Does anyone here have expertise on aerial photos?
 

I'm struggling with trying to find an historical (c. 1990-1995) aerial photo of a residential lot in El Paso.

We have found some photos, but nothing that shows our site close enough. My boss is insisting that there are photos out there "the government's been spying on us for years and they have photos where you can read the license plates off the cars." But I can't find them.

I'm getting frustrated working with the government websites (Dept. of Agriculture, USGS, e.g.) because they are oriented toward scientific data research and it's very technical.

So I just thought I'd ask if anyone here has helpful knowledge in this area.

your boss is sort of correct about the technology available to the government vis-a-vis reading license plates from a few miles away. He
s a bit paranoid to think that the entire earth is routinely photographed at that resolution, regularly updated and archived then made available on an "as needed" basis to us regular citizens.

I'd start by calling any local or regional aerial photographers and asking if they have any "Stock" images of the area in question from that time frame.

www.historicaerials.com has a ton of old imagery for free, but its coverage of El Paso is no good.

When you go to Google Earth (if you have that program installed) you can click "Historical Imagery" under the "View" menu, and then you can see your options for images going back into the early 90s. They have coverage of El Paso that goes back that far.

I've bought images from USGS before and they do not have the high resolution images your boss is talking about.

yeah, we have tried/are trying all that (local pilots, Google Earth, etc.). We hired a service to search, and they have obtained some interesting photos (from USGS), but the closest useful scale is 1:500, and he's insisting there's better stuff out there. He's driving me crazy!

Resolution has improved a lot in the past 20 years. Public GIS (to my knowledge) is completely separate from any sort of state surveillance. And storage was expensive back then: even if they panned past the house, why take a photo? Why keep them?

Your best bet is to get in touch with some state or county GIS group, and ask really nicely if they'll hook you up. Most people involved (the few that I've met, anyway) understand that GIS is really confusing to anyone not in the business, and will just hook you up instead of trying to make you learn it.

Links to State GIS data resources

Have you tried the KGB?

Good point. KGB would have better pictures than we would.

Esp since there is a large military base there.

If you go to the NSFW threads, there are a few photographers good with areola photos.

Probably the images haven't been digitized. Try City Hall. There are likely a load of aerial photos that were actually taken by a guy in a plane with a camera mounted on it.

And the geography department of your local university. They will have a load of old images. That's how I learned aerial photo interp ... actually had a class in it. Another good source might be USGS. They base their quads on aerial and satellite imagery. Check to see if any of your local libraries are designated for government document storage. They might have stuff too.

we've already explored local govt, local pilots, and the USGS. But the UTEP geology dept. is a good lead-we'll try that. thanks!

Geography. The geology department will sow you photos of rocks.

well, the earth is a rock, isn't it?

yes, yes, geography.

The Geology Dept probably has aerial photos too ... great for looking at waterflow and distribution, land contours, etc. Even if Cloud misspoke, it's still a decent idea.

Oh, and check smallish civilian airports. They typically have a couple of guys who love to shoot photos, and might keep an archive.

an ad in the local paper, or is this all on the QT?