News & Articles

Find out about the latest news from NCAP and discover in-depth stories about NCAP collections, activities and projects.

A screenshot of the NCAP legacy website, with the NCAP logo visible top left, a menu of options in a blue banner across the top and a grid of tiles with more menu options across the body of the page.

NCAP Legacy Website Retired

As part of our ongoing commitment to cybersecurity, we retired the legacy ncap.org.uk website on 24 June 2025. Going forward our new platform – ncap.org – will be the gateway...

Read more
A black and white oblique aerial photo of a circular railway engine shed. A railway line stretches across the right-hand side of the image and the houses of a village are visible to the left.

Celebrating our Volunteers this Volunteers’ Week!

This Volunteers’ Week, we are highlighting the fantastic contribution our volunteers make to the National Collection of Aerial Photography’s mission to preserve and make accessible the 30 million aerial photographic...

Read more
A black and white aerial photo of the city of Dunkirk, with the coast just visible in the distance. Thick clouds of black and white smoke are billowing up from the city, being driven by the wind from left to right.

Operation Dynamo - Evacuating Dunkirk

Images held by the National Collection of Aerial Photography show key locations in the Allied pocket around Dunkirk, between 26 May and 4 June 1940, from where 85 years ago...

Read more
A colour aerial photo of an airfield. 4 Handley Page Victors painted with camouflage stripes are to the right, with 2 McDonnell-Douglas Phantoms painted grey to the left. A hangar is visible at the top of the frame and vehicles are dotted about.

Cold War Scotland

From 16-23 May 2025, The Cold War Network is bringing together historic sites across the UK for the first-ever Cold War National Heritage Week - a nationwide event dedicated to...

Read more
A black and white oblique aerial photo of a wide sandy beach. Lines of wooden constructions designed to trap tanks cover the beach, and several figures are visible running and hiding from the approach of the reconnaissance aircraft.

VE Day and the Crucial Role of Photographic Reconnaissance and Intelligence

Intelligence gathered from the aerial reconnaissance imagery now cared for by the National Collection of Aerial Photography played a critical, though often overlooked, role in bringing about the Allied victories...

Read more
A member of NCAP staff in a blue lab coat and wearing a patterned face mask examines a black and white photographic print within a fume hood.

How the Directorate of Overseas Surveys Collection Came to NCAP

This second article in our series for the exhibition ‘Reinterpreting the Directorate of Overseas Surveys’ looks at what happened to the DOS collection after operations ceased, and how the collection...

Read more
3 overlapping black and white vertical aerial photos of a volcanic crater. A mile scale runs along the bottom of the image.

The Story of the Directorate of Overseas Surveys

Digitising the Directorate of Overseas Surveys Collection has been the National Collection of Aerial Photography’s largest print preservation and digitisation project to date, but how did the Collection come to...

Read more
A black and white vertical aerial photo of a river delta. The main channel undulates along the bottom edge of the image, with smaller channels running above it.

Reinterpreting the Directorate of Overseas Surveys Collection

The Directorate of Overseas Surveys (DOS) commissioned aerial photography to create mapping of Commonwealth countries. A new exhibition illustrates the great potential of the DOS Collection (cared for by the...

Read more