The Top 5 Aerial Photographers… ever

  By Guest Poster | March 26, 2012 - 9:15 am | Photography
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Aerial photography might be a feature of our daily lives we now take for granted but it is a relatively new art form with the first known image being taken in 1858.

French photographer Gaspar Felix Tournachon, known as Nadar, produced the first known aerial photograph from a tethered hot air balloon. The picture captured the French village of Petit-Becetre from a height of 80 metres and was developed using an innovative dark room on board the balloon.
These early photographs are no longer in existence but another, also from a hot air balloon, survived from 1860 when James Wallace Black and Samuel Archer King took a picture called Boston, as the Eagle and Wild Goose See It, from the air.

The first free flight balloon photos were captured by Triboulet over Paris in 1879.
In 1911, Russian military engineer Colonel Potte designed the first semi-automatic aerial camera which went on to be used on World War 1.

Other pilots such as Fred Zinn went on to further develop the use of aerial photographs for military use during the war years.

World War 1 veterans Francis Wills and Claude Graham White went on to form the first commercial aerial photography company, Aerofilms; Wills having worked as an observer with the Royal Naval Air Service and White as a pioneer aviator who became famous for having made the first night flight in 1910.
Their Aerofilms collection a total of 1.26 million negatives and 2000 albums – is now housed in the archive of National Monuments in Swindon.

Inventor Sherman Fairchild launched his own aircraft firm, Fairchild Aircraft, which designed and built aircraft to carry out high altitude survey work. By 1935, his craft carried specialist cameras capable of taking pictures at more than 20,000 feet, each covering more than 225 miles.

He won a government contract in 1938 to conduct an aerial survey of New Mexico to study the process of soil erosion. He later developed a more sophisticated high altitude camera with nine-lens in one unit able to take a photo of 600 square miles with each exposure from 30,000 feet.

Modern digital cameras enable people to take good quality amateur photographs from pleasure trips in planes and helicopters but the images are rarely as sharp as those captured by professional aerial photographers as they are taken typically through glass windows with an amount of engine vibration.
Professionals have captured amazing shots from above of animals, natural phenomena, construction, and feats of engineering; they have used pictures to show scale and contrast, colour and grandeur giving a perspective hard to glean from the ground. And while we stared wide eyed with admiration at their professionalism put into practice around the globe, it is still hard to beat seeing a photo of your own home from the air.

About the author: Ian Hay works for Above All Images, an aerial photography business.

How to take great aerial photographs

  By Guest Poster | February 16, 2012 - 9:03 am | Photography
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Aerial photography is a beautiful form of photography offering stunning images we cannot see in our everyday lives but it is also very difficult.

This art form has fascinated photographers since it was invented in the 19th century and has developed in line with technological advances for use in producing maps, film-making, environmental studies, surveillance and commercial imagery.

Many people try to capture aerial photographs as they fly to holiday destinations or over their home in private aircraft but the quality is often hampered by the fact the shot is taken through glass which adds reflections. An example of a holiday destination aerial photograph without reflection is this image of Caenarfon Castle in Wales.

From Above All Images

The best aerial photography comes from small aircraft; planes or helicopters which fly slower than commercial aircraft and where windows can be opened. Helicopters are preferable as they can hover lower to the ground than a fixed wing craft and early morning or late night offers the best light to capture your images.

A stabilizer can be used to prevent vibrations interfering with aerial photography but the best advice is to use the fastest shutter speed on your camera to avoid blurring. A professional zoom will allow more light into the camera, the lens can be used at faster shutter speeds and your images will be sharper. Below is an example of a sharp image taken at not such great height!

From Above All Images

Rely on your pilot to advise when visibility is at its best and take plenty of shots you might never see your subject matter from this angle again and the more images you have when you get back on terra firma, the more choice you have to select your perfect aerial photograph.

The Benefits of Going out on Scrapbooking Retreats

  By admin | January 25, 2012 - 8:30 pm | Scrapbooking
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Scrapbooking retreats offer a wide variety of valuable benefits to scrapbooking lover as well as those who desire to know a thing or two about scrapbooking. Among some of these valuable benefits includes access to some special supplies as well as outside creative inputs.
scrapbooking retreats
Just to give a brief definition, scrapbooking retreats are a week or weekend long event organized around the art of using photography in creating memory books. Such kind of gatherings could also involve instructional classes that are guided by experts on this particular subject as well as a time for participants to create memory books together. The events can either be hosted or un-hosted. This implies that a club or group can hire a scrapbooking professional to lead the retreat. But of course, scrapbooking fans can organize and lead their retreat and lead themselves without the assistance of an outside supervisor.