Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography.

Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or "drones"), balloons, blimps and dirigibles, rockets, pigeons, kites, or using action cameras while skydiving or wingsuiting. Handheld cameras may be manually operated by the photographer, while mounted cameras are usually remotely operated or triggered automatically.

Aerial photography typically refers specifically to bird's-eye view images that focus on landscapes and surface objects, and should not be confused with air-to-air photography, where one or more aircraft are used as chase planes that "chase" and photograph other aircraft in flight. Elevated photography can also produce bird's-eye images closely resembling aerial photography (despite not actually being aerial shots) when telephotoing from high vantage structures, suspended on cables (e.g. Skycam) or on top of very tall poles that are either handheld (e.g. monopods and selfie sticks), fixed firmly to the ground (e.g. surveillance cameras and crane shots) or mounted above vehicles.

Aerial photography was first practiced by the French photographer and balloonist Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, known as "Nadar", in 1858 over Paris, France. However, the photographs he produced no longer exist and therefore the earliest surviving aerial photograph is titled 'Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It.' Taken by James Wallace Black and Samuel Archer King on October 13, 1860, it depicts Boston from a height of 630m.

Kite aerial photography was pioneered by British meteorologist E.D. Archibald in 1882. He used an explosive charge on a timer to take photographs from the air. The same year, Cecil Shadbolt devised a method of taking photographs from the basket of a gas balloon, including shots looking vertically downwards. One of his images, taken from 2,000 feet (610 m) over Stamford Hill, is the earliest extant aerial photograph taken in the British Isles. A print of the same image, An Instantaneous Map Photograph taken from the Car of a Balloon, 2,000 feet high, was shown at the 1882 Photographic Society exhibition.

Frenchman Arthur Batut began using kites for photography in 1888, and wrote a book on his methods in 1890. Samuel Franklin Cody developed his advanced 'Man-lifter War Kite' and succeeded in interesting the British War Office with its capabilities.

In 1908, Albert Samama Chikly filmed the first ever aerial views using a balloon between Hammam-Lif and Grombalia. The first use of a motion picture camera mounted to a heavier-than-air aircraft took place on April 24, 1909, over Rome in the 3:28 silent film short, Wilbur Wright und seine Flugmaschine.

The use of aerial photography rapidly matured during the war, as reconnaissance aircraft were equipped with cameras to record enemy movements and defenses. At the start of the conflict, the usefulness of aerial photography was not fully appreciated, with reconnaissance being accomplished with map sketching from the air.