Cool Public Domain Image: Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong

Photo of Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, Jazz Trumpeter

This is an image uploaded to Wikipedia from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c27236.

It is considered one of Wikipedia's "Featured Pictures," as one of the finest images shared on the site.

Public Domain Image: Gift to the Library of Congress

From the Library of Congress:

• Title: [Louis Armstrong, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing left, playing trumpet]
• Date Created/Published: 1953.
• Medium: 1 photographic print : gelatin silver.
• Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-127236 (b&w film copy neg.)
• Rights Advisory: No copyright restriction known. Staff photographer reproduction rights transferred to Library of Congress through Instrument of Gift.
• Call Number: NYWTS - BIOG--Armstrong, Louis "Satchmo"--Orchestra Leader [item] [P&P]
• Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

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Great Infographic on Importance of Using Images in Your Blog

InfographicHere's a great infographic from MDG that gives oodles of information regarding the importance of visual information (images) in blogs and web sites (hat tip to Michael Hyatt for his link to the MDG website this week).

Public Domain Images: The Getty Trust Provides over 40,000 Public Domain Images in its Open Content Program

The Getty Trust and the Getty Research Institute have been building the Getty's Open Content Program, where more and more images are being provided to us all as public domain images digitized and published online.

Here are two examples from their release:

Belisaruis by Baron François-Pascal-Simon Gérard 

President Lincoln, United States Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, near Antietam

From one of their announcements:

Imagine being able to pore over a sketchbook by Jacques-Louis David in minute detail, to investigate Mayan, Aztec, and Zapotec ruins in Mexico, or to study the costumes and social mores at Versailles. All of these things are possible with today’s addition to the Open Content Program, which includes 5,400 artwork images from the collections of the Getty Research Institute—bringing the total number of available images to over 10,000.
These high-resolution images span centuries and continents, and include artists’ sketchbooks, drawings and watercolors, rare prints from the 16th through the 18th century, 19th-century architectural drawings of cultural landmarks, and early photographs of the Middle East and Asia. Over the coming months, we’ll supplement these images with other material critical to the study of art history, including artists’ books and letters, stockbooks of famous art dealers, documentary photographs of art and monuments in situ from around the world, important historical treatises, and archives of famous artists, photographers, and collectors.

They do ask that you respect their wishes, detailed here, which include the following:

Attribution to the Getty

Please use the following source credit when reproducing an image:  Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program.

Public Domain Images: British Library Shares 1,000,000 Free Public Domain Images From Book Illustrations

Recently, the British Library uploaded 1,000,000 public domain images (that's right: 1,000,000) that their hard-working librarians have taken from books published between 1600 and 1900 A.D.

They've all been uploaded to Flickr.

Go to Github to get the manifest.

The images have been collected as part of the British Library's "Mechanical Curator."

Here are a couple of examples:

Note:  You may have some hurdles in getting the image from Flickr to your blog platform.  Hint:  choose to "share" the image in the right sidebar of the Flickr page.  

How to Find Free Photos and Images for Your Blog: Searching the Public Domain

Images: photos, clip art, comics – you want them for your blog post. Images make the site more visually appealing, and you’ve learned that photos sometimes help get you higher in Google search results.  However, the creator of that photo or image may want compensation for use of their work. Maybe a little, maybe a lot.


And, you either can't or don’t want to pay for photos that you place on your blog.  Other than creating your own images or photos, is there a free and fast alternative?  Yes.

You just need to learn about “public domain.” On the web, lots of people freely release their copyright in order to expose their talent and their work as widely as possible. Anything -- content, software, images, fonts, videos, etc. -- in the public domain may be used freely by anyone without contacting or gaining the permission of the originator.

What is the Public Domain?

The U.S. Copyright Office defines "public domain" as a work "...no longer under copyright protection or if it failed to meet the requirements for copyright protection." The public domain also includes works where the creator has freely released the work into the public domain. All types of creative work exist in the public domain.

Tips on How to Find Photos and Images in the Public Domain – Free and Fast

1. Basic web searching for the phrase "public domain" along with various words or phrases that you are seeking is an easy enough way to find free images and content on the web.

For example, say you were looking for an image of Abraham Lincoln. Google "public domain image Abraham Lincoln" and you'll find a great photo of President Lincoln that the Library of Congress has been kind enough to upload for public use.

2. Wikipedia also provides an online list of links with oodles of free, public domain images -- a list that is continually growing. It is an excellent resource. (One of my favorites is Wikimedia Commons.)

3. Recently, the nonprofit organization Creative Commons (CC) announced the release of its Public Domain Mark (PDM). Through the use of a CC Public Domain Mark, photographers, graphic artists, and others can help others find their work via the use of a PDM -- see the mark, know that you're free to access the image. Surf the web for “PDM” to find photos, images, and other available works that may not be otherwise categorized as available in the public domain.