Leicestershire, UK, August 5, 2015 — Thousands of aerial photographs, dating back more than seventy years, are now available online. Visitors to www.blueskymapshop.com can now search, view and download images from the Old Aerial Photos collection, which includes some of the earliest commercial aerial survey images, military photographs as well as many national archives.
Offering a record of most major UK cities and towns, transport and utility infrastructure and commercial property developments, the images are an invaluable resource for anyone with a personal or professional interest in local studies, genealogy, boundary disputes, environmental land use research or town planning.
“Our Mapshop is already established as to the ‘go to’ place for modern aerial photography, with multiple dates of imagery available for the whole of England, Scotland and Wales,” says Rachel Tidmarsh, Managing Director of Bluesky. “The addition of the Old Aerial Photos archive was therefore the next step. Complementing the modern images, as well as the other map layers available, this archive is a really interesting and valuable resource for a range of applications.”
The Old Aerial Photos archive of historic aerial images includes around 100,000 individual images dating back to the 1960s. The newly available images include archives from some of the forerunners of today’s aerial photography industry as well as photographs from the UK military. Visitors to www.blueskymapshop.com can also access archive images from more familiar names such as Infoterra, GeoPerspectives and SCRAN (formerly BLOM).
The online archive can be searched using a postcode, street or city name, or Ordnance Survey grid reference. Once the Old Aerial Photos option has been selected the Bluesky Mapshop viewer window then displays small camera icons for each image available within the search area. Clicking on an icon displays a preview of the aerial image as well as information about the photograph including when it was taken.
By clicking through to the ‘Choose your product’ page, the visitor can get an overview of all products available within the search area before selecting the Old Aerial Photos option. Details of each image, including scale, date and price, are displayed and the visitor can choose different purchase options, such as Standard Scan or Archive Pack, accompanying Letter of Authenticity, Printed Version and Delivery Option.
