Photos & Graphics

When possible, use photos that depict the real people and places of the School of Medicine. When using images from other sources, such as stock photography, take care to honor all copyright laws and licensing restrictions.

Photo sources

Photos showing people engaged in the school’s mission are among the strongest visual representations of the brand. Tell your group’s story through realistic depictions of our community members in action. In addition, look for ways to showcase the school’s original research and clinical imagery.

Headshots

School of Medicine faculty and staff in need of professional headshots are encouraged to book photography with the Mike Nichols studio, which is available in Becker Medical Library most Tuesdays and Thursdays. See the school’s brand guidelines for information about booking headshots.

New photography

Medical Public Affairs assists in arranging professional photographic services for external marketing and communications projects. Please follow these guidelines for planning your shoot.

Existing photography

Medical Public Affairs maintains a database of thousands of campus photos available for use. Some – but far from all – of these photos are available through the Washington University Digital Library.

To access the full database of School of Medicine photography, please contact your project team, or email Theresa Howard, administrative assistant in the Office of Medical Public Affairs, at howard.theresa@wustl.edu.

Other resources

Only when School of Medicine imagery is unavailable should other resources be considered.

Commercial sources
Stock photography companies offer high-quality, rights-managed photos. Choose stock photos that can accurately substitute for actual depictions of your group’s activities. Your business unit must assume the responsibility of all required fees and licensing agreements.

Government sources
US government websites provide scores of downloadable medical- and science-themed images. Most images are freely available for use, with proper credit, unless otherwise noted. These sources include the NIH photo galleries, the CDC image library, and the Cell Image Library.

“Open” sources
Copyright owners may also make their images available free of charge with varying degrees of rights for use (i.e., “some rights reserved”). The world standard for this model is Creative Commons (CC), which facilitates distribution of images with specific usage and attribution stipulations. Wikimedia Commons and Flickr are two of the largest databases of CC images. A 2015 post from the LinkedIn Slideshare Blog lists additional sources of images. In all cases you must follow licensing conditions and give credit, following the CC best practices for attributing images.

Other sources 
Millions of images are a search away, but many are protected by copyright. Research an image’s origins thoroughly before use, and do not publish an image in print or on the web if you have not obtained permission for its use.

Copyright law

The complexities of intellectual property rights are best avoided by using original School of Medicine photos. Even School of Medicine images, if published in scientific journals, may be subject to a particular journal’s licensing restrictions.

Do not use any images without first securing all necessary rights, permissions and licensing agreements. Note that copyright law pertains differently to educational classroom use than it does to general distribution and publication.