High altitude baloon SlaRos Project

                     (photo: Island of Thassos, Greece, altitude:23.3 km)

Amateur high altitude aerial photography can by done by helium balloons.

A recent example is the SlaRos Project in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Details can be found at http://www.facebook.com/slaros.project

You may also have a look at http://arhab.org
(Amateur Radio High Altitude Ballooning)
aka "The poor mans space program"
to see that the current record is 43,721 meters or 143,442 ft