
Foto Roos, 24 September 1930 via Helsinki City Museum
Helsinki City Museum has digitized a collection of over 65,000 photos. They are all available online and free to download and use. You can find photos from our day and age, but they date back to the 19th century and there are some real gems among them.
You can search through individual photos, or explore albums if you prefer that. You can download and use photos any way that you like as long as you credit the source. And if you’d like to hang a print on your wall – you can order prints directly from the website, which is really handy. The prices go between €18 and €40, depending on the size and the finish of your prints.
Here are a few photos that I found particularly interesting, weird, or beautiful while browsing through the gallery.

Sääski Oy, 24 September 1930 via Helsinki City Museum

Elmgren Greta, 1912 via Helsinki City Museum

Hakli Kari, 11 April 1971 via Helsinki City Museum

Unknown, 1906 via Helsinki City Museum

Strindberg Sven, 1910 via Helsinki City Museum

Pietari Bergamasco, 1866-1867 via Helsinki City Museum

Unknown,1908 via Helsinki City Museum

Kajantie Arvo, 1950 via Helsinki City Museum

Simo Rista, March 1970 via Helsinki City Museum

Kannisto Väinö, 1947 via Helsinki City Museum

Unknown, 1918 via Helsinki City Museum

Unknown, 1918 via Helsinki City Museum
Go ahead and browse the gallery, and feel free to share your interesting findings with us. And now, like I often do, I’ll also leave you with a list of other institutions that offer copyright-free images, sound samples, and books, so you have it all in one place:
- Europeana Photography Collection
- The Met Museum online gallery
- Arab Image Foundation gallery
- Cleveland Museum of Art’s collection
- NASA image gallery
- American Museum of Natural History Research Library
- The Guggenheim Museum online archive (books)
- BBC Archive (sound samples)
- The Smithsonian
- Paris Musées
[via Reddit]
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