Using photos on a blog
August 21, 2007 By: almostgotit Category: Uncategorized, blogging, photography, plagiarism
Since you asked, all the photos on this site are either my own or available for use with attribution through creative commons licensing, with the exception of the Elizabeth Dewberry/ Robert Olen Butler portrait and the photo of Anne Lamott’s book I used last week, both of which were already in such wide re-syndication I don’t know their original sources.
I realize I am being more scrupulous than most bloggers. It is also rather painful not to use all of the other glorious and oftentimes-much-more-suitable images that are widely available on the web, but I feel pretty strongly about this.
Pictures are great on a blog, though, and I’ve been putting all my blog photos (uploading them) onto Flickr.com, a free service which is very easy and fast to use. Besides saving server space, Flickr.com does all of the optimizing and resizing for you so you can dispense with photoshopping them first — another time saver! Flickr also carries a large data-base of creative commons photos which you may use — be sure to check the terms first.
To use your uploaded Flickr.com photos:
- In your Flickr.com account, click the photo you want to use to open it. You can choose one of three sizes — be sure the size you want is open.
Right-click on your photo and choose “properties” to display the URL, (looks like “http://yourphoto.jpg”) Highlight and copy that bit, without any of the stuff after “.jpg”. Paste the URL right into your blog if you’ve got the editor open already in another window, or paste it into “notepad” or something to save it for a minute.
In your blog posting window, click where you want the image to go and EITHER use the “insert image” button or, by hand, insert the following code, changing the brackets from [ ] to < > (I can’t do it here or the web will think it’s code!) Substitute your own photo’s URL and title in place of http://yourphoto.jpg (and keeping all the other quote marks in place)
[img src="http://yourphoto.jpg" alt="Name of your photo"/]
Feeling fancy? If you’d like the text to wrap around your photo, try this code instead (remember to change all the brackets from [ ] to < >):
[p align="left"][img border="0" align="left" src="http://www.your photo.jpg" alt="Name of your photo" /]
Do you use photos in your blog? Tell us about it and post a link to your blog here so we can all admire your work in person! (Hint for newbies: leave your blog URL in the space provided when leaving a comment, or use this code in your comment text to make a link:)
[a href="http://yourblog"]Name of your blog[/a]
August 21st, 2007 at 9:29 am
This is very helpful information! Thanks so much.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:40 am
You are very welcome. I hope you are able to use it soon!
August 21st, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t Flickr have an embed function that people can use if a work is CC licensed or is that feature only available to the admin of the account?
August 21st, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Good question! The short answer is “there’s more than one way to skin a cat,” and I was trying to give a short answer!
To blog with Flickr photos in general, yes, Flickr has set up this interface which may work even better than my work-around. Try it!
Re CC licensing and copyright in general: Flickr and I have somewhat different views on this one. Flickr is a free service that makes its revenue by selling extra features to a percentage of its users, which means it needs a lot of users, which also means it needs a lot of exposure. Therefore, they (justifiably) have some strings attached,one being the “rule” that each Flickr photo one posts elsewhere (even if it is your own photo) should link directly back to Flickr.
I do not follow this rule to the letter, but my own Flickr photo gallery is visible and accessible in my sidebar, and I always give Flickr a link in the attribution that I post directly beneath any CC licensed Flickr photo I use. I feel this constitutes substantial compliance, and (along with these promotional posts I’m doing!) ought to be sufficient help in drumming up more business for Flickr, which *is* their point!
Flickr is notably less concerned about the proprietary rights of its users, however, as anyone is free to “blog” any publically-visible Flickr photo they want to, no matter who took the photo and no matter if it is CC licensed or not. The CC license seems to apply only to downloading, not linking.
Note: if you don’t want other people to blog (link to) your Flickr photos, Flickr does offer this opt-out option. If you don’t want people to download your Flickr photos, there’s an opt-out option for that, too.
Hope that helps!
August 21st, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Long story short, Flickr’s linking system works but leaves a lot to be desired, especially in terms of CC licensing. Understood. Thanks for the overview! I don’t use Flickr much so I have to rely on other users!
August 21st, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Thanks very much, Jonathan. Because of your question, I took a deeper look into Flickr myself and found that I was not making full use of the opt-in/opt-out features that are available there. They won’t foil a hacker, but they do make one’s intentions clear.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:23 pm
That actually means a lot more than one might think. If you make your intentions clear, then a plagiarist or infringer would be acting in bad faith, both increasing the damages you could win if you sued and the likelihood a court would rule in your favor.
Sure, it only deals with what would happen after a lawsuit, but it gives you a lot of extra leverage when dealing with these cases.
Glad I was able to help through my questions!
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Wow. I am so impressed. I have only put one photo in my blog (my cat!) and it took ages for me to figure it out. Will you come over to my house and show me how??
August 22nd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Thanks again, Jonathan. You really did!
And Working Girl: Next time I’m on your side of the continent, sure, I’ll be right over!!
March 11th, 2009 at 8:02 am
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