Inclusive Openly Licensed Image Repositories
The following repositories contain openly licensed images that promote diversity and inclusion. We encourage you to use these databases to find images for your courses and projects. Looking for images of objects or general stock photography? Please see our Open and Freely Available Images list.
Image Collections
We’ve broken these repositories down by their overarching mission, but many depict people of multiple identities. You are encouraged to visit each repository to search for images representing our community.
Age-Positive
Age-Positive Image Library: Positive and realistic images of people over 50.
Black and Brown People
Nappy: The mission of Nappy is to “provide beautiful, high-res photos of black and brown people to startups, brands, agencies, and everyone else.”
Picnoi: The mission of this collection is to create a space where creators can find diverse, multi-racial stock imagery.
Black Illustrations: This is a collection of illustrations of black people for use in digital projects. Most illustration packs have a low-cost fee to support the business model.
Disabled People and Body Positivity
Disabled and Here Collection: From this website, “This is a disability-led effort to provide free & inclusive stock images from our own perspective, with photos and illustrations celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC).”
Disability: IN: With a mission of disability inclusion, this collection provides stock photography of an office-style workplace.
Free Plus-Size Stock Photos: The goal of AllGo, the company that hosts these photos, is to increase representation of plus-size women doing every-day activities. From their website, “Despite the fact that two-thirds of women in the U.S. are plus-size, just two percent of women shown in media are plus-size.”
Indigenous People
Indigenous People in Education: A collection by Thompson Rivers University meant to help OER creators depict indigenous students. All images in this repository are licensed CC-BY-NC-SA.
LGBTQIA2S+ People
The Gender Spectrum Collection: Please read this site’s guidelines before using their images. The goal of the collection is to represent trans and non-binary individuals. In keeping with the values of the community that these models are sharing, respect and accurate representation are part of the requirement to use these images.
Queer in Tech: Free stock photos (CC-BY 3.0) of queer people working in the tech industry.
Wikimedia Commons LGBT Category: Collection of open images organized under various LGBT categories; Images available under different CC licenses
Multi-Cultural
Iwaria: stock photos from Africa, images are licensed CC0 1.0.
Images of Empowerment: A collection of images of women in 11 different countries leading the way to improving outcomes for their communities. From the website, “Too often, images from low- and middle-income countries focus on poverty and tremendous need rather than what we see everywhere we go: women in decision-making roles, working to earn income, and accessing and providing reproductive health information and services to care for themselves and their families.”
Women
Anthro Illustrated: “Anthro Illustrated offers free digital illustrations of diverse anthropologists for non-commercial use.” Images available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license
If/Then Collection: These images of women in STEM fields are licensed for non-commercial use.
Redefining Women Icon Set: Collection of icon illustrations of women in different active scenarios and careers. CC0 (Creative Commons Zero – Public domain) license
WOCinTech: A collection of photographs of women who do tech work.
General Repositories for Stock Images
EDUimages by All4Ed: This is a free library of photos showcasing students and teachers at real schools.
openverse: An extensive library of free stock photos, images, and audio; LGBT and other diversity images based on search terms. Hosted by Creative Commons and WordPress. Images available under different CC licenses
Public Domain Review: This is a project that highlights materials in the public domain. A lot of the depictions are older, because the material aged out of copyright, but this is a great place to find illustrations.
The Greats: Visual content (mostly posters) that center around social justice themes. Adaptation and adoption for non-profit work is encouraged.
Unsplash: This is a collection of images in Unsplash that fit a general search for “diversity.” Unsplash has its own licensing requirements, follow site guidelines.
About this List
This list’s curation is an ongoing project. We thank Jennifer Snoek-Brown at Tacoma Community College, Colleen Sanders from Lane Benton Community College, Heather Bilcher from Community College Consortium for OER, and the University of British Columbia for their curated lists, which helped us create this list.
If you have a recommended source for inclusive imagery, please contact ELAD.