Yes, it’s free.

Most of my photography here is Public Domain. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

That means it’s free for you to use, now and forever. You don’t even have to credit me for it. The text accompanying the public domain images are also public domain.

The exception are portraits which are marked (copyright) to protect the people in them.

But why?

Everywhere you go online, and all the major photo and video sharing services seem to have options for Creative Commons at best, but usually just copyright.

I can’t think of anything more anally retentive than amateur photographers uploading mobile photos of their morning coffee and then claiming copyright – just in case some evil corporation uses their award winning image to (heaven forbid) sell something. Instead, the photo will sit unused forever, tainted with the smell of legal copyright.

By making my photos completely Public Domain, they’ve been used far and wide by artists, musicians, academics, companies and even institutions like NASA. I haven’t made a cent – but I wasn’t going to anyway! Photography is not my job and I’d rather not kill any enthusiasm I have for it by accepting money for the obligation to take photos.

So use them, by all means. You don’t have to credit me if you don’t want to, but I love seeing my work out there in the wild being used, mixed and remixed. Send me a link, I’d love to see what you do!

– d.o.