted inns and businesses of Commercial Street as seen from a pier across the harbor. The crispness of blue water and white buildings and snow is echoed in the color of a trim lobster boat.

As captured by Mitchell’s lens during a lavender-colored sunset, cracking ice floes in Southport’s Love Cove take on an iridescent, painterly quality. Even on this windless evening, the cold of a February day on the Maine coast is tangible.

March brings a surprise, a magnificent snowy owl perched atop a snow-covered evergreen on Fisherman’s Island. This is one of the photos that make us wonder just how much time Mitchell must spend with camera in hand, and how far afield he must go, to get these shots!

April’s sunset is the rosy-orange color of a ripe mango reflected in a long view from Cozy Harbor on Southport. A closer look at the photo reveals the silhouette of a pole-top nest, complete with resident osprey.

For May, the previous month’s wide expanse of water gives way to the intimate scale of a tide pool at Spruce Point. In this near-abstract image, striped ledge encircles smaller stones, which reveal still smaller shells and pebbles, with a bright touch of green vegetation in one corner.

White sails and puffy clouds, green grass, picnic tables, sun and sparkling sea — these are the makings of a perfect summer’s day. The photo for June, taken from the Department of Marine Resources property at McKown Point, offers a vantage point that not everyone finds.

July brings us to a view of Ebenecook Harbor on Southport. Red sailboat, white boat house, and blue water all echo the colors of an American flag in the distance.

Boats, boats, boats of every size, color, and description fill Boothbay Harbor in the image for August. Summer has arrived! The backdrop is the Harbor’s east side and the deeply wooded hills of Sprucewold.

September’s tranquil image features the Trevett Country Store complex of buildings as seen across the water from the Barters Island bridge. The clear, low light somehow promises autumn.

In October’s photo, there’s no question; fall has arrived. The landscape at the Narrows on the Damariscotta River combines every shade of red, orange, and gold, with a backdrop of cold, blue water and evergreens.

November offers up water whose sparkle is tinged with iciness below heavy purple cloud cover streaked with orange. Completing the picture are a sturdy sailboat and, in the distance, the Cuckolds lighthouse appearing as in a floating mirage.

Bringing us full circle, December’s image is all about sunlight and snow and the brilliance of a wintry day in Maine. The exterior of a small, rustic building on Little Christmas Cove on Southport is banked high in drifts.

By simply hanging on a wall here, there, or anywhere, Mitchell’s calendar shows us well-loved views from unusual perspectives, but also provides glimpses into small, barely known corners of the Boothbay region. Without ever leaving the comfort of home, we can experience all four seasons and see the region through the eyes of a true observer and gifted photographer.

“Around Boothbay Harbor” is available in businesses throughout the region and through Mitchell’s Connections Publishing. A portion of the proceeds from sales is set aside for young people of the Boothbay peninsula to enjoy Maine. For more information, visit www.mitchellphoto.com, or call 207-633-3136.