The images you choose to use on your blog are chosen by you to say something about a topic or your self. It is common for young adults to choose images from pop culture to represent what is important for them. Be careful! You are building a professional blog here. This is a place for ideas and not a place to celebrate your favourite athlete or movie star. Isn’t that what Facebook is for?
Some image use rules:
Be aware of copyright laws. Copyright is law that is designed to protect people who create things – images, stories, inventions – so they can get the benefit of those things for a reasonable period of time. For instance in Canada, copyright law protects images for 50 years after the creators death. That is handy for us when using primary sources for the periods we are studying. Those people have been long gone and we can use their images freely.
For more modern images be careful. You can use an image if you have permission from the creator. You get this by contacting the author directly or by using a Free Use or Creative Commons image. Free Use or Creative Commons images are ones that the creator has already given permission to use. However for each image you use, give attribution. This means tell where it comes from and who the creator is.
Here are some sites to use images with respect and legally:
You can also use Google images by going to the advanced settings and searching images that are free to share by clicking the “usage rights” tab.
To learn how to put images into your blog with attribution see Kathleen Morris’ excellent ‘how to’ on this.