Arthur Batut, 1888
The first kite aerial photographs were taken by a British meteorologist called Douglas Archibald in 1887 and Arthur Batut in Labruguière (France) in 1888. you can see one of the early pictures from Batut here:
Other pioneers
Manned kite flying and aerial photography was advanced also by French Marcel Maillot, British Robert Baden-Powell, Americans Charles Lamson and William Abner Eddy, Australian Lawrence Hargrave (inventor of box kite in 1893 and kite train in 1884) and French Captain Saconney.
San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
There is a famous kite image of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. You can see this photograph below. It was taken by George Lawrence using a large panoramic camera and stabilizing rig (or Picavet) he designed.
Equipment: Automatic Lifting rig, 1912-1913
Henry Wellcome’s photographic automatic kite trolley aerial camera deivce used at Jebel Moya, Sudan, 1912-1913.
Souvenirs
They also used KAP pictures for souvenirs, here u see one on a post card
KAP Today
Equipment, kites, lines,… they al’ve gone trough a transformation.
The things used today you can find in the different topics on my site
source: Wikipedia
