Everyone has a story. And Peter Southwick believes that he can find something interesting, and worth sharing, about anyone.

Southwick has been coming to Boothbay for 35 years, mostly during the summers, and feels a strong bond to the community and its people.

A visual journalist, Southwick was an Associated Press staff photographer in Boston for 10 years, and director of photography at The Boston Globe for nine. For the last 12 years he has taught visual journalism as an associate professor at Boston University.

After seeing a New York Times multimedia series, a collection of stories about everyday people called “One in Eight Million,” an idea began to formulate in his mind.

“I don't remember how long ago ‘One in Eight Million’ came out, but I saw it and was immediately captivated,” Southwick said. “I love that kind of storytelling, and it occurred to me that it would be cool to do something like that on a small town.

After some discussion with his wife, Southwick started coming up with a plan: to do a series of multimedia profiles of interesting people in the community that he calls home for part of each year.

“I had been teaching at Boston University for 12 years and had never really thought about taking a sabbatical before,” he said. “Sabbaticals are traditionally much more strictly academic in nature, where you take a certain period of time to do research, or write a book. Plus I love teaching, so it never occurred to me that I should get away from it for six months.”

Southwick applied for, and to his surprise was granted, a sabbatical from BU for the fall 2014 term. His plan was to stay in his home in Boothbay from the end of May through Christmas.

His hope was to create an overall portrait of the community, similar to “One in Eight Million.”

“That's sort of the template for this one,” he said. “Obviously it needs to look different because it's not New York, it's Boothbay Harbor.”

Southwick said he started taking pictures when he was around nine.

“My father had a darkroom in the basement and I started snooping around and saying, 'What's all this stuff?' He set it up and I was hooked.”

He learned how to develop film and his first paying job was in a photo lab.

Unlike some seasoned photographers, Southwick said he has no nostalgia for the days of developing photographs in a dark room.

“You can sit in a well-lighted room listening to music and do things with keystrokes, or you can stand in a smelly, dark room inhaling fumes, taking forever to do something that would take five seconds on a computer,” he said. “I have no desire to go back to that.”

Southwick started working on his profiles in June and had pretty much completed the photo shooting and interviewing by the beginning of December.

He said some of his choices for profiles were skeptical about his ability to pull something worthy of a story from them. Their responses were similar: “Why would you want to do a story about me?”

But he was convincing.

“When I explained it they all said. 'OK, well that sounds like an interesting project. I can't promise you that you're going to find a great story in me, but you're welcome to tag along and I'll be happy to talk to you.”

“And they were all great,” he said. “These are everyday people. You don't have to be a professional athlete or a movie star to have an interesting story. People were very welcoming.”

Southwick said what he loved most about his project was getting to know his subjects, and learning that things aren't always as they seem.

“I.J. Pinkham is much more multi-faceted than you might think,” Southwick said. “You think high school basketball coach, and you have a stereotype in your mind. He's not a stereotype. Stereotypes are almost always erroneous.”

Southwick headed back to Boston at the end of December to teach, and to edit his project. There will be no music or sound added to Southwick's finished piece.

“It's going to be their voices, and natural sound. For Cathy (Sherrill)'s profile there will be background music from a concert at the Opera House, and for Danny (Beal) I have some of his performances.”

And for Bet (Finocchiaro)?

“I've got her interview, but I also have that deafening roar of the fryolator and all the yelling back and forth.”

Southwick hopes to have the project launched by late spring or early summer, but said he has no plans for it to end there.

“I have no intention of leaving it with the 11 or 12 people I've done so far,” he said. “I hope to have at least twice that many. I want to have it up online so people can see it, and I'll continue adding to it as time goes on.”

The project, which doesn't have a name yet, will have its own website.

“My goal is not to make this a viral piece,” Southwick said. “I'd love for lots of people to see it, but mostly it's for the people here, in this community.”

The finished piece will be mostly in black and white.

“I haven't worked in black and white in a long, long time, and that's one thing I am nostalgic for,” Southwick said. “I love black and white photography. So I committed to doing the whole thing in black and white, until I met June Elderkin.”

Southwick said he couldn't turn Elderkin's world into black and white. “She'll be in color. How can you drain the color from this brilliant artist who sees the world in such vibrant colors?”

Other than Beal, Sherrill and Finocchiaro, the other locals who will be starring in Southwick's project are: Nancy and Peter Gilchrist, Lee Stoddard, Clive Farrin, I.J. Pinkham, June Elderkin, Stephanie Hawke, Sarah Foulger and Ramona Gaudette.

When Southwick isn't in Boothbay he lives in Arlington, Massachusetts with his wife, Jean Rosenberg.