The effort will raise funds for the aquatic center’s drinking water.

For the shutterbug, Acadia National Park in Maine offers a rich palette – a gleaming lighthouse, rustic carriage roads, crashing surf, and that feature with which New England is practically synonymous, fall color.

Hard to believe that for all his world travels with the lens, it took Pete Saloutos so long to shoot it.

“All my life as a photographer, I have wanted to go there,” he said. “Finally. Finally!”

The trip didn’t disappoint, and over a week-long shoot this past year, the island photographer burned through 140 rolls of film.

Three images from the trip appear in Saloutos’ 2007 calendar, now available at the Bainbridge Aquatics Center and Roby King Gallery on Winlsow Way.

All proceeds from the calendar will go to purchase a drinking water chiller and purification system for the pool facility.

A masters class swimmer who enjoys a dip three or four times a week, Saloutos is a big fan of the aquatics center, but not its drinking fountain. Any funds left over will go toward completion of a steam room for the center.

“I’ve been a water kid all my life, swimming, surfing or whatever,” Saloutos said. “Some people donate to the library, some people donate to their church. I donate to the pool. For me, it’s the community center.”

Over a 41-year career, Saloutos has achieved preeminence in sports, scenic and fine art photography. Several years ago, he was honored by Nikon as a “Legend Behind the Lens” for the excellence of his portfolio.

He has been producing promotional calendars for a quarter-century, and is well pleased with the latest entry in the series.

Besides Acadia, the calendar features images of Crater Lake National Park, Boardman State Park and Bandon Beach in Oregon; Monument Valley, Utah; Maligne Lake in Canada’s Jasper National Park; Sol Duc River on the Olympic Peninsula; and the iconic Mount Rainier.

Eleven images in the 13-month calendar were shot over the past year. Saloutos used a Fuji 617 “big box” panoramic camera for its extremely wide-angle perspective, and high-grade film brought out unusually rich detail and crisp colors.

The quality printing stock and brilliance of the images make the calendar pages themselves worthy of framing; the viewer can almost step into a wintertime photo of Mount Mazama in the Crater Lake caldera.

None of the images were mani­pulated by computer, although Saloutos did use filters and the tripod-mounted camera itself to create a few effects.

For a photo of the rocky shoreline in Acadia, he left the shutter open for a full 60 seconds, allowing crashing waves to achieve the creamy consistency of an incoming fog. Serendipitously, a seagull on a far outcropping sat perfectly still for the entire exposure – something that, Saloutos said, you’d have trouble getting a professional model to do.

The calendar was designed by the photographer himself and produced by Graphic Visions of Burbank, Calif.

Not content with a random collection of pretty pictures, Saloutos arrayed the images to convey a sense of the changing seasons as the calendar pages turn.

That alone, he believes, separates his work from other scenic calendars flooding the market as the new year approaches.

“It’s one thing to have 13 beautiful images, but do they work together as a collection?” Saloutos said.

“Usually, the answer is no.”

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Panoramas

A new promotional calendar by island photographer Pete Saloutos is available for $20 at Roby King Gallery and the Bainbridge Aquatics Center. All proceeds go toward a new drinking-water purification system for the pool and completion of the facility’s sauna room. Information: 842-2302 or www.petesaloutos.com