How To Find And Use Photos From Flickr

Written By Tan Hai Liang

Photo by *Solar ikon*

We all know the effect and benefits of using photos in our blog, I have written about it earlier. In my previous article, I talked about using your own camera to take your own pictures. Many people don’t use photos found on the web because using it without the owner’s permission is an infringement of

copyright and you can be sued. This result in people having to pay for it or write to the owner for permission.

For many bloggers, getting permission or paying for it takes a long time before you can use the photos. People like to write the blog now, put in a few nice photos and move on. Today I’ll talk about how to find photos on Flickr and use it in your blog without infringement of copyright.

In Flickr there are many great looking photos. The website is growing more and more popular each day. So naturally the photo library will grow exponentially. Flickr is a good place to find nice photos and use them. In Flickr, photos are generally categorised into 6 different levels of copyright. Each level has different permissions for different uses. You can read and understand each of the level of copyright here. Actually you should have a good understanding of the types of license attached to the photos so you can be sure you are using the right ones for the right purpose.

To have the full permission to use the photos for commercial or non-commercial and also to edit the photos, it is best to look for photos with an Attribution License. You can use the photos with this license in anyway you want. How do you search for such photos? Follow the following steps:

1. Log into Flickr

2. Scroll to bottom of the page and click on Creative Commons. This should bring you to the page where photos are grouped under the 6 different licenses

3. Click on (See more) under the category of Attribution License. This will bring you to the page with all the photos that you can use for your blog with full permission from the owner.

4. Search for the photos you are looking for in the search box on top.

If you appreciate the beautiful photos and how it helps you in your blog or article or anything, then it is only good etiquette to acknowledge the photographer. Though it is not necessary if you got it from the Attribution License section, personally I think we should give credit where credit is due.

These photographers spend alot of time and effort to produce beautiful pictures for people to use for free, the least you can do is to show your appreciation by informing everyone that this beautiful picture is taken by so and so. How do you do this?

You can put in a caption with the photographer’s name and hyperlink to the photographer’s profile on Flickr. Yup, it fast and easy.

You can also go the extra mile and email the photographer and inform the person you are using it in your blog and invite the person to visit it. Then you can bring more traffic to your blog as well as make more friends. Being a photography enthusiasts myself, I do welcome people who appreciates my effort. After all, what is beauty if there is no one to behold…

So do explore Flickr and use photos to beautify your blog, your readers will appreciate it.