PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Photograph

How to Cite a Photograph in APA 7

An APA 7 reference for a photograph lists the photographer, the year the photo was taken in parentheses, the title in italics and sentence case, the word Photograph in square brackets, and the name of the site where you found it, followed by the link. A photograph in a museum takes the museum's name and location in place of the site. The in-text citation is the photographer's last name and the year: (Lange, 1936). Clip art that comes with Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, and stock images whose license says no attribution is required, need no citation at all.

The format

Photographer, A. A. (Year). Title of the photograph [Photograph]. Site Name. URL

PERRLA APA Experts ยท Updated October 21, 2026
Checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Choose Artwork, then Artwork viewed outside a museum for a photo you found online, like one in the Library of Congress, on Wikimedia Commons or Flickr, or on a news site. Add the photographer in the Artist role, or an organization as a Group Artist. Type the title in Artwork Title, the year in Date Produced, and Photograph in Format / Medium. Type the site's name in Publisher/Venue Name and paste the photo's page into URL. PERRLA adds the italics, the brackets, and the punctuation, and when the site's name matches a Group Artist, it leaves the site name out for you. Found the photo on the photographer's own website? Leave Publisher/Venue Name blank, so the name doesn't print twice.

No title? Type a description in square brackets in the title box, with the word Photograph inside it, like [Photograph of a nurse checking an IV pump], and leave Format / Medium blank. PERRLA reminds you of this as soon as you type the first bracket.

A photograph in a museum's collection? Choose Artwork in a museum instead, and fill in Museum or Collection Name and the city, state, and country under Artwork Location. If the museum's website has a page for the photo, paste it into URL.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.

The parts of the reference

1. Photographer

Start with the photographer's last name, a comma, and their initials. When an organization is credited instead of a person, like a park service or a government agency, give its full name.

Lange, D.

Only a username, as on Flickr? Use the username as it appears.

2. Year

Give the year the photograph was taken, in parentheses, followed by a period. Use the year the source gives for the photo, not the date it was uploaded or the year you found it.

(1936).

No date anywhere? Write (n.d.).

3. Title

Write the title in italics and in sentence case. Use the title the source gives the photo, even when the photo is famous under another name. The Library of Congress titles Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother from her caption card, and that's the title the reference uses.

Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California

File names aren't titles. When a photo has no real title, write a short description in square brackets, not in italics, and put the word Photograph in it.

4. [Photograph]

Right after the title, add [Photograph] in square brackets, not in italics. It tells your reader the source is an image. A museum print can take a more specific description, like [Gelatin silver print].

Nurse midwife Maude Callen (giving vaccination) [Photograph].

When a bracketed description already stands in for the title, it covers this part too, so there's only one set of brackets.

5. Site, or museum and location

For a photo you found online, give the name of the site you got it from, not in italics. For a photo in a museum's collection, give the museum's name, city, state (for a U.S. museum), and country instead.

Library of Congress.

When the photographer is also the site, like an agency's own website, leave the site name out so it doesn't repeat.

6. URL

End with the link to the photo's own page, not a search results page or the site's home page. Don't add "Retrieved from" before it or a period after it.

https://www.loc.gov/item/2017762891/

Examples

A photograph from a website

Dorothea Lange's 1936 photograph of Florence Thompson and her children, known as Migrant Mother, a common image in public health and social determinants of health courses. The Library of Congress titles it from Lange's caption card, so the reference uses that title and the Library of Congress as the site.

  • Parenthetical citation(Lange, 1936)
  • Narrative citationLange (1936)

A photograph in a museum's collection

A 1951 print from W. Eugene Smith's Life photo essay on nurse midwife Maude Callen, held by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. A photograph in a museum takes the museum format: the museum's name, city, state, and country.

  • Parenthetical citation(Smith, 1951)
  • Narrative citationSmith (1951)

An untitled photograph with a Creative Commons license

One of Alberto Giuliani's March 2020 portraits of doctors and nurses at San Salvatore Hospital in Pesaro, Italy, taken at the end of their shifts and shared on Wikimedia Commons under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. The file name isn't a title, so a bracketed description takes its place, with the word Photograph inside it. Because the license requires credit, putting this photo in your paper also takes a copyright attribution in the figure note.

  • Parenthetical citation(Giuliani, 2020)
  • Narrative citationGiuliani (2020)

In-text citations

An APA 7 in-text citation for a photograph gives the photographer's last name and the year. Photos have no page numbers, so don't add one.

  • One photographer: (Lange, 1936) or Lange (1936)
  • An organization: its full name, with an abbreviation in square brackets the first time if you'll use it again
  • No photographer: the title in italics and title case, then the year, or the bracketed description for an untitled photo
  • No date: n.d. in place of the year: (Photographer, n.d.)

Putting the photo in your paper as a figure? Give it a figure number and a title, and credit it in a note under the image, called a copyright attribution, which takes the place of the in-text citation. It lists the same details as the reference in a different order: title, photographer, year, site, and link, then the license. For a photo you discuss but don't show, use a regular in-text citation. Either way, the photo goes in your reference list.

Common mistakes

  • Lange, D. (1936). Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017762891/Lange, D. (1936). Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California [Photograph]. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017762891/A photograph takes [Photograph] in square brackets after the title. Without it, the reference looks like a document.
  • Giuliani, A. (2020). Covid-19 San Salvatore 02.jpg [Photograph].Giuliani, A. (2020). [Photograph of a health care worker at the end of a COVID-19 shift, San Salvatore Hospital, Pesaro, Italy].A file name isn't a title. An untitled photo gets a short description in square brackets, not in italics.
  • Google Images. (n.d.). Nurse [Photograph].Follow the image back to the page where it was published, and cite the photographer, the year, and that site.Google Images is a search engine, not the source. The photo belongs to whoever took and published it.
  • A Microsoft PowerPoint clip art image with a reference and an in-text citationThe same image with a figure number and title only, and no referenceClip art and images that come with Word or PowerPoint are licensed to you with the program, so APA says no reference or attribution is needed.
  • A Pixabay or Unsplash photo with no credit, because it was freeCheck the photo's license: credit it only when the license requires attributionAPA follows the license, not the price. A free image can still require credit, and a paid one may not.

Quick checklist

  • The photographer's last name and initials, or the organization's name
  • The year the photo was taken, or (n.d.)
  • The title in italics and sentence case, or a bracketed description
  • [Photograph] after the title, outside the italics
  • The site name and the photo's own link, or the museum and its location
  • For a figure: a copyright attribution when the license requires credit

Questions students ask

Do I need to cite a stock photo in APA 7?

It depends on the license. If the license says no attribution is required, you can use the image with no reference, citation, or attribution. If it requires credit, as many Creative Commons licenses do, add a copyright attribution in the figure note and a reference list entry. That holds whether the image was free or paid.

Do I cite clip art from PowerPoint or Word?

No. Clip art and images that come with Microsoft Word or PowerPoint can be used without a reference or attribution, because buying the program licensed them to you. Give the image a figure number and title if it's a figure in your paper.

How do I cite a photo with no title?

Write a short description of the photo in square brackets where the title would go, and don't italicize it. Put the word Photograph in the description, like [Photograph of a nurse checking an IV pump], so the reference needs only one set of brackets.

How do I cite a photo I found on Google Images?

Click through to the page where the photo was published and cite it from there: the photographer, the year, the title, and that site's name and link. Google Images only points you to the photo, so it never goes in the reference.

What goes in a copyright attribution for a photo?

The same details as the reference, in a different order: From, the title and [Photograph], by and the photographer's name, the year, the site, the link in parentheses, and then the license, like CC BY-SA 4.0. It goes in the note under the figure and takes the place of the in-text citation.

Is a photo in a museum cited differently?

Yes. A photograph in a museum's collection uses the museum artwork format: the museum's name, city, state for a U.S. museum, and country, plus the link to its page on the museum's website if you viewed it there.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 8.17, 9.8, 9.11, 9.12, 9.14, 9.17, 9.19, 9.21, 9.22, 9.29, 9.34, 10.14, and 12.14 to 12.18, and the APA Style website's artwork and clip art or stock image reference examples. Example sources verified on October 21, 2026, at the Library of Congress catalog record for Lange's photograph, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's collection record for Smith's print, and the Wikimedia Commons file page for Giuliani's photograph, including its author, date, and license.

PERRLA builds the photograph reference from the photographer, title, and site you type in, with [Photograph] and the italics in place.

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