Free Images on the Web: Photos and Paintings
General Collections
U.S. Government Agencies (other than Library of Congress)
General Collections:
Free Stock Photos.com
This offers photos for free use, with only a few small restrictions.
The site offers beautiful photos of these subjects: Animals,Christian, Egypt, Israel, Near East, Rome, Scenery, Sky, Weather, Wildflowers, Plants.
Library
of Congress American Memory
Berkeley
Digital Library Photo Collection
More than 80,000 photos, mostly of plants, animals, people and landscapes.
Digital Librarian A huge alphbatized list of image collections.
Online Archive of California
(OAC) A core component of the California
Digital Library, the OAC is a digital information resource that facilitates
and provides access to materials such as manuscripts, photographs, and
works of art held in libraries, museums, archives, and other institutions
across California. The OAC is available to a broad spectrum of users -students,
teachers, and researchers of all levels. Through the OAC, all have access
to information previously available only to scholars who traveled to collection
sites.
The OAC includes a single, searchable database of "finding aids"
to primary sources and their digital facsimiles. Primary sources include
letters, diaries, manuscripts, legal and financial records, photographs
and other pictorial items, maps, architectural and engineering records,
artwork, scientific logbooks, electronic records, sound recordings, oral
histories artifacts and ephemera.
PicturesNOW "A Visual Encyclopedia of FREE still and Video Images.Search and Browse through one of the Webs largest free collections of Images on nearly every popular subject."
ImageBase "The ImageBase is a searchable image and text database of objects from the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor). The collections (110,000+ objects)..." It is part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
FreeFoto.com According to the site it is "...made up of 109882 images with 146 sections organized into 3130 categories. FreeFoto.com is the largest collection of free photographs on the Internet (link back and attribution required)..."
My impression is that it is probably not so useful for educators. Photos of nature; transport (e.g) aircraft, airlines, rr); the UK; food and drink; Europe (9 countries); USA (10 states), ect.
FREEIMAGES.co.uk Site says more than 2,500 stock photos for free. Limited.
istockphoto.com Download credits actually cost 25 cents, so its actually not free. However, artists get 5 cents credit each time one of their items is downloaded, so you can build up credits.
Webshots Part of Excite.
The Geo-Images Project "The Geo-Images Project attempts to make images (mostly photographs) that are useful in teaching geography more widely available using computers and the internet. It was conceived, constructed, and is maintained by G. Donald Bain, Director of the Geography Computing Facility, University of California at Berkeley." Has some cool stuff like virtual reality panoramas.
About.com's list of photography and pictures search tools and archives.
Eikon Image Database for biblical studies at Yale. Images in the EIKON database are a subset of the Yale Divinity School Digital Library. Some images in the EIKON database are restricted to Yale use, due to copyright agreements.
Historical Picture Collections A long list of sites from Dr.Steve Schoenherr, Dept of History at the University of San Diego. Stong on historical photos. Many of the sites are also listed in the Digital Media Bank.
University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections "a growing number of collections from the University of Washington Libraries and faculty in such diverse areas as the humanities, the natural sciences, and the regional cultures of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The site includes the award-winning project American Indians of the Pacific Northwest. These collections are especially strong in Seattle history, architecture, labor and industry, the Klondike Gold Rush, and our natural environment. (italics are mine) Materials are primarily pictorial, although some have accompanying essays and texts. Other media are presented, such as newspapers, reports, pamphlets, posters, and maps. More formats will be added in the future. The emphasis of these collections is on rare and unique materials."
Wikipedia Link of Govt Sources
SciTechResources.gov
A collection of US Government Science and Technology web sites
NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) Take a look at the search tool for the National Archives "Digital Classroom," for materials that can be used in the classroom. My impression is that this could be a great source for US history and for anthropology courses with its historical stock footage. Search the word "Custer" and see the classroom materials that you pull up. See also their audio-visual page. You can also go to their homepage to start your search. Try searching "Custer Photographs" and check look for "American West Photographs" in your search results.
NASA:
NASA Image eXchange (NIX): Astronomy,
Earth, Flight Vehicles and more.
NOAA: (National Oceanic
& Atmospheric Administration ) photolibrary:
"...the NOAA collection includes thousands of weather and space images,
hundreds of images of our shores and coastal seas, and thousands of marine
species images ranging from the great whales to the most minute plankton."
NPS: (The National Park
Service)
Click on the "search" link at the bottom of the page. Then type
in "photos" and topic that you are interested in. For example,
"photographs and yosemite." Images can also be found in the
Digital Image Archive.
Smithsonian Office of Imaging and Photographic Services: "Use this site to locate Smithsonian photographs of interest to you. They are available to download for your personal use, and for use by schools and students. "
USDA: (United States
Department of Agriculture)
USDoD: (US Department of Defense) Images/multimedia
USFWS: (US Fish and Wildlife Service) Images
USGS: (U.S. Geological Survey)
USGS Image
Collections
US Department of the Interior:
Photo library resources
Includes: USFWS, USGS, Bureau of Reclamation, NPS. Look at the additional
info it offers.
A list of Federal agencies you may want to check:
Is there a Federal agency related to your discipline?Most of the work
created by the US government is in the public domain, so look for federal
agencies related to your subject for potential free materials.
You are responsible for obeying copyright laws and any conditions stated on the sites that you access.
We welcome your input.
Please contact us at: jtyler@csuchico.edu
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