Free Images

As I indicated previously, the U.S. Government is not authorized to claim copyright. For that reason, any image that is taken by an employee of a U.S. Government agency, acting in an official capacity, is in the public domain (PD). Here is a terrific web portal to various government images:

• http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml

However, as the page says, not all images in the list are actually PD. A few of them are copyrighted by quasi-government agencies, such as the Smithsonian Institution. Even these have rather permissive licenses. If you wanted to download and use this picture of a fish for non-commercial purposes, Smithsonian's license says that would be fine. But if you tried to make money off of it, they could sue you. (Here is their official policy.)

This is one thing I'm very proud of about my country. If you wanted to use an official British government image, you have to ask the Crown's permission. The same is true of nearly every country on the globe. But if you want to use a U.S. government image, even if you want to make money off it, you're free to do whatever you like with it.

Here are some other great sites to find U.S. Government images, all in the public domain. These are links to image portals themselves, not to the department's main web site.

• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with all kinds of images of animals and their habitats (collections here and here)
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association with weather-related images (here and many more here)
• NASA has tons of images, and not just of extra-terrestrial objects. Their main portal is here, although you might have fun browsing around here, here, here, here, here, or even here.
• The Army Corps of Engineers, with historic and engineering pictures (here)
• The U.S. Geological Survey provides a wide array of images (here)
  
• Photos of Antarctica from the U.S. Antarctic Program (here)
• The Center for Disease Control (here)
  

And the list goes on and on. I'll add more links as time permits. These should keep you for a while.