ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the conceptual, methodological, and technical issues around the use of aerial photography to make measurements, the use of photography for analysis, and the role of aerial photography in the conceptual development of land systems analysis. The use of aerial photography, particularly after World War Two, completely changed this situation for reasons examined in what follows. The chapter outlines the development of these technologies of aerial photography in different national and institutional contexts. The chapter shows that, whilst there was an element of common origin in the effects of two world wars upon advances in air-borne photographic technology, the technological approaches employed in solving those problems differed by country. It is helpful to understand the technological questions and solutions behind aerial photography not as universal shared solutions easily wrought but as the product of particular institutional, physical, and interpretive human geographies.
