As educators, we try to use a variety of teaching methods in order to reach the widest array of pupils. With our moves into the digital realm, that philosophy continues to hold true.

The distinctions between oral and visual learners remain relevant to our methods in the classroom or in the lab.

Business organizations, with what seem to be endless resources, rely on 3rd party stock photography companies for their graphics. With deep pockets, they are willing to drop $50-$300 for an image.

Educators, however, live in a world of self finance. A world where the employee buys the supplies and is rarely reimbursed. In that world, the word ‘free’ has a beautiful ring to it.

We will first start by defining our terms:

• Free = obtainable without charge
• Royalty-Free = able to be used without paying additional usage fees

The best way of getting the photo you want for free is to take it yourself. Most schools now have at least one digital camera available to them. For many of the simple things we use photos for (pictures of pencils, papers, books) this is a great resource, free of the legal usage restrictions associated with purchased images.

However, since not all of us are photographers or have access to a digital camera, we have compiled a list of websites from which you can obtain free, royalty free, images:

http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtml
Free high resolution images, registration required

http://www.morguefile.com/archive/
thousands of free, high resolution photos, no registration required

http://www.stockvault.net/gallery/
high resolution stock photography, no registration required

http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/index.php
high resolution stock photography, no registration required

flickr.com
flicker can be used to find royalty free images if you do an advanced search and check the “creative commons” box.
no registration required

http://www.ourmedia.org/images/publicdomain
not everything is open for commercial use, but there is a public domain section

http://freestockphotos.com/
what the url says, registration required

http://www.imageafter.com/
tons of free high resolution images, no registration required

http://www.freephotosbank.com/
high resolution stock photos, no registration required

http://yotophoto.com/
Probably the best free stock photo site in existence. yotophoto is a search engine which searches all the other free photo sites.
no registration required.

http://www.geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/photos.htm
photos are free to use, but highest resolution is 800×600; good for web use, no registration required

Last updated: Tuesday, October 24th, 2006.