http://www.oldaerialphotos.com/History_of_Aerial_Photography.cfm
the oldest conserved aerial photograph.
(fig. 3)
Long before airplanes travelled across the skies, aerial pictures took off by means of balloons and kites. Since then, kite and photography enthusiasts around the world have kept the spirits and the pictures high, producing photographs of amazing quality.
it isn’t completely ridiculous to suspend an $800 camera from a kite(…) Be sure to see my 360° virtual reality (VR) panoramas taken from a kite’s eye view.
Scott Haefner, an accomplished professional photographer, puts his skills to good use in obtaining crisp detailed pictures that are always delightful to look at. He has devised an innovative use of the fish-eye lens by which he combines two pictures, one taken from the kite and the other from the ground, to render a series of 360-degree panoramas (in quicktime or java) that literally suspend you in mid air -and eventually will suspend your disbelief in magic when you start asking yourself where’s the back of the kite… or the photographer!
Make sure that you take a look as his ground photos, too -they are also fantastic.