Meet the NCAP Team

The NCAP team are aerial photograph specialists who curate and develop one of the world's largest and most significant collections of aerial photography. Please use the Contact Us page if you would like to get in touch.

Dr Allan Williams

MA (Hons), PhD, FRHistS

Head of NCAP

Allan has led the growth and development of NCAP since June 2001. A Town Planning graduate of Heriot-Watt University, he worked in public service before his appointment to manage the collection, which was then based at Keele University. Working with the Ministry of Defence on the declassification of millions of aerial photographs, he has been responsible for greatly increasing accessibility and use of the collection. Through an entrepreneurial business approach - and despite the six-fold growth of the collection to more than 30 million images - operational and development costs are funded through commercial enterprise. The use of historical aerial photography by the European bomb disposal industry has been of strategic importance in achieving this.

An authority on the history of Photographic Intelligence (PHOTOINT), Allan was research consultant for the landmark BBC documentary Operation Crossbow, in collaboration with the Medmenham Association. Allan has provided consultancy services to documentary and film-makers including Timewatch (BBC), The Lost Evidence (Flashback TV / History Channel), 3D Spies of WW2 (PBS), Deutschland von Oben (ZDF), Foyles War: Plan of Attack (ITV), D-Day in 3D (Discovery Channel), D-Day: The Last Heroes (BBC), and has appeared as a subject-specialist on television and radio.

Allan was co-author of the 2010 publication Above Scotland Cities. In May 2013 the Random House Group published his book Operation Crossbow: The Untold Story of the Search for Hitler's Secret Weapons, which charts the pivotal role photographic intelligence played during the Second World War. In February 2014, English Heritage published Aerofilms: A History of Britain from Above, a book co-authored by Allan that features oblique aerial photography taken by the pioneering air-survey company.

In November 2016, Allan graduated with a PhD in Intelligence Studies from the University of Edinburgh, that analysed the role of photographic intelligence during the Second World War. In June 2018, Allan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society - a learned society that aims to advance the scholarly study of the past - in recognition of contributions made to historical scholarship in the field of photographic intelligence.

Sales and Business Development

Mark Saunders

Sales Executive

Mark is responsible for driving and developing NCAP sales, managing and developing new accounts and supporting business development activities in the UK and overseas. His role also includes overseeing the customer service and ordering procedures for NCAP.

Prior to joining NCAP in 2017, Mark worked in the Historic Environment Scotland Visitor Service Operations and Travel Trade sales teams for 10 years.

Calum MacLeod

Sales Coordinator

Calum is responsible for coordinating all aspects of customer orders and for supporting the sales and business development of NCAP. He responds to customer enquiries for information about our services and administers bookings for our Search Room.

Calum completed a Masters degree in Cultural Management at Queen Margaret University, and joined NCAP in 2019.

Digital Imaging

	Alan Potts Digital Imaging Manager Alan is a technical photographer with 25 years work experience in the public and private sectors and is responsible for the long-term programmes of digitisation at NCAP, that make our historical aerial photography accessible. Skilled in film processing techniques, fine art copying and the operation of rostrum cameras, Alan is the winner of a Kodak Gold Award. An expert in digital imaging techniques and image enhancement - to exhibition and publication standard - his work features in the award-winning Above Scotland and Above Scotland Cities publications that showcase NCAP aerial photography. Alan was central to the design and engineering of bespoke rostrum camera systems used for the NCAP surrogate digitisation programme, which makes imagery accessible on the NCAP website. He is responsible for managing programmes of ultra-high resolution digitisation using NCAP's suite of photogrammetric scanners. Alan has a lifelong interest in the history of flight and aviation photography.
	Sam Martin Production Manager Sam manages the workflow for processing large-volume orders for ultra-high resolution photogrammetric images and on-demand digitisation services. He joined NCAP in 2010 and has created most of the digital imagery featured on the NCAP website, especially those images copied for, and featured in, the BBC documentaries Operation Crossbow, broadcast in May 2011, and D-Day: The Last Heroes, broadcast in May 2013.
	Ruta Gauld Digital Imaging Coordinator Ruta is responsible for the digitisation of historical aerial imagery and processing of commercial customer orders. A history graduate from the Vilnius Pedagogical University, Lithuania, Ruta has worked at NCAP since 2008. Ruta has created a large proportion of the geographical centrepoint information which powers searches for imagery on this website, allows the aerial imagery to be geographically linked to place name gazetteers, and viewed in Google Earth.
	Craig Cameron Digital Imaging Coordinator Craig is responsible for the digitisation of historical aerial imagery and processing of commercial customer orders. He joined NCAP in 2018, having previously graduated from Aberdeen College in 2000 in Professional Photography & Imaging. Craig has over 18 years experience within the photographic industry, spanning across commercial and wedding photography, film and digital processes and photographic training to both the general public and private businesses.
	Calum Davidson Digital Imaging Technician Calum is responsible for the digitisation of historical aerial imagery to service commercial orders. He joined NCAP in 2017, from the British Geological Survey where he had worked on the digitisation of records relating to hydrocarbon and geophysical surveys. Previously, Calum studied Natural History & Wildlife Biology at Anglia Ruskin University.
	Gavin Dougan Digital Imaging Technician Gavin is responsible for the digitisation of historical aerial imagery to service commercial orders. Joining the NCAP team in 2018, he has over 10 years experience working as a professional photographer, as well as a photographic technician. In these positions he has gained extensive knowledge of film and digital imaging equipment and applications. Gavin graduated from Stevenson College with an Advanced Diploma in Photography in 2005. Since then he has been shooting weddings throughout Scotland, as well as the sights around Edinburgh.

NARA Digital Imaging

Ranjanben Mistry

Digital Imaging Technician

Born in Mombasa, Kenya, Mistry moved to Mumbai, India, in the early 1960s until 1982 when she moved to Maryland, in the United States. After working in the photographic industry on the microfilming of records, in 2009 she worked for Ancestry.com on the digital imaging of NARA genealogy records.

Mistry began work for NARA, on the NCAP Partnership, in February 2018. She has a fascination with digital imaging techniques, and has a strong commitment to making historical records accessible online.

Imagery Interpretation and Record Management

Kevin McLaren

Imagery Interpretation Manager

Kevin is an Imagery Analyst with twenty years experience working with aerial photography. A graduate in geology from the University of Edinburgh, he began his career in aerial photography following the transfer of the Scottish Office Air Photographs Unit to RCAHMS in 1993. Experienced in the cataloguing and plotting of aerial photography, he has co-authored three volumes on aerial photography of Scotland.

Kevin qualified as an imagery analyst at the UK armed forces Joint School of Photographic Interpretation. He undertakes imagery interpretation work and leads the development of content for the NCAP website.

Annie Chatfield

Cataloguing Coordinator

Annie is responsible for the cataloguing of aerial imagery, finding aids and associated records held by NCAP. She prepares this data for upload to the NCAP website, enabling our audience around the world to access the aerial imagery in our care. Annie joined NCAP in 2015, after completing an MSc in Information and Library Studies at Robert Gordon University.

Annie studied Library and Information Science at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen and has catalogued historical archive material at the National Museums of Scotland. She also has six years experience of commercial digitisation and image processing in the private sector.

Catherine Mylles

Cataloguing Coordinator

Catherine is responsible for the cataloguing of aerial imagery, finding aids and associated records held at NCAP. She also undertakes searches of our holdings to service customer requests for Paid Image Searches. She joined NCAP in 2015, after completing a Masters Degree in Landscape and Environment History at the University of Edinburgh.

Previously, Catherine studied Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and the University of the Highlands and Islands, and worked in bookshops in Dundee, Oxford, York and Belfast.