Author: Put Armstrong

Not Resolutions, Just Need to Do Stuff

Aviation, Photography

Get healthy! Get strong!

Redo the lighthouse portion of this website. It’s a mess, I used different image galleries, different means of displaying the pictures. Should I organize them geographically or perhaps photogenically? A few 2022 calendars were printed, but they need some supporting material such as location and history of the lighthouses.

For 2022 I had planned to aerial photograph the 14 +4K mountain peaks in Maine. I’ll work on that. My sister also suggested some sort of aerial travelogue about the Kennebec and Androscoggin Rivers. That would be fun and give me an opportunity to work on my video as well as my still photography skills.

But first, I need to get healthy and I need to get strong.

Happy New Year!

Okay, Time to Move On

Uncategorized

My first flight, post op, was on Dec 29, 2021. Since my medical is being held up due to the surgery, I’m flying again with CFI’s. That works well, since I can concentrate on imaging. We went out to the Camden Hills area to look at the toboggan run. Didn’t see anything worth taking pictures of, just long lines for the lift. On the way back to BXM we circled North Pond over Warren. There we found partially frozen pond with lots of springs making interesting patterns in the ice. Here are some examples.

North Pond, Warren, Maine
North Pond, Warren, Maine
North Pond, Warren, Maine

What a Fall

Uncategorized

What a fall, hospitalized for intestinal surgery that turned out to be much more complex than originally planned. My three to five day stay turned into 11 days. All I can say is hospitals stays are no fun, but the folks at Maine Medical Center are outstanding.

Since then I’ve been recovering at home. There has been zero problems with the actual surgery, but my digestive system is a mess. Not unexpected, it just takes time for things to sort themselves out.

All this has given me lots of time to think about priorities. Walking and hiking are very high, imaging is a middle priority on that list, flying is no longer much of a priority. So, I think some major changes will be forth coming in my life. If interested, stay tuned.

Finished photographing most of the lighthouses near Mount Desert Island

Aerial views, Coast, Lighthouse, Uncategorized

Thanks to may trusty Copilots, Eric and Jakob, who fly the plane when I am taking pictures, we now have images of most of Maine’s lighthouses in the vicinity of Mount Desert and Vinalhaven Islands. That’s not to say the editing/processing and posting of those pictures are done, just that the raw images have been captured. Along the way, we have GoPro cameras taking some videos of the flight. These also need to be processed. Much work remains, but I enjoy doing it.

Here are some previews of the lighthouses around Vinalhaven.

My latest video flying the northern part of Penobscot Bay.

Northern Penobscot Bay

Photography, River

We flew up over Penobscot Bay, Maine to the Penobscot River and the Penobscot Narrows Bridge on May 15. I’ll put together a short video of the flight, but in the meantime, here is a clip of us flying over Ilseboro. Several more lighthouses on the Bay were photographed using a high rez camera and long lens.

Up to Eastport and back again

Aerial views, Coast, Lighthouse

On Monday, Jakob and I flew 93R Downeast all the way to Eastport, Maine. The weather was great, the photography so-so, the video was okay until the GoPro failed and the worst part was that the nose gear would not extend. We flew back to Brunswick and manually extended the gear. It took many more than 20 pumps to get the nose gear down. Grr!!!

So, I created a short video with the footage on hand. We’ll be making another trip, once KEPM reopens after their runways are repaired in late summer, early fall. Until then, enjoy this video:

I’ll work on a Downeast section for the lighthouse pages and then return to work on the Penbscot Bay and Mount Desert Island sections.