O/T: Vintage Aerial Photos

Anonymous-0 · Dec 14, 2008

Came home the other day, and there was an ad on my door from a place that sells vintage aerial photos of farms. Said they had a good quality aerial photo of my place from 1974.

I called them up, but the proices seemed kind of steep (couple hundred bucks for a framed photo), and the salesman was a little pushy.

Got me thinking though--I kinda would like to get my hands on an old aerial photo of the place and see what it looked like back in the 70's. Is any of that stuff out there in the public domain? Any idea where those "vintage aerial" companies get their hands on the photos?

in-too-deep · Dec 14, 2008

Ask him what he'd sell the file on a CD or a small print for. Let a frame shop do the rest.

Anonymous-0 · Dec 14, 2008

Found this site, you have to download a viewer for the photos, I have not had success yet. Arial photos from 1938-1941 for Illinois. May be a bit older than you wanted. Let me know if you get it to work for you. Jim

http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/nsdihome/webdocs/ilhap/

Anonymous-0 · Dec 14, 2008

Yeah, that thought crossed my mind. I think he said something like $50 for a CD. And at that point, he was getting pretty pushy, which turned me off from the whole deal.

noncompos · Dec 14, 2008

Check with your county surveyors office; they may"ve been using aerials in their assessment work, and, if so, could possibly get you a pic for a reasonable cost. Believe they began to come available in the 70"s, so 74 sounds right, and they may well have a couple more sets by now.
If your place lapped over one shot into two or three, you should be able to splice them if there"s not too much distortion at the edges.
Good luck.

GeneMO · Dec 14, 2008

Check with you local county Farm Service agency office. I worked for them in the mid 70's. They kept black and whites of the whole county. In the early 80's they went to color slides, but every 5 or 6 years would get a new set of the black and whites. For their digitizer to accurately measure acres off of the color slides,you still needed the black and white photos. You had to find 4 corresponding point on the color, then the same 4 on the B&W. Enter that into the machine, then you could measure the acreage direct off of the color slide as it was projected on the backside of a piece of glass on the machine. I know when I was there they had black and whites going all the way back to the 30's

You could also order you own from a govt. agency in Salt Lake City.

I dont think they keep any large B&W anymore as satelite photos on the internet have made them obsolete. If you know someone in those offices you could probably talk them out of them. If they still have the color slides they used in the 80's you can get copies made.

The NRCS office might be another source and in the same building.

I have the large B&W's of our places that were taken in 1958. Fun to compare things.

Good luck,, Gene

Walt Davies · Dec 14, 2008

I have a 1971 picture of my farm it was featured for Polk county, Oregon in a book that I have.
Walt

Dave from MN · Dec 14, 2008

My 2 cents... a few hundred for a photo of something that can never be taken again, get it, you wont regret it. most people will blow a few hundred on things that they will lose in a year and forget about.

davpal · Dec 14, 2008

Dad got one of our farm from around the early 70's or late 60's. I didn't even know he had it until one day he pulled it out. Was a painting made from a picture. It was really strange to see this place 40 years ago right in front of you. Don't realize how much it has changed and stayed the same all at the same time. I think he paid more than $200. Might have been almost $400. It was sure worth it though. He seemed to be pretty happy with it. I thought it was really slick.

Anonymous-0 · Dec 14, 2008

In additon to the county assessor's office and local FSA, try www.historicmapworks.com under geocode section they sometimes have OLD aerials.

navybean · Dec 14, 2008

The photos were probably taken by a local who owned an airplane and took the pics to make a little money. It was a very popular thing in the 70s-80s and I have one of my place.

Remember that you have them by the balls on the price as you are the only customer for that picture.

Have them frame a picture up and bring it by for you to look at, let them know if you like it you will make an offer on the price, offer $50.00 at the most.

2x4 · Dec 14, 2008

GeneMo has the method I used to get air photos of my land. About $15.00 for 22"x22" starting in 1939 & running roughly every 10 years.

ericlb · Dec 14, 2008

they are neat to have, i have one of my grandparents place in ill, taken in the late 30's early 40's by the car in the photo and the buildings present, its a little nostalgic though out of 9 or 10 buildings, depending on what qualifies as a building,[ ones a 2 holer] only the milk shed, the big barn [ old time wooden one] and 2 machine sheds are still present today, the barn is standing, so far, and the rest have been upgraded to metal buildings or simply torn down as farming needs changed thru the years

tractormiallis · Dec 14, 2008

Blue, your story sounds a lot like the guy which stopped by my grandparents farm one day back in May here in michigan. This guy was from some group that does aerial photos. He was selling one from 1972. I was the only one there and he was extremely pushy. The photo was neat, and he had many assortments of frames, but like you said 150-200 bucks for a nice size. Would not be surprised if it was the same company. I turned him down of course after I finally got him away as I took his card and told him I could not decide on a deal that day.

Anonymous-0 · Dec 14, 2008

Guy showed up at my door with a framed photo in his hand. I let him in - he said he'd take $100 for the arial photo of the farm. I got him by the elbow and started him for the door. The closer to the door we got, the cheaper the photo became. As we were going out the door, he said he'd take $20 for the photo, but had to keep the oak frame. I said I'd give him $20 for photo, frame and all. He said OK, but don't tell the neighbors. . .

Neighbors got the same deal. I actualy like my neighbors, and I'd never seen this guy before. . .

In retrospect - he might have sold for $10.

Paul

Don-Wi · Dec 15, 2008

Had one come by my folks place a couple years back with a picture he took of our farm that year. The buildings looked kinda crappy and it was wet & muddy so it wasn't the best of pictures. He started somewhere aorund $150 or 200, went all the way down to $20 and my mom just said no and turned him away.

My brother a couple days later was talking about how this guy came to his door (2 houses over) and how he got him talked down to $50 and he bought it. My mom just kinda looked at him and said "you Dumbasss- I had him down to 20 and I refused".

Took him a little while to get over that one...

There is one of our farm from the 40's if I remember right. It's a B&W that was painted over in color and it looks really sharp. Sure has changed since then...

Donovan from Wisconsin

CJ3b_jeep · Dec 15, 2008

Anything over $125 or so seems like a lot to me. Anything under seems pretty reasonable. Airplane time is expensive, prints are not that cheap, cameras to take that kind of image are not cheap, frames are not cheap. I'll bet the photographer had more than $20 in the frame alone. I'd love to have a photo like that. I know the guy who owns an 1830 log cabin that used to be on our property, I've seen photos of it, but would like some copies of it. I keep bugging him, but he has not given them to me yet.

LEH · Dec 15, 2008

You are right Dave, time travel is not cheap!!

Steven f/AZ · Dec 15, 2008

Those aerial picture guys stop by the farm every year to sell us pictures. Last year there were two different companies doing it, one picture was really poor and the other one was really good. We usually keep saying no until they get down to about $100 for three 8x10 pics plus a CD with a large jpg file on it.

Here's three that I have:
Early 70's:

Early 2000's:

2005:

gitrib · Dec 15, 2008

We have one aerial of my wifes home place about 18 x 24 inch. Must be from early 50's. Have several fom my great grandparent that go back to 1910. These were done by professional Photographers. Usually the house with someone on the porch. These are wonderful if you get into your genology. girib

RWK in WI · Dec 15, 2008

U.S.G.S. ( United States Geological Survey ) generally took aerial photos of all of U S back before and after WW II to make topographical maps.
Copies of these were generally these were available to the public. If I remember the cost wasn't too bad.
You might try contacting them through US govt. website.

Blue3992 · Dec 16, 2008

Gents, thanks for all of the advice. I'll have to dig around and see what I can come up with.

I probably would have bought the picture from the fella if he wouldn't have been so pushy. Pushy sales tactics drive me up the wall.

O/T: Vintage Aerial Photos

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