"This rarely seen image of the city of San Fransisco lying in ruins after the devastating earthquake of 1906 was captured by an ingenious photographer using a camera attached kites. 

The panoramic shot, which is of outstanding quality considering the basic equipment available, shows the full scale of the disaster which claimed the lives of over 3,000, injured 225,000 and caused $400,000,000 worth of property damage.

Commercial photographer George Lawrence, who used home-made large format cameras, was well known at the time for his wide angle photographs of banqueting groups, national political conventions, and state legislature sessions."

"Remember life before GPS? Instead of to-the-minute maps and turn-by-turn directions to the tune of an Australian woman's voice, we relied on compasses and hand drawn maps.<br />
<br />
Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg compiled Civitates Orbis Terrarum, a book of bird's eye view maps from the 16th century.<br />
<br />
Take a look at how the Google Maps of the 1500s compares to today's version, in some of the world's biggest cities."

"Snap aerial photos from 300' up by suspending a hacked drugstore camera from 3 tethered helium balloons."