As I said I will post my first Non-drone Aerial photo. Again from when I was in the Middle East as a photog. I got into roof topping which is the idea of getting onto the roof of the tall towers to get a uniq shot. In general if you have building access i.e. a Hotel you can go on the roof….. or at least that was how it worked and wait and see if anyone objected…..
The tower i worked in at the time on the IT side was quite high so i walked up to the top floor, i was expecting it to be the same layout as all the other floors, i walked out of the list to a big reception desk in front of me for the HQ of the company who owned the building…… I said “Hi” turned to the right and walked through the fire escape door i knew would be there….. they just looked and carried on assuming I must have a reason for going there. Then you head up the stairs to get the the services floor and look for a door, this was a 3/4 height door, went through that and you on the roof.
It was a great roof top as it just had a flat edge on the side I wanted so I set my tripod & cam up and waited for sunset. Whilst waiting I light a cigarette to pass the time and was careful not to blow the smoke on my camera lens. What I didn’t realise was I was blowing it in the direction of the security camera with a built in smoke detector…… after a while a security guy rushed out of the door and said what are you doing? I looked and said taking a picture. He thought for a minute and said OK but you should really be up here. I said just a few more minutes, he waited, I took a few more shots and we left……
I realised afterwards that i had set off an alarm and he has looked at his screen and see a guy standing on the edge smoking a cigarette….. must have thought I was a jumper 
The Tower is a 46-story skyscraper standing at 243.8 meters (800 feet) tall, would have been ironic if he had startled me, i moved suddenly, lost my footing and went over the edge with my tripod and cam….. i would have carried on clicking all the way down
