Including a compelling photo on your petition is a great way to inspire people to take action. Whether it’s a beautiful ecosystem you’re working to protect, a Republican politician you’re working to stop or something else entirely, incorporating powerful imagery is a key component of a great petition.

Our recommendations for images for your petitions are to avoid overlaying graphics and text, to use images with people, and to crop in on human faces whenever possible.


Flickr is one of our favorite options for great, free-to-use photos without copyright protections.

  1. Visit Flickr.com and type a search term related to your petition in the search field at the top of the page. For example, if your petition is targeting Congress, you could search for "capitol building." Or if your petition is about protecting grey wolves, you could search for "grey wolves."
  2. On the left side, click where it says "any license" and select "no known copyright restrictions." This step is absolutely vital, since it ensures that you’re able to use the images without limitations
  3. Scroll down and click on the image you’d like to use
  4. Click the down arrow on the bottom right to download the photo

 

OpenVerse is another great option for finding images for your Civic Shout petitions.

  1. Visit OpenVerse, click "all content" and select "images"
  2. Type a search term related to your petition in the search field and click the magnifying class icon
  3. On right side of the page, click filters and select the first two options:4. Click on the image you’d like to use.
    Save the image directly from the website

 

And of course, we can’t forget about Google image search.

  1. Head to Google and search for terms related to your petition
  2. Click the "Images" tab right below the search box
  3. Then a little further to the right of the images tab you just clicked, look for the "Tools" link. A list will expand below it...
  4. Click the "Usage Rights" dropdown and select "Creative Commons licenses"
  5. Most of the images that show up will have Creative Commons licenses, so they should be fine to use. Some won’t, so just pay attention to which ones you decide to grab