Images from grassrootsmapping.org

For over a year, Jeffrey Yoo Warren, a fellow at the Center for Future Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been messing around with kites, balloons and cameras. The goal is to come up with tools that can be used to take aerial photos without the use of expensive equipment.

Now the project, known as Grassroots Mapping, is recording the devastating effects of the gulf oil spill using cameras attached to kites. They say these photos can then be used to assess and respond to the damage and to support possible “litigation following the spill.”

The kits used to take the images are extremely simple and incorporate garbage bags, an inexpensive kite and digital camera and a small helium canister. The kites are flown to around 1,500 feet where they snap images of the area below at regular intervals. After the pictures are collected, Mr. Warren works with Stuart Long of the aerial imaging service Gonzo Earth to stitch the images together on a map.

The results are both beautiful and devastating.

The Grassroots project is being supported through donations on a fund-raising site called Kickstarter. It is trying to create more kits that can be distributed and used to collect more images of the spill.

Mr. Warren explained in an e-mail interview that he began working on aerial imaging using balloons in October, and started the gulf mapping project on May 5.

“Our ability to not just make abstract maps, but to capture original aerial imagery, is particularly applicable to mapping oil,” Mr. Warren said. He added that his group was working with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, a nonprofit environmental health organization, to make use of the images.

There are of course other aerial images of the spill, but they are largely in the hands of the government or private satellite companies. Mr. Warren’s goal is to give citizens access to technology that will let them document the effects of the spill themselves. He is putting the kite images into the public domain so they can be accessed and used by anyone without paying a fee.

Mr. Warren said his approach to taking photos offered a more human view of the devastation. “My favorite part about this project is that it really does make more sense to fly a kite with a camera on it than to try to take pictures of where you are all the way from space,” he said. “You’re literally holding the camera thousands of feet in the air with a string — it’s a very visceral experience.”

The images above and below were taken from the a balloon kit and show the oil spreading through the water. See more photos.