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If you like that kind of stuff. Google for Alex S. Maclean. He takes great Aerial photo's. I have some of his photo's; unfortunatley they are expensive.

My in-laws have an aerial photo of their farm on their mantel. Its fun for the grandkids to see how the farm and its buildings spreads out. You can distinctly see my husband's childhood bike in the photo, which makes him (not-so) secretly happy.

"Does anyone else remember aerial photographers selling bird's-eye-view paintings of people's homes door-to-door?"

People actually did that unsoliticed?

Oh my gosh my parents and my grandparents have aerial view pictures of their houses from a salesman knocking on their door. I think that it is really cute, I never thought about how it is really outdated now... interesting post.

My parents have a farm, and they must have a half-dozen aerial photos of the homestead taken over the last 80 years. The oldest one is hand-colored, and as far as they know, dates from when my great-grandparents built the house in the 1920s.

my parents have one of these on their wall, photograph not painting.

I remember my dad liking it so much since they flew over after we had left for vacation, so the lawn was just mowed, no trash out, the house looked in perfect condition.

It actually looks pretty cool since we have a front yard bigger then a football field and my dad mows it in a checkerboard pattern. Pristine lawn. I doubt with sat images online you could get a good enough shot of your house...

Plus aerial isn't like sat, its more of a 3/4 view where as sat is straight down, or close to it.

Might be just a midwest thing and kind of outdated but it's still kind of cool to have it as a record.

bepsf - Yeah, they would come to the door with a cheap printout of your house, completely unsolicited, and if you placed an order, the final was shipped to you. I guess the number of pieces they sold paid for their flights and they just snapped all the houses they flew over while they were in the air. They would come by with a photo where you could see, for instance, water on the driveway and my dad would say, "Ah, that was taken when I washed the car a couple of weeks ago". Things like that. It seems so weird now - I would be very surprised if this still happens.

my grandma and grandpa always had these, of both their house and their farmland. :)

I don't think it's limited to the midwest. My great aunt has one and she's in southern Virginia. I used to think it was so cool when I was little. Hers is a painting that was done from the photograph and you can see how much the land has changed over the years. I think she had hers done in the late 60's, but I'm not really sure. I love these! I only think they look good in rural areas though. Suburbia, not so much.

I'm pretty sure a salesman tried to sell my parents an aerial photo of their farm just a few years ago. I thought it was really strange that someone is still doing that.

My parents have one hanging in the hall. Kind of interesting, but yes, with Google Earth, you can look up a photo of your place anytime now.

My parents totally have one of our place in the early 90's!

My parents bought an aerial photo of their house years ago, at some point in the mid-90s, I think. The salesman was very nice and they left it up to us to make the final decision. I voted 'yes' because the guy looked so desperate.

The end result was kind of fun (again, this was before google earth took the shine off these things). The house was in a suburban development, so the houses were similar in size and shape and the developer had planted the same trees in front of everyone's house. Of course, the meaning of the photograph changed for me once I got into my angsty, anti-corporate teens.

I just saved my parent's 'painting' from the yard sale! My dad had gotten it thru the divorce years ago and he was cleaning house and knows how sentimental I am and gave it to me - I move soon and have got to find the perfect place for it!

I think for the most part it is a rural thing, not necessarily just a Midwestern. I am pretty sure I have seen aerial photos of farms in other countries, displayed in much the same way as here. Of course now that they shoot digitally they might be able to pull off doing some denser locations, but would they sell? Farms usually stay in one family for generations, building up stories (history) and pride in evolution of the farm (or at least its main buildings. Which are really the fun of looking at these images, kind of a combo of 'Where is waldo' and 'can you find what's different'. My parents farm have aerials from when my dad first took over the farm and up through a few years ago (Tornado took everything right before he took over from his grandfather, I do not know of any surviving images from before). As a kid I was always fascinated by all of the changes that took place, the images covered every 5- 10 years, though I believe the photographers came buy every couple of years. You can actually see us in the some of the images out doing various tasks. But usually the conversations revolve around when a building was built, a roof taken by a tornado, new or old truck or implement. They always bring out stories from my aunts and uncles at family gatherings, pretty entertaining.

I believe they still do come around every few years, as someone else already said it is an angle and quality you don't get with satellite images. Though they might be feeling a loss of interest, I noticed that the last few images my parents bought came with a ridiculously cheesy frame, usually a desperate move!!!

That happened to us once--one summer night when I was a teenager, a guy came knocking on our door with this huge aerial picture of our house. I remember it vividly because there I was in the picture, sunbathing in my bikini on our deck. Not sure whether my top was on... nonetheless, my parents definitely did not purchase the photo. We thought it was creepy.

Thanks for sharing.. well written post.
Regards
SBL
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