Citing a photo from a website requires four core pieces of information regardless of the format you’re using: who created the image, what it’s called, where you found it, and when it was published or accessed. The exact arrangement of those details depends on whether you’re writing an academic paper in MLA, APA, or Chicago style, attributing a Creative Commons image on a blog, or referencing a social media post. Here’s how to handle each situation.
Information to Gather First
Before you format anything, collect as much of the following as you can find on the page where the image appears:
- Creator’s name (photographer, illustrator, or artist)
- Title of the image (if none exists, write a brief description of what the image shows)
- Name of the website where you found it
- Date the image was published or uploaded
- URL (the direct link to the image or the page containing it)
- Date you accessed the image (some styles require this)
Not every photo will have all of these. A news photo on a major outlet will usually list the photographer and date. A photo on a personal blog might not. Include whatever you can locate, and when a title isn’t provided, substitute a short factual description of the image instead.
MLA Format
In MLA (9th edition), an online image citation in your works cited list follows the standard MLA template of core elements: creator, title, container (the website), publication date, and URL. A basic entry looks like this:
Last Name, First Name. Title of Image. Website Name, day month year, URL.
If no title exists, write a description of the image without italics. For example:
Hernandez, Maria. Aerial view of downtown Chicago at sunset. Flickr, 14 Mar. 2023, www.flickr.com/photos/example/12345.
When you place the image inside your paper, label it as a figure. MLA calls any visual that isn’t a table a “Figure,” abbreviated “Fig.” followed by an Arabic numeral. The label and caption go directly below the image with the same one-inch margins as your text. A caption might read: “Fig. 1. Hernandez, Maria. Aerial view of downtown Chicago at sunset. Flickr, 14 Mar. 2023.” You can put the full citation in the caption or in your works cited list, but not both.
APA Format
APA treats an online image like any other work with an author and a date. The reference list entry follows this structure:
Last Name, Initials. (Year, Month Day). Title of image [Photograph]. Website Name. URL
If the creator isn’t identified, start with the title. If there’s no title, place a description in square brackets where the title would go. APA requires you to note the format in brackets after the title, such as [Photograph], [Illustration], or [Infographic].
In the body of your paper, include an in-text citation with the creator’s last name and the year, like (Hernandez, 2023). If you embed the image directly in your paper, APA uses “Figure” numbering similar to MLA, with a note below the image that includes the citation information and a copyright or licensing statement when applicable.
Chicago Style
Chicago offers two systems: notes-bibliography (common in humanities) and author-date (common in sciences). For most image citations, the notes-bibliography approach is more common. A footnote or endnote for an online image typically includes:
First Name Last Name, Title of Image, date, medium, Website Name, URL.
In the bibliography, invert the author’s name (Last Name, First Name) as you would for any other Chicago entry. If you accessed the image on a specific date and the page content could change, add “accessed [date]” before the URL.
Citing Social Media Photos
Photos from platforms like Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), or Facebook have their own quirks. APA style, for instance, requires you to list the person’s real name first, then their handle in square brackets. So an Instagram post would begin: Hernandez, M. [@mariaphoto].
For the title, APA says to use the first 20 words of the caption, counting hashtags, URLs, and emojis as one word each. After the caption text, add a format label in brackets, such as [Photograph]. Then include the specific date of the post, the platform name, and the URL to the post.
MLA follows a similar logic: the user’s name, the post caption or a description, the platform name as the container, the date, and the URL. If the account uses a screen name rather than a real name, use the screen name.
One important note: temporary content like Instagram Stories or livestreams that disappears and can’t be retrieved should generally be treated as a personal communication in APA style, meaning you reference it in the text of your paper but don’t include it in your reference list, since readers have no way to access it.
Creative Commons Images
If the photo you’re using is released under a Creative Commons license, you have a legal obligation to attribute it properly, not just an academic one. Creative Commons recommends the TASL method, which stands for Title, Author, Source, and License.
- Title: The name of the image, if one was provided.
- Author: The creator’s name. Some licensors ask to be credited under a pseudonym, a company name, or not at all. Follow whatever the licensor requests.
- Source: A URL or hyperlink pointing to where the image lives online. If you found it on a secondary site, try to link to the original source where it was first shared.
- License: Name the specific Creative Commons license and link to it. For example, “CC BY 4.0” with a link to creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. Each of the six CC licenses has different rules for reuse, so identifying the correct one matters.
A typical Creative Commons attribution might look like this on a blog or presentation slide: “Sunset Over the Bay” by Maria Hernandez, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Source: flickr.com/photos/example/12345. If you’re also writing an academic paper, you still need a formal citation in your bibliography or works cited list in addition to this attribution.
Free Stock Photo Sites
Major free stock photo platforms like Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay generally don’t require attribution as a condition of their license. Pexels, for example, states plainly that giving credit to the photographer or the platform is not necessary but is always appreciated. Unsplash and Pixabay have similar terms.
That said, “no attribution required” refers to the legal license, not to academic honesty. If you’re using a stock photo in a school paper, thesis, or any academic work, you still need to cite it. The license tells you whether the photographer can sue you for not crediting them. Your professor or publisher has a separate standard. Treat these images like any other online source: include the photographer’s name (listed on the download page), the platform, and the URL.
Citing AI-Generated Images
If the image was created by an AI tool like DALL-E, Midjourney, or Adobe Firefly, citation rules are still evolving, but MLA has issued clear guidance. The key principle: do not list the AI tool as the author. Instead, describe what was generated, name the tool and its version, identify the company that made the tool, give the date you generated the image, and provide a URL if one is available.
For an image caption in MLA style, the format looks like this:
Fig. 1. “Create an expressionist-style image of two people standing on a beach looking at the ocean” prompt, DALL-E, version 3, OpenAI, 23 Sept. 2024, chatgpt.com/share/66f1c3a3-3f90-8000-9750-82c57c4a6592.
The prompt you typed becomes the descriptive title. Some tools, like ChatGPT and DALL-E, let you generate a shareable link to the conversation where the image was created. If the tool you used doesn’t offer that, provide the general URL for the platform. You can place this full citation in either the image caption or your works cited list.
Quick Formatting Checklist
Regardless of style, run through these steps before submitting your work:
- Label every image as a figure with a number (Fig. 1, Fig. 2) in academic papers.
- Place captions below the image, not above it.
- Match every in-text figure reference to a full citation in your bibliography, works cited list, or the caption itself.
- Check the license before reusing any image. Even with a proper citation, some copyrighted images can’t be reproduced without permission.
- Use a live URL when possible. If the link is extremely long, some styles allow you to shorten it to the domain and path, but always test that the URL actually leads to the image.