Free Photos

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My old monitor and my jade plant
Currently, we at the central office have a subscription to an online image database, and several of the photographs that appear on the SBDC website come from this resource. But, as I make revisions to the website (and I hope you’ll see some of them soon), I’m trying to put up fewer “canned” images and more pictures of our gorgeous clients.

But what if you don’t want to pay for images and you don’t have a wealth of smiling faces to put on your website? Try these sources:

U.S. Government Photos and Multimedia
Most images on U.S. government websites are in the public domain, and can be freely reproduced and reused without permission. Browse available images from this site- just be careful to check each source’s policies to make sure you’re in the copyright clear before nabbing any images.

Creative Commons Image Search
For less governmental images, try the search engine at Creative Commons. Images indexed here still may be licensed in various ways (read more about Creative Commons licensing options
here) but some can be used commercially and while others can be modified or adapted. Again, just be sure to read the fine print.

Oh, and one more thing! Do you have any photos where you are sitting down with one of your clients? How about an image of you or a client working at a computer? I’d love to replace the images on the “Make an Appointment” page with some real-life SBDC folks, and I’m in pursuit of the perfect picture…

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