Teachers who make use of visual images for class projects or blogs along with personal web designers and bloggers are always on the hunt for unique images. Photographs can illustrate a lesson or pepper up an online presence. There are plenty of image sources that specifically fall under the domain of Fair Use, along with personal use or non-commercial use.
For copyright free sources, the Morguefile contains an archive of loaded photos and illustrations and Microsoft Office also offers a multitude of images including photos, clip art and illustrations.
The following sites offer images for educational purposes as well as personal use.
University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
This university’s Arts Collection focuses on visual, literary, musical and performing arts and is an excellent source for fine arts or humanities education, as well as the other art forms mentioned. As such, it provides much more than visual images.
The most efficient way to access artwork within the university’s Art Collection is by visiting its Search page, and typing in a specific term. Note that the images are restricted to the university’s two specific collections. These are Casselman Archive of Islamic and Mudejar Architecture in Spain Collection and Folk Figures: A Survey of Norwegian and Norwegian-American Artifacts Collection.
Details regarding the download and usage of images at the site are specified as such: “Images, text, or other content downloaded from the collection may be freely used for non-profit educational and research purposes, or any other use falling within the purview of "Fair Use". (University of Wisconsin Digital Collection: The Arts Collection)
LIFE Magazine Photo Archive
Google and LIFE Magazine present “millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive.” (LIFE Photo Archive) Most of these images were never published in the magazine and are shown for the first time at a Google-hosted site. Photographs are in black and white and full color and according to Google, stretch as far back as the 1750s up to the 1970s. They represent a special historic collection of high quality photography.
The LIFE Photo Archive is neatly arranged on a single web page with sample photos for a sequence of years starting at 1860. Another column divides the photos into broad categories which include People, Places, Events, Sports and Culture. A Search feature is included. These images are also interspersed in the regular Google image search and contain the word “LIFE” to distinguish them.
Clicking on an individual photo will bring up a full page of detail, including the photo, a description, name of the photographer and the date (often just the year) in which the image was photographed. An option exists to bring up the original photo size, and to buy the photo in a frame. Not all images are available for sale. Google users may also rate the images.
Photo usage at the Life Photo Archive is for personal, non-commercial use. In partnering with LIFE in this archive, Google says that its goal is “to provide users fast, reliable access to high quality images,” and states that it receives no payment by acting as host. (LIFE photo archive hosted by Google - Help)
Gimp Savvy
Similar to the Google-LIFE partnership, Gimp Savvy plays host to digitized images from three government sources: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Each of these agencies has its own digital archive, and clicking the hyperlinked acronyms will take the reader to these sites.
Gimp Savvy has pulled together several thousand photos from the government archives and placed them at its site. It offers a search feature to negotiate and find images. However, this may be a hit-and-miss exercise, as Gimp Savvy has not completely identified all images in its search feature.
However, the site has loaded image thumbnails (100 per page) for each of the agency areas to help in locating a particular photo. It also breaks up the photo archives by agency and gives an indication of the types of images that can be located. As an example, clusters of images within the FWS area will feature natural surroundings such as wildlife, animals and the environment. NASA contains images from space, and NOAA, which has the most plentiful images, contains visual depictions of the natural world.
In providing these images, Gimp Savvy notes that each government agency specifically designates its images as in the public domain. It requests that users read the statements for each agency but states that “the photos you'll find here are copyright free, but some restrictions still apply.” (Fair Use of Copyright-Free Images)
Skimming the surface
These three websites are skimming the surface of what is available on the internet for educational use or for personal use. However, with the inclusion of the LIFE archive, they represent over a million images and together, the sites could satisfy teacher needs in most subject matters.
Sources
"Fair Use of Copyright-Free Images." 2000. Gimp Savvy. 26 January 2011
FreeLargePhotos.com. 2010. 26 January 2011
LIFE Photo Archive. 2008. 26 January 2011
LIFE photo archive hosted by Google - Help. 2011. 26 January 2011
University of Wisconsin Digital Collection: The Arts Collection. n.d. 26 January 2011.
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