Finding Images: How Do I Find and Use Them: Photograph Collections

A selective compendium of free, vetted fine art & documentary photographs.

Images contributed by institutions and individuals covered under the Creative Commons License.

Flickr Creative Commons contains photos that users have chosen to offer under a Creative Commons license. You can browse or search through content under each type of license.

Sources of images for rooms, furniture and interior design.

Free, small sized photos. Acknowledgement required for free use of copied photos.

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Getty Images has made 35 million images freely available to use in blogs, wikis, and social media sites. These images cannot be downloaded.

Free registration required for downloading low resolution images; full attribution is required.

Free CCO Licensed photos and videos.

Search archival collections for photos, posters, prints, manuscripts, graphics, newspaper images and more.

Unique in their scope and richness, the picture collections number more than 15 million images. These include photographs, historical prints, posters, cartoons, documentary drawings, fine prints, and architectural and engineering designs. While international in scope, the collections are particularly strong in materials documenting the history of the United States and the lives, interests, and achievements of the American people.

Royalty free stock photos. Usage and license information is attached to each image. Option to search for videos is available.

“The National Archives multimedia collection includes 300,000 reels of motion pictures film and more than 200,000 sound recordings.” These materials are held by Washington, D.C. area facilities and Presidential Libraries.

Search across multiple programs and websites to find photos, videos, audio and more, related to natural resources, historic buildings, trails, and parks. Copyright usage statements are attached to each image.

Vintage photos

Some of the images in the Digital Gallery may be subject to third party rights such as copyright and/or rights of privacy/publicity. Before using any of these images please review the Library's Terms and Conditions. The Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 775,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.

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Find photographs, videos and maps related to fish and wildlife.

Search to find images from government websites using usa.gov. Check copyright information for each image.

Royalty free stock photos. Usage and license information is attached to each image. Option to search for videos is available.

A website of freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.

The World Bank Historic Photographic Collection contains over 500,000 historic photographs related to its member countries. See Terms of Use for the Photo Catalog for Creative Commons limitations.

For primary sources, go to the Prelinger Archives which includes a wide variety of downloadable U.S. documentaries, newsreels, and propaganda films.

The Living Room Candidate contains more than 450 commercials, from every presidential election from 1952 to 2024. Lesson plans for teachers are also provided.