How to cite an image or artwork

Bluebook (22d ed.) citation format · B18 / R18.9 · Internet & electronic

Example

Ray Collins, Oil (photograph 2014).

More examples

Each of these is checked against the rules on every change to the tool.

Photograph of Bill Clinton and President Kennedy, in David Maraniss, First in His Class (1994), following p. 134.
😀 (grinning face), U+1F600.

What the citation needs

Required

None.

When they apply

Artist — The author’s full name as it appears on the publication (R15.1; R16.2).
Title — The title as it appears on the source. R8(a): capitalize every word except articles, conjunctions and prepositions of four or fewer letters, unless they begin the title or follow a colon.
Type of work — R18.9: “photograph”, “painting”, “sculpture”.
Year — The year that goes in the date parenthetical at the end of the citation.
Kind — Which form of this source you are citing. The fields that matter change with it.
Description (untitled) — R18.9: “Photograph of …” or “Illustration of …”.
Work it appears in — R18.9: a full citation, introduced by “in”.
Following page — R18.9: for an image on an unnumbered page, the numbered page before it.
Reprinted by — The reprinted by, as it appears on the source.
Year of the reprint — The year of the reprint, as it appears on the source.
On file with — Where a reader can get an unpublished or hard-to-find source: what follows “on file with” — “author”, or the library or journal holding it (R17.1).
Generated by (AI model) — For an AI-generated image, the model that generated it: “DALL-E 3” (R18.3(c)).
Emoji — The emoji, as it appears on the source.
Emoji name — The emoji name, as it appears on the source.
Unicode number — The unicode number, as it appears on the source.

In a brief and in a law review

The Bluebook sets citations two ways: the Bluepages for court documents and legal memoranda, the Whitepages for law review footnotes. Here is the first example above as each one prints it, in its typeface.

Court documents (Bluepages)

Ray Collins, Oil (photograph 2014).

Law review footnotes (Whitepages)

Ray Collins, Oil (photograph 2014).

For this source the two are set the same way.

Common mistakes

Each of these is a citation the checker refuses, with what it says is wrong and the corrected form.

Wrong

Bill Clinton and President Kennedy, in David Maraniss, First in His Class (1994), following p. 134.

Right

Photograph of Bill Clinton and President Kennedy, in David Maraniss, First in His Class (1994), following p. 134.

Wrong

😀 (grinning face), 1F600.

Why

Could not classify (case, statute, regulation, uniform/model act, article, book, or website).

Right

😀 (grinning face), U+1F600.

Governing rules

B18 / R18.9

18 — the internet, electronic media & other nonprint resources.
18.9 — images and works of visual art.

Build this citation with the generator, check one you have already written, or paste a whole list of footnotes to check them in order.

Related source types

Internet & electronic: