WikiCommons - Free High Quality Images
By Mark on Nov 22, 2007 in Free Culture
When I write a blog post I often look for an illustration to make my point, I am not a photographer or artist so I have to look for images that are available for free. That often means going through Flickr doing a search for Creative Commons licensed photos. Today I took a look at the Wikimedia Commons. There are a ton of images and photos licensed under a number of permissive licenses. The photo below is one that the Wikimedia users have tagged as of particularly high quality and it’s available under the GNU Free Document License. There’s really no obligation for you to give credit (but I like to do so anyhow). There are also a number of videos, and sounds among other royalty free photos.
The picture below is excellent and is of the Tengger massif in Java, Indonesia, at sunrise, showing the volcanoes Mt. Bromo (large crater, smoking) and Mt. Semeru (background, smoking). The early morning fog surrounds the peaks, covering a plain of finest volcanic ashes.

Picture by Thomas Hirsch
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Related posts:
- The Curse of Open Source License Proliferation I remember...
- Creative Commons Publisher Today a story...
- Google Street View I have a lunch...
- Open Source, Web 2.0 and SEO Links for 6-6-08 OpenKM...
- Legal Primer for Open Source Last week the...




Real estate | Nov 22, 2007 | Reply
The picture is really great. Amazing that it is not photoshop.
And the resource is rather valuable. Thanks.
Ulf | Nov 22, 2007 | Reply
Thanks for the heads-up! For some reason I didn’t know about WikiCommons…
I always go to gettyimages to find good photos for my web projects or use my own. Getty has royalty-free photos as well but still charges around $50 in fees, depending on the resolution. They send you the best promotional stuff I’ve ever seen, though (seriously)
Ulf