Most Downloaded Photographs in Our Collection
Photos in these series are free to download and use with attribution for non-profit organizations.
America's Multitudes of Rural
Browse Our Collection by Location
Click on the map to view our photos by their location.
Seeing Is Believing
In a culture where seeing is believing, representation matters.
For too long, someone else has been telling our story — and getting it wrong. Rural America shows up in the national media as empty fields, abandoned storefronts, or a single story of decline.
That is not what we see when we look at each other.
The numbers
9 in 10
rural workers make their living outside of agriculture
1 in 4
rural residents are people of color
48 million+
people live in rural America
That's why we built Proudly Rural.
No one knows a rural community better than the people who live there. Every image in this library was made by a photographer who knows us, lives near us, or is one of us.
These are our farmers and our nurses, our tribal leaders and our teachers, our main streets and our back roads.
With rural policy entering a new era that recognizes rural diversity, it is time our visuals do too.
Every photo in this library is free.
Free to download, free to publish, free to share — for use on nonprofit websites, in academic reports, white papers, policy frameworks, government publications, news coverage, and more. All we ask is that you credit the photographer. That's the deal.