Amazing aerial photos

Aerial photography can produce unique shots that look different than any other ground shot you have ever taken...

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/21/75-eye-catching-examples-of-aerial-photography/

Helicopter aerial photography video.

A video tutorial that takes you on board a helicopter with a professional photographer on assignment;
includes information on composition, distance, horizons, pilot orders.

Have a look on youtube.com Total video time 7 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjSnrl8KzbA

Aerial Photographer joke

A photographer for a national magazine was assigned to take pictures of a great forest fire.
He was advised that a small plane would be waiting to fly him over the fire.

The photographer arrived at the airstrip, just an hour before sundown.

A small two-seat airplane was waiting.

He jumped in with his equipment and shouted, “Let’s go!”

The tense man sitting in the pilot’s seat swung the plane into the wind and soon they were in the air, though flying erratically.

“Fly over the north side of the fire,” said the photographer, “and make several low-level passes.”

“Why?” asked the nervous pilot.

“Because I’m going to take pictures!” yelled the photographer.

“I’m a photographer, and photographers take pictures.”

The pilot replied, “You mean you’re not the flight instructor?”

Removing dark spots from the sky or the sea.

One of the techniques you can use is "The History Brush Technique".

The Photoshop History Brush Tool technique allows you to clean up large areas of dirt quickly when the area to be cleaned contains very little detail e.g. the sky or other background area.

Go to Filter / Noise / Dust & Scratches... and choose a radius large enough to remove all the blemishes. The whole image will be blurred, but it's ok.

Select the History Brush and in the History Palette, click on the small square box on the left of the Dust & Scratches history. This sets the origin for the History Brush.

Now click in the previous History state, the larger rectangular box immediately above and to the right. This returns us to the unblurred image.

With the Mode set to "Lighten" paint over the dirt with the History Brush.

All traces of dirt will vanish.

Aerial Photography tips for beginners

Here are the basics of aerial photography.

Prices are in US$, everything else applies worldwide.

Aerial Photography tips

Do it Yourself Remote Shutter.

Here is something that could be useful in Pole Aerial Photography.

How to make a remote shutter release for your canon digital camera using a hands free.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Remote-shutter-trigger-for-Canon-Cameras

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Early specialist in Aerial Photography dies at 91

Don Ultang, an early specialist in aerial photography died on Sept. 18 in Iowa, where he lived. He was 91.

In 1952, Ultang and fellow photographer John Robinson were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a series of images showing a violent on-field assault against an African-American player during an American college football game. The event came to be known as the Johnny Bright Incident.

Donald Theodore Ultang graduated from the University of Iowa in 1939 with a degree in economics. As he was interested in photography, he was hired by an Iowa newspaper and shortly thereafter decided to learn to fly, signing up for a government-financed civilian pilot program.

Ultang joined the Navy during World War II and served as a flight instructor.

On his return, he persuaded the Iowa newspaper to buy a Beechcraft Bonanza plane for editorial use, like aerial photography.

He flew the airplane and took pictures while flying. He let go of the controls for about 5 seconds to shoot with a heavy Speed Graphix camera, before circling around for another take, often just a few hundred feet above the ground, keeping about 20 miles per hour extra air speed.

Many of his pictures were collected in "Holding the Moment: Mid-America at Mid-Century" (Iowa State Press, 1991).

The perfect aerial photography vehicle...

...is the "powered parachute" according to photographer Maxwell Mackenzie.

Read his story here: The flying photographer by Marianne Combs, Minnesota Public Radio.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/08/15/flyingphotographer/

Photography business may fly to Saudi Arabia

Canadian remote-controlled miniature helicopters may be used in an aerial photography contract in Saudi Arabia.

Read the story here: LOCAL FIRM APPLIES FOR CONTRACT IN SAUDI ARABIA

Aerial photographers killed in ANTONOV AN-2 crash near Moscow

A small plane conducting an aerial photography assignment crashed Friday near Moscow, killing all five people on board.

The Antonov An-2 crashed by the banks of the Oka River, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Moscow.

The single-engine biplane's crew of two and all three members of the aerial photography team died.

It seems that the plane fell from an altitude of between 1.5 and two kilometers (over a mile) and burst into flames when it hit the ground. Contact with the aircraft was lost 10 minutes after take-off.

Police started receiving calls about a falling plane at around 6:00 pm local time (14:00 GMT). Russian prosecutors have launched a full inquiry.


(In early June another An-2 plane engaged in crop spraying and operating under reduced visibility conditions, crashed in southern Russia's Stavropol region, killing the two pilots.)


Read the original news

AN-2 plane in Wikipedia

Aerial photos of Crop circles and the solution to the mystery.

Here are the original photos

Read four related posts about the solution to the mystery:

2008 Barbury Castle Pattern is Pi to 3.14159265358

Easy as pi: Astrophysicist solves riddle of Britain's most complex crop circle

Wiltshire crop circle identified as symbolic code for first ten places of pi

Most complex crop circle ever discovered in British fields

Klaus Leidorf. Aerial Photographer in Germany, EU

Klaus Leidorf is a German aerial archaeologist flying a CESSNA 172 in Germany.

Read about him at popphoto.com:

He's got a strong eye for geometry and landscapes, which you can admire in his collection of aerial photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/leidorf

His personal website (in german) is www.leidorf.de

Aerial photographer honored with Boston Post Cane at 93

Here's the story Laurence Lowry, a 93yo aerial photographer living in Hamilton, MA, USA http://www.wickedlocal.com/wenham/archive/x1498096627

Do it yourself orthophotography

Do it yourself orthophotography in an Alaskan village mapping project.

What you need is a helicopter, a digital camera and photo-modeling software.

Very interesting!

Download the article here (Adobe acrobat pdf file)

Benefactor & aerial photographer Mary Meader dies at age 91

Mary Upjohn Meader, a longtime Western Michigan University benefactor and director emerita of the WMU Foundation, died March 16 in Kalamazoo. She was 91.

As a young woman in 1937, Meader flew over both South America and Africa took a treasure trove of aerial photos that are still being used by scholars today.

Representatives of the American Geographical Society asked Meader to sign the historic Flyers' and Explorers' Globe twice to mark those momentous flights.

You can view some of the photos she's taken here and here.

To read about her click here.

Aerial Photos in National Geographic

Beautiful aerial shots (National Geografic).

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photos/patterns-island-aerials.html


http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photos/patterns-aerial-views.html

Aerial photography as a tool for the archaeological research

The remains of the Via Egnatia between Amphipolis and Philippoi in Greece were found using aerial photos of the region.

Four researchers of the Department of Cadastre, Photogrammetry and Cartography, Aristotles University of Thessaloniki, Greece, found buried archaeological remains with the aid of the Pan-sharpened (fused) image Quickbird-2.

The full paper with photos is located here: http://www.isprs.org/istanbul2004/comm7/papers/202.pdf

David Maisel exhibition. Santa Barbara Museum of Art

until April 27, 2008

These large scale images by San Francisco-based photographer David Maisel are printed as negatives rather than positives, providing views of the city. These photographs provide x-rays of a city’s anatomy making them all the more frightening as claustrophobic expanses.

More details here. The museum's homepage is here.

How to choose an aerial photographer...

...or an aerial photography company

Read about all the details that make the difference here.

World War II aerial reconnaissance archive.

Looking for Second World War aerial reconnaissance photos? Here they are.

The internationally important archive of WW2 Allied and German aerial photographic imagery is moving to Edinburgh (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland).