Photo Bank

Welcome to the Shared Photo Bank, where you can find quality, free-use images and graphics to support your use of Shared Messaging. 

All of the photos below have been identified as fitting within the research-based frames supporting the Shared Message Bank. Before using the Photo Bank, we recommend you read through the Guide For Visuals in Communications, a tool developed by the Shared Messaging Action Team which provides helpful tips in choosing and using visuals in your messaging efforts.

Contribute to the Photo Bank

This Photo Bank will grow and improve based on images captured via the ECCP network. See the tags below for gaps and needs for images, as the smaller the tag, the fewer connected images we have accessed. Have a photo to add to the bank? Send to earlychildhood@civiccanopy.org with suggested tags. Please note, only free-use images can be added to the Photo Bank. 

Specific image needs: children interacting with adults other than primary caregivers, families in community spaces like libraries and grocery stores, and children with special needs.

Images below are organized by tags. Click a tag to see all images within that tag. To download an image, right click, choose “Save Image As,” and add to your own folder. 

Best Practices for Using Visuals in Your Communication

Children exist in families and communities.

Include images of children where they exist every day—with caring adults and supportive environments. Images of children alone can trigger individualistic and unproductive ways of thinking for our audiences. 

  • Leave out images of a baby or a child alone.  
  • Always ensure a child is with caring adults and/or groups of other children.  
  • Lean on the serve & return metaphor and include images of positive interactions between adults and children.  
  • Lean away from images of children and caregivers in a home, and toward families in community spaces (i.e. parks, businesses, greenspace, walks, schools, libraries, etc.). Note: you will find some images of families at home in this Photo Bank. Use these specifically for messages catered to parents and limit when speaking to other audiences like business and community members.

Children in the United States come from many different backgrounds with different developmental needs.

Ensure images reflect the vast array of different backgrounds and needs of children in our society. This can help us “widen the lens” for our audiences on who they imagine when they think about our issues. Things to consider: 

  • Do your images reflect diversity of ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation and religion wherever applicable?  
  • Consider the geography you are reflecting in your messages. Do your images reflect this same geography (i.e. if your intended impact is statewide, do you have images that reflect rural and frontier communities? If your intended impact is in a specific community or neighborhood, do your images reflect that community?)
  • Are your images inclusionary of children’s developmental needs? Is there an opportunity to include images of children with special needs or a disability? 

Stay strengths-based, solutions-oriented.

Even for children, families, and communities experiencing struggles, there are many opportunities to include a strengths-based lens in our images. This approach helps mitigate against fatalistic ways of thinking and supports more solutions-oriented thinking. It is important for our audiences to see systemic problems, but also that they understand these problems can and should be fixed. 

  • If you are advocating for solutions around service-delivery improvements, how can you use imagery to show the ways in which access to services strengthen families?  
  • Include images that show communities supporting families. For example, a child care provider supporting a young child, families at a block party or community gathering, community gardens, etc. 

Children are our future neighbors and community members. A strong foundation for children now ensures society’s success tomorrow.

Images which connect to the key value of All Together for Prosperity, or the common good, can ensure your values-driven messages are linked to the images you use. 

  • When possible, include images which invoke the long-term vision you are working to achieve.  
  • Seek images which show the long-term value and payoff of supporting investments in your issue (i.e. high-quality child care, health care access, child maltreatment prevention, etc.). Think about the question: if a miracle happened overnight and our problem was solved, what would we see? 

 

Free Photo Bank Sources

Photo Bank Contributors 

Dalton Gang Preschool in Denver, Colorado

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