2,000,000 Free Images

Always on the look out for new resources, we came upon the Internet Archive’s Book Images account on Flickr. The account contains well over 2 million images in the public domain, that is, pictures with copyrights that have elapsed or were deliberately placed in the public domain to start with.

Some are weird, obscure and creepy sepia photos, others are beautifully detailed engravings for engineering and medical books. There are also snippets of music sheets, newspaper clippings, and ads for products that don’t exist any more, produced by companies that have long gone bust. If it’s pictures of people you’re looking for, you’ll find plenty of portraits of gentlemen with whiskers, ladies wearing bonnets, and babies in petticoats.

Whatever you need, the Archive’s Flickr account is an amazing resource for media that you can use directly, as a source of inspiration, or mix and match in your own projects.

Credit must go to Daniel Otero for providing us this lead.