Feb 7, 2012

Get a bird’s-eye view of the history of your farm

Vintage Aerial, Perrysburg, Ohio, offers a look into the past from an angle few get to see. The company specializes in digitized prints taken from aerial photographs. The photos started being taken in 1952 from a two-seater prop plane for the original company, State Aerial. The new company is storing the massive film collection of more than 25 million photos from across the country, and is working to digitize all of the old photos.

“These pictures tell stories,” said Lance Roper, the director of operations for Vintage Aerial. “We decided we want to preserve these photos in a digital format.”

Vintage Aerial’s old photos were organized by box. Each box has 5,000 images in it, and there are hundreds of boxes, Roper said. While selling prints is an option, when someone requests to see a photo of a farm, Vintage Aerial digitizes all the film from one roll. The selected farm is then shown to the potential customer by online appointment.

“We can find the farm by description and basic location, but having the address is best, of course,” Roper said. “We have images from 44 states and we may have images of your farm. We are happy to check out records and see and there is no cost to preview a photo.”

Vintage Aerial has been getting a pretty good response since it started in 2009. Many of the farms it has images of are dramatically different than they were just a short time ago. Due to urban sprawl, weather events and other causes, more than 40 percent of the farms they have images of are no longer there, Roper said.

While selling prints is a major part of the business now, Vintage Aerial plans to do more with the images. The company is looking to collaborate with museums, and even to book options that will share the pictures with everyone.

On Vintage Aerial’s website, there is a page for people to tell the story that goes along with the photo of their farm.

“These pictures tell stories,” Roper said. “We want to be able to share these stories with everyone. It is part of the rich history of this country.”

For more information or to see if they have images of your farm, go to Vintage Aerial's website.

By Derrek Sigler, Assistant Editor