When I do processing sketches, I really like to use photographs as a base but I’m a terrible “photographer.” Someone was asking me about the “Image from Commons” statement so I thought I’d post a quick note about it.

In Flickr, you can select the “Advanced Search” option from any search results page (say, searching for opossum.) At the bottom of the advanced form is a “Creative Commons” segment, where you can choose to only show you works where the original artist has indicated that their photographs can be used in derivative works.

When I do this, I always (try) to post a link back to the original page where I acquired the image to make sure that anyone interested enough can not only see the original unmodified photograph; but also look at any of the artist’s other works as well.

For instance, here’s a shortcut:

To the Flickr Creative Commons Search Results

This has been a thing.