What does Open Access mean?

Open Access images are significant for the study of photographic history, as they are understood to be part of the public domain and can be utilized freely for educational purposes, presentations, and personal projects. Nonetheless, it is still essential to cite these images with a Creative Commons license or caption, as doing so may facilitate further exploration by readers of your work into archives or databases.

Open Access images are photographs or photographs of works of art that are believed to be in the public domain. Public domain images are available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial, under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). Users do not need authorization to use these images.

Images in the public domain are great if you are publishing photographs online for a course, presenting work at a conference using images you do not own, or for the use of photographs pretty much anywhere.