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 and the date the photo was taken in Date Produced. Type the website's name in Publisher/Venue Name and paste the photo's own page into URL. PERRLA puts the title in title case and italics and drops the https:// from the link.
Format / Medium is optional in MLA. Type Photograph there when the title doesn't make it clear, and PERRLA adds it at the end of the entry. No title? Type a description in square brackets in the title box, like [Photograph of a nurse checking an IV pump]. PERRLA takes the brackets off and prints the description in plain type.
A photograph in a museum's collection? Choose Artwork in a museum instead. Saw it in person? Fill in Museum or Collection Name and Artwork Location: City. Saw it on the museum's website? Type the website's name in Museum or Collection Name, leave the location boxes blank, and paste the photo's page into URL.
Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same works cited entry by hand.
The parts of the works cited entry
1. Photographer
Start with the photographer's last name, a comma, and their first name as the source gives it, with any middle name or initial.
Lange, Dorothea.
Only a username, as on Flickr? Use the username as it appears. No photographer named, only an organization or agency? Leave the author out and start with the title, and give the organization as the publisher.
2. Title or description
A photograph is a whole work on its own, so its title goes in italics and title case, followed by a period. 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 entry 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, describe it in plain type, with only the first word and proper nouns capitalized, and no italics, quotation marks, or brackets.
Photograph of a health care worker at the end of a COVID-19 shift, San Salvatore Hospital, Pesaro, Italy.
3. Date taken
Give the date the photo was taken, as fully as the source gives it, written day, month, year, with the month abbreviated (except May, June, and July). Use the date of the photo, not the date it was uploaded or the day you found it.
Mar. 1936.
Online, a period follows the date, because the date belongs to the photo and the website starts a new part of the entry. In person, a comma follows it, and the museum comes next.
4. Website and URL
For a photo you found online, the website is the container: its name in italics, a comma, and the URL of the photo's own page, without the https://. End with a period.
Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2017762891/.
Link to the page that shows the photo and its details, not a search results page or the image file itself.
Saw a print in person, in a museum? End with the museum's name and its city instead, after a comma, with no URL.
5. Photograph (optional)
MLA doesn't require a label for the kind of work, but you can add one at the very end when the title doesn't make it clear: Photograph, or the process a museum lists, like Gelatin silver print.
Photograph.
Examples
A photograph from a website
Dorothea Lange's March 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 and dates it 1936 March, so the entry uses that title, Mar. 1936, and the Library of Congress website as the container. The title doesn't say it's a photo, so Photograph goes at the end.
Works Cited
Lange, Dorothea. Destitute Pea Pickers in California. Mother of Seven Children. Age Thirty-Two. Nipomo, California. Mar. 1936. Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2017762891/. Photograph.
- In-text citation(Lange)
- Narrative citationLange frames Thompson's worried face against her children, …
A museum's photograph viewed on its website
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 and not on view. You'd see it on the museum's collection site, so the museum's website is the container. The museum lists the print as a gelatin silver print, which can go at the end.
Works Cited
Smith, W. Eugene. Nurse Midwife Maude Callen (Giving Vaccination). 1951. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/51299/nurse-midwife-maude-callen-giving-vaccination. Gelatin silver print.
- In-text citation(Smith)
- Narrative citationSmith shows Callen at work with her patients, …
An untitled photograph on Wikimedia Commons
One of Alberto Giuliani's portraits of doctors and nurses at San Salvatore Hospital in Pesaro, Italy, taken at the end of their shifts on March 19, 2020, and shared on Wikimedia Commons under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. The file name isn't a title, so a plain description takes its place. The photo is dated to the day, so the entry gives the full date.
Works Cited
Giuliani, Alberto. Photograph of a health care worker at the end of a COVID-19 shift, San Salvatore Hospital, Pesaro, Italy. 19 Mar. 2020. Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Covid-19_San_Salvatore_02.jpg.
- In-text citation(Giuliani)
- Narrative citationGiuliani photographed the staff as their shifts ended, …
In-text citations
An MLA 9 in-text citation for a photograph is the first thing in its Works Cited entry, usually the photographer's last name. Photos have no page numbers, so don't add one.
- One photographer: (Lange)
- Two photographers: both last names joined by and
- Three or more: the first photographer and et al.
- No photographer, only an organization: the entry starts with the title, so the citation is the title, shortened if it's long, in italics
- Untitled and no photographer: the description, shortened, in plain type, as it starts the entry
- Name in your sentence: leave the parentheses off: Lange photographed Thompson in a pea pickers' camp.
Putting the photo itself in your paper? Label it Fig. 1 (then Fig. 2, and so on) and give it a caption that identifies the source. If the caption gives the full source details and you don't cite the photo anywhere else, it doesn't need a Works Cited entry.
Common mistakes
- (Lange, 1936)(Lange)That's APA. MLA in-text citations don't take the year, and a photo has no page to add.
- Lange, D. (1936).Lange, Dorothea.That's APA. MLA spells out the first name as the source gives it, and the date goes after the title, not after the name.
- Giuliani, Alberto. Covid-19 San Salvatore 02.Giuliani, Alberto. 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. Describe the photo instead, in plain type.
- Mar. 1936, Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2017762891/.Mar. 1936. Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2017762891/.The date belongs to the photo, so a period follows it. The website is the container, so its name goes in italics.
- Google Images, www.google.com/search?q=migrant+mother.Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2017762891/.A search engine isn't where the photo lives. Click through to the site that posted it and cite that page.
Quick checklist
- Photographer inverted, full first name as the source gives it
- Title in italics and title case, or a plain description if there's no title
- The date the photo was taken, as fully as the source gives it
- Online: a period after the date, then the website in italics and the URL
- In person: the museum and its city
- Photograph at the end only if the title doesn't make it clear
Questions students ask
How do I cite a photo with no title in MLA?
Describe the photo where the title would go, like Photograph of a health care worker at the end of a COVID-19 shift. Capitalize only the first word and proper nouns, and skip italics, quotation marks, and brackets. A file name like Covid-19_San_Salvatore_02.jpg doesn't count as a title.
How do I cite a photo I found on Google Images?
Don't cite Google. Click through to the site that posted the photo and cite it there: the photographer, the title or a description, the date, and that site's name and URL. If you can't find where the photo came from, find a different photo you can trace.
What if the photo is credited to an organization, not a person?
Leave the author out and start the entry with the photo's title or a description. Give the organization as the publisher, then the date, and then the website and URL. Your in-text citation then uses the title.
Is a photo in a museum cited differently?
Only the last part changes. If you saw the print in person, end with the museum and its city instead of a website. If you saw it on the museum's website, give the website in italics and the photo page's URL.
Do I write Photograph in an MLA photo citation?
Only if it helps. MLA treats the kind of work as an optional element at the end of the entry. Add Photograph. when the title doesn't make it clear that the source is a photo, or the museum's process name, like Gelatin silver print, when it matters to your paper.
Related guides
Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapters 5 and 6 (the core elements, containers, optional elements, and in-text citations), and the MLA Style Center pages "How to Cite an Image," "How do I cite a photograph found on a website?," "How do I cite a museum image that I viewed in person or online?," "How do I cite a Wikimedia picture of an artwork?," "How do I cite a photograph from a website that credits the image to an organization rather than to the photographer?," and "How do I cite an image found through an online search engine like Google Images?" Example sources are the ones verified for the APA 7 page, re-checked on October 29, 2026: the Library of Congress catalog record for Lange's photograph (its title, 1936 March date, and photographer), The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's collection record for Smith's print (1951, gelatin silver print), and the Wikimedia Commons file record for Giuliani's photograph (photographer, March 19, 2020, CC BY-SA 4.0).