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aerial photography — English
The process of taking photographs of the Earth’s surface from some height above the surface. An airphoto is a remotely sensed image of a portion of the Earth’s surface produced by a camera that takes a photograph (picture) from an aircraft. It is the oldest form of remotely sensed images of the Earth’s surface. The first airphotos were taken about 250 years ago by cameras mounted on airballoons. It was first used for military surveillance in the American Civil War (1861–1864). The same method of military surveillance was used by the British forces during the Second War of Independence (or the so-called “Anglo-Boer War”) in what was then the Republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State (in the present day South Africa) in 1899–1902. When aeroplanes were built, they were immediately used for photography from higher altitudes than the balloons could reach and larger portions of the Earth’s surface could be captured on every image. There are different types of airphotos, such as oblique, vertical, high altitude and low altitude photos and various combinations of the aforementioned. The best known and commonly used airphotos are the official vertical airphoto series which were published in many countries (including South Africa) and were freely available and used for a myriad of purposes. Airphoto analysis became a very sophisticated scientific technique, and when high-altitude, radar evading aircraft were developed, they offered an irresistible instrument for very high level photography of “non-friendly” territory. The photographs from these so-called “spy planes” and the most modern, super-high altitude, unmanned craft (called “drones”) necessitated the development of even more complicated analysis techniques to detect and recognise everything on the surface in enemy territory. Ordinary photographic images were largely superseded by the development of more sophisticated imaging techniques, but when needs be, ordinary airphotographs are still extensively used, as was done by the CIA (the Central Investigation Agency of the USA) in their search for Osama Bin Laden up to his ultimate demise in 2012.
