News & Articles

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

A historic colour vertical aerial photo of a volcanic crater. The surface of the crater looks gritty and dusty.

Image Release Note 0003: NCAP Upload

This release showcases over 46,000 aerial images from UK and international survey archives, documenting decades of geographic, strategic, and environmental change across the UK, Europe, and global regions.

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A historic black and white vertical aerial photo of a densely packed city. The sea is visible in the bottom right corner heavily dotted with vessels.

Image Release Note 0002: NCAP Upload

This release combines global DOS coverage from the 1940s–1990s with modern UK survey imagery, offering a decades-spanning visual archive of international and domestic landscapes.

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Two people sit at a desk in front of a screen. The screen has a historic black and white aerial photo on it. Out of focus in the foreground is a woman with red hair writing with a pen. In focus in the background is a man in a light grey jumper.

An Update on our Website Transition

In this update, we share important news about the retirement of our legacy website and the exciting developments underway for our new online platform. Learn why the transition was necessary...

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A historic black and white photo of a man in uniform sitting at a desk. On the desk in front of him is a map and a model of train carriages. He is looking down at the surface of the desk through a small stereoscope.

Aerial Photography and the Science of Stereoscopy

21 June marked Stereoscopy Day, an international celebration of three-dimensional stereoscopic viewing, something which applies to almost all of the images held by the National Collection of Aerial Photography. 

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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