Research Guides: ENGL 2A: Communities &amp; Rhetorics (Tremblay-McGaw): Extra: Where to Find Images

General Image Resources

Finding Images

IMPORTANT: Use of images is subject to U.S. copyright law. If an image is copyrighted, you must ask permission--and often pay--to use it with an accompanying credit line. That's the law! If an image is in the public domain or available under creative commons license and thus freely available to use, often it will say so and provide credit information.

If you are not sure if an image is public domain or creative commons licensed, contact the person or entity responsible for the image and ask permission for one-time educational use with an accompanying credit line. For more on copyright, see U.S. Copyright Office FAQs.

Best Bets

Associated Press Images Collection This link opens in a new window
A collection of over 500,000 photos from the Associated Press, featuring state, regional and national photos from North America, as well as international photos, some dating back as far as 1844.
ARTstor This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 2.5 million high-quality digital images for educational and research use. In addition to reproductions of a wide range of works of art and architecture from all times and places throughout the world, the collection also contains photographs and other images useful for study in many disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Updated continually.

Flickr - Creative Commons
Search all of Flickr's contributed photos through the copyright-free filter of Creative Commons. There are four levels of copyright-free use; check which level suits your use.

Other Image Sources

California State Library Pictorial Resources
Corbis Royalty-Free Photos
A well-known stock photography company, Corbis provides a royalty-free section of its products.
Getty Images: Royalty-Free
Getty, a major commercial photo vendor, provides this royalty-free section of its stock photos.
Getty Museum Open Content Collection
Approximately 4,600 images from the J. Paul Getty Museum are available in high resolution for use without restriction. These include paintings, drawings, manuscripts, photographs, antiquities, sculpture, and decorative arts. The Getty will continue to add to this collection.
Google Images site:.gov
If you search Google Images, be sure to add site:.gov to your search term. All your results will be from government sites. Many government images are public-domain, but not all. Always check for use restrictions.
Library of Congress American Memory
"American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience."
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
USA.gov Images
Wellcome Images
From London's Wellcome Collections, free access to images that focus on medicine, but also cover human history and culture.
Wikimedia Commons
Associated with Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons provides access to more than 11 million "freely usable media files."

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ENGL 2A: Communities & Rhetorics (Tremblay-McGaw)

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General Image Resources