Help

The goal of the Magnum Photos website is to provide comprehensive access to Magnum’s award winning imagery and photographers. This site is constantly evolving and updating, it is an organic evolution that will enable you to search or browse over 350,000 of our images online.

To get the most out of MagnumPhotos.com, including access to our search tools, you must first register for a new account. This only takes a few moments and will then allow you to use the photographic search engine, lightboxes and subscribe to our vibrant newsletters.

Help using MagnumPhotos.com

Advanced Search Help

The 'Advanced Search' page is a comprehensive access point into Magnum's vast photographic archive. Here you may search the image, features (stories), books and exhibition databases. To conduct a search you must complete at least one field, but after that the rest are optional.

By Keyword

You may include up to three different keywords within any one search. You may also include up to two keywords that you wish to exclude.

French keyword search

By selecting this option, you may search also search using French keywords.

By all fields (text search)

Text entered here will search across both keywords and captions at the same time. Your search term must be entered in English. Use this option if you are unsure of what keywords to use.

By Year

You may search for images taken during specific date range. For example, you may search for images taken between 1965 until 1970.

By Photographer

There are two options provided, ‘Include Photographer’ or ‘Exclude Photographer’. Selecting either option will determine whether images from the selected photographer are returned or not.

By Number

If you know the Magnum image number for a specific image, you may enter its number here for direct access.

Refining search results

Search advertising friendly images

By choosing to search only Advertising Friendly, your results will only feature images that can be more easily licensed for commercial use. These selections include:

• Model released images
• Personalities or named persons who can be contacted to clear any necessary third party licences
• Images where the person(s) identity cannot be clearly identified
• Images without people

Please note, it is still the responsibility of the licensee to clear all necessary permissions from third parties, be they people, buildings, art, art animals, which may include trademarks, personality rights, property rights, fine art rights, etc. Please refer to the Magnum Photos terms and conditions for more information on licensing.

Include illustrations and manipulated images

By checking this box your search results will include images that have been either been manipulated or can be classified as an illustration.

Image type

Changing this option will determine if colour images, black and white images or both black and white and colour images are returned within your search results.

Sorting search results

By changing the 'Sort Results By' option, you can choose how your search results will be sorted. You can sort, by date (newest or oldest first), by photographer, or by 'image rating'. If you select 'image rating, your results will be biased towards the Magnum editors' and photographers' own preferred selections from the archive. This option is recommended if you favour rating over chronology.

Further help or assistance

If you require assistance using this website, or would like help finding images, please contact your local Magnum Photos office.