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Finding the perfect photo -- https://p2pu.org/en/groups/what-is-open-what-is-not
Learn how to find and use the perfect photo to illustrate your point.    

You need a photo for your blog post, news article, or textbook chapter, but don't have tons of money to hire a photographer. The good news: millions of photos exist on the web that are free to reuse in the public domain or under CC licenses, as long as you give attribution. Learn how to find the perfect photo for your needs and give credit where credit is due. 
    
Task 1: Search

Comments:
* I think this task could be improved if we asked people to share their search strategies and tricks. Even though there are an increasing number of photos and ways to get them, it's not that easy to do in practice. (good point - we do ask below for them to share their websites) I mean more how you search, e.g. using this search string (replace searchterm with the actual searchterm): http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=searchterm&l=cc&ct=0&mt=all&w=all&adv=1 (you can set l=cc, l=comm, l=commderiv to set the license terms) (sure please add text directly below :)

Millions of photos exist on the web -- free for you to use and share. 

The web has so much content available, but what are you allowed to use? Search for photos that are in the public domain or shared under open licenses. When doing your search, keep in mind what you will be using the image for, as you may want to revise your search to reflect the permissions you need. For example, if you are planning to sell your resulting work, you will need to find a photo that allows commercial reuse. 

Here are some places where you can find photos in the public domain or under open licenses:

Flickr
The Commons on Flickr hosts images with "no known copyright restrictions" from various institutions, including the Library of Congress, National Archives UK, the Smithsonian, and more. You can search The Commons directly at http://www.flickr.com/commons/.
Flickr is also one of the largest sources of CC licensed photos on the web: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/. You can also search for CC licensed images via Flickr's advanced search: http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/?.

Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is the media repository that serves Wikipedia and other wiki projects. It has photos and other kinds of media in the public domain and under various open licenses: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Creative Commons Search Portal
Other repositories of public domain and CC licensed photos exist on the web. CC's search portal provides convenient access to some of these at http://search.creativecommons.org/.

Having trouble finding the image you're looking for? Try using different key words. Are there other great websites where you searched for open photos? What are they?

Task 2: Get permission

Comments:

Do you have the rights to reuse the photo?

So you've stumbled on a few photos that you can use -- or maybe you were lucky and found the perfect one for your needs. Do you have the rights to reuse the photo? What are they? What can you do with the photo? What can't you do with the photo? Do you have all the rights you need for your specific use of it?

Remember, with CC licenses you are already granted certain permissions in advance, which means you don't have to ask for permission as long as you follow the conditions of the license. You might realize you need permission beyond what the license has granted; in those cases, you will either have to ask the author for permission or find a different photo that does give you the permissions you need. Public domain images have no copyright at all, which means that anyone can use them however they want to, without asking for permission from anyone. 

Something to keep in mind: Don't assume that anything you find on the web is correctly marked, eg. that a photo is by the author and under the terms stated. You should always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link(s). Since there is no registration to use a CC license, CC has no way to determine what has and hasn't been placed under the terms of a CC license. If you are ever in doubt you should contact the copyright holder directly, or try to contact the site where you found the content.

Task 3: Give credit
You've found the perfect photo! Now it's time to give credit, which in CC licenses is called attribution. 

Some questions to ask yourself:
Where did you find the photo? eg. a website URL
Who owns the photo? eg. a Flickr user
What terms of use and/or license is the photo under? Are there specific attribution requirements laid out in the terms or license? eg. All CC licenses require that you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the creator. CC licenses also require that if there is a copyright notice on the work (lots of people don't bother with copyright notices anymore, so don't worry if you can't find one) you need to include it in your attribution. You also need to link to the license URL, eg. URL for CC BY license is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0. 

There are many ways to give credit. If you are using a CC licensed photo, some best practices for marking content exist at the CC wiki: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Marking/Users. You can also help improve these best practices at the wiki's Talk page: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php?title=Talk:Marking/Users&action=edit&redlink=1

Here is an example of a good attribution:
"My Awesome Photo," © 2009 Greg Grossmeier, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You can also see how photo attribution looks as part of an actual blog post at http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33041. 

Task 4: Share

You've added the photo to your blog post or web page with attribution. Now it's time to share!

Although it is not required to let the author of the photo know that you used their work, it might be a nice thing to do by leaving a comment at their Flickr or blog page.

You may also want to share to expand your "open" network using social media, eg. "I found the perfect @creativecommons licensed photo for my post on LOLCats using @Flickr!" or "I found the perfect #publicdomain photo for my textbook @Wikicommons thanks to a #schoolofopen challenge @P2PU". Many people are interested in how to find and reuse photos, and sharing the story behind your own search is sure to solicit some excitement. 

Lastly, share your thoughts on the process of finding and attributing a photo here. What did you learn? What did you find frustrating? Do you have feedback for how this challenge can be improved?