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Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Where to Find Images for your #atozchallenge Posts

If you're like me, you LOVE having beautiful images in your blog posts. The addition of a carefully chosen photo can enhance the understanding of your words or add a funny context to make your blog post even more enticing.

“And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?” 

And since I'm a book reviewer, photos and pictures come easy to me. I can simply download the cover of a book and slap it into my post. It's free to use to promote the author's book. 


See? Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy!


The next easiest way to incorporate photos into your blog is to take them yourself. I'm not a photographer and if I add a photo, it's usually one of my pooch.


Sometimes Bailey cooperates and sometimes he couldn't be bothered with my good-boy treats. So what's a blogger to do when in need of a photo and you lack the resources (or skills) for photos for your blog posts?

You turn to Google. To be sure, copyright infringement is a real thing so you can't go around downloading photos and images and adding them to your posts. You must use copyright-free images. There are plenty of websites around and because I'm a librarian, I've done the research for you! 

You can start with Wikipedia. They maintain a list of public domain resources that are free.

The Library of Congress also maintains resources. Theirs are more historically oriented and take some digging. 

Viintage.com offers stunning beautiful images of old posters and other, well, vintage type images.  I used the word image alot in that sentence did i?  

One of my favorites is morguefile.com which contans photos of just about everything. Some are random photos taken by regular people and some are quite good.  

I just downloaded this beautiful image from pixabay.com 


I could go on but I suspect you're getting the idea. Go to the list at Wikipedia (see above) and check out their resources.

Have fun finding resources! 



There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes.” 





22 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing this Pam. Very helpful. I try to use my my pictures most of the time but yes, I agree it's not possible all the time. This will be a good resource.

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    1. I'm also in favor of cute puppies, kittens, pandas. and food. Cake especially. Good luck finding images!

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  2. Hi Pam - I do think photos/images give an idea of what you're talking about ... and I've always used them in mine ... thanks for the resources though - cheers Hilary

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  3. Thanks for the resources.. Vintage.com is no longer valid though. Said the domain was for sale :( that was one I was looking forward to... oh well! ~Lori~

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    1. thats because I misspelled it. i r smrt. correcting the post now. http://viintage.com/

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  4. Super information. I'll need to check all of this out. Thanks.

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  5. Thank you. I downloaded a picture and inserted into my blog. Useful information to all bloggers.

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  6. Thanks for the site links! I mostly use my own photos, but for certain subjects and themes, I use other free images. I've added these to my bookmarks.

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  7. Good lists! My images are book covers and movie posters and the like, or I take them myself.

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  8. Wow... Half of the work done. Thanks alot :)

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  9. Wow... Half of the work done. Thanks alot :)

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  10. Thanks for the helpful suggestions! I like the picture of your dog. Did bailey enjoy The Hunger Games?

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  11. I use Wikipedia Commons, and have also found a lot of my other photos from places like The Alexander Palace Time Machine forum and other historical sites. Most of my photos are public domain, since they're so old, or fair use. I always credit the photos from Wiki Commons when they're not public domain.

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  12. Thanks! I'm always on the look-out for legal pictures to use. I usually go to Flicker and use their creative commons search.

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  13. Great guide. I am using google search and bookmarked websites, such as http://www.cannypic.com/images.html. It's the best way because you You can be sure in quality of your images.

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