Biannual Blogathon Bash Mini Challenge - Adding Photos To Your Posts

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The more readable and attractive you make your blog, the better the chance that someone will bother reading it. So how can you make it more attractive? Add photos!

Here are some blog posts of mine that I added photos to
http://callistasramblings.com/2011/11/warning-reading-this-blog-could-be.html (see how this photo grabs your attention and makes you interested in what the post is about)
http://callistasramblings.com/2012/02/5-ideas-for-fun-and-memorable-march.html
http://callistasramblings.com/2011/03/guest-post-on-road-to-parenting.html

The problem is, you can’t just pick any photo you find through an image search and put it on your blog because of a big thing called Copyright.

Copyright laws protect the original creator of a work, such as written text, an image, a video, or an audio clip, from having that work stolen or misused. – source

Files from the Internet (contrary to what so many people seem to think) are not automatically fair game or public domain. There are public domain photo sources out there but research is about the only way to know for sure. Turning photographs and other images into line drawings doesn’t necessarily negate the copyright. And free images frequently applies only to non-commercial use. – source

There are different kinds of photos:

Public Domain – no credit needed. Usually it’s because the copyright has expired. Could also be if someone says their work is in the public domain. Unfortunately you have to be careful as someone else could show a bunch of photos that ARE copyrighted and say they are public domain and you wouldn’t know if that’s right.

Fair Use – Let me quote for this one:

If you’re reusing someone else’s material on your blog for the purpose of providing criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching or research, then you may not have to seek permission – source

How much is considered Fair Use is debatable though. This category is for things like adding book covers and a picture of a product in your review (because you are commenting on it.) However don’t go adding all photos from the company’s website. I would stick to ones that are displayed in a store or better yet, if you were provided the item for review, ask for some photos to use.

Image via Wikipedia

Creative Commons – This means that the photos are being allowed to be used by others as long as you follow their rules. This may mean a link back, that they can’t be altered, or that they can’t be used for profit. (That means if you monetize your blog, you can’t use those ones.) This is the category that you will most likely get your photos from. Just read the rules and make sure you are doing it right.

Sites to Find Photos:
RGB Stock Photos
Kozzi
Dreamstime
Morguefile
Flickr Creative Commons
Creative Commons Search (searches more than one site)
Every Stock Photo
PD Photo (Public Domain)
Open Photo
Every Stock Photo
PicFindr

Your Own Photos – You can of course take your own photos which I suggest if you have a good enough camera. You may want to watermark them with your site name so if they get passed around, it is still credited to you.

Your Challenge

I want you to find and add a photo to one of your old posts. I know some of you don’t have all that many posts yet but find one without a good photo, take note of it’s subject and pick a site to search. You may need to be creative to find the right one. If your post is about goals, you could try searching for “goals” or you could think about how a sports goal would be a funny play on words and search “soccer goal” or “goalie” or maybe a mountain to show that your goal will get you over the mountain “mountain” etc….

So do that and comment with the link to your post below.