How to Cite a Photograph You Took Yourself (and Other Work You Created)

Quick Answer: citing a photograph you took

If the photograph is unpublished and you made it for this assignment, do not add it to the reference list. Number it as a figure, refer to it by number in your text, and state in the figure's note, caption, or credit line that it is your own work. If the photograph has been published, in a magazine, on a stock site, in an earlier paper of yours, or in a public gallery, cite that publication exactly as you would cite another photographer's work, with your own name as the author.

Do you need a citation at all?

A citation exists so a reader can find the source you used. A photograph that exists only on your phone cannot be found by anyone, which is the same reason APA keeps personal communications out of the reference list; see how to cite personal communications. What a reader does need is to know that the image is original, when and where it was made, and what it shows. That information belongs with the figure, not at the end of the paper.

Instructors sit somewhere between the two columns. Many course rubrics require a note or caption that says Photograph by author on every original image so the grader can tell your work from downloaded work, and a few ask for a reference-list entry anyway. Follow the rubric when it is explicit; when it is silent, use the style's own rule, which is the label-only form shown below.

APA 7: figure notes for your own photographs

APA's figure setup page defines the parts of a figure: a bold number above the image, an italic title in title case below the number, the image itself, and an optional note beginning with the italic word Note. A copyright attribution is required in the note only when you reproduce or adapt someone else's figure (§12.14–12.15). A photograph you took yourself needs no attribution and no reference-list entry, so the note is free to say what a reader needs: that the photograph is yours and where and when it was taken.

What the note should say

• Say that the image is yours in plain words: Photograph taken by the author or Own work. Some instructors ask for the shorter Own photograph; either is acceptable APA prose.
• Give the place and date if they matter to the argument. A photograph of a building facade in 2025 says something different from one in 1995.
• Explain anything in the image the reader could not work out alone: what an arrow marks, which of the two doors is the original, what the scale bar means.
• Do not write Copyright 2025 by C. Okafor under your own unpublished photo. APA's copyright attribution is for reproduced material and would imply you are reprinting from somewhere.
• Refer to every figure by number in the text. A figure that is never mentioned should not be in the paper.

Figures you made from your own data

The same rule applies to a chart you built from survey results you collected, a diagram you drew, or a map you made. The figure carries a number, a title, and a note describing the data; there is no reference entry because the data have not been published. If you later deposit the data in a repository, cite the deposited data set in the usual way, as described in how to cite a dataset in APA.

Citing your own previously published work

Once something of yours is published, it is a source, and you cite it the way you would cite anyone else: your name as author, in third person, with a full reference. The APA photograph references pattern applies to a published photo, and the journal-article pattern applies to a published paper. Do not write my earlier article in the reference list; write your surname and initials.

The copyright line in the figure note changes if you signed the copyright over to the publisher: it then reads Copyright 2024 by Canadian Geographic Enterprises. Reprinted with permission. Check your contract before you assert that the copyright is still yours.

Self-plagiarism and reusing an old paper

APA §8.3 treats presenting your own previously published words or data as new work as self-plagiarism. Reusing a paragraph from your published article without a citation is a violation; reusing it with a citation and quotation marks is fine. An unpublished paper from an earlier course is a different problem: it is not self-plagiarism in APA's sense, but most institutions forbid submitting the same work twice without permission. If your instructor approves the reuse, cite the earlier paper as an unpublished manuscript so the overlap is visible. The broader rules are in how to avoid plagiarism and APA's plagiarism guidance.

MLA 9: a caption, not a Works Cited entry

MLA labels illustrations Fig. followed by an arabic number, places the label and a caption directly below the image, and refers to the figure in the text as fig. 1 in lowercase. The MLA Handbook (§1.7) says that when the caption gives complete source information and the source is not cited elsewhere, no works-cited entry is needed. For your own unpublished photograph, complete source information is a description of the image, the words by the author, and the date.

The description in the caption follows MLA's rule for untitled works: plain text, no italics, no quotation marks, capitalized like a sentence. If you gave the photograph a real title, italicize it as an artwork: Union Station at Dusk, photograph by the author, 14 May 2025. The forms for describing untitled works are in how to cite a source with no title.

When your photo has been published

A published photograph of yours is cited like any other artwork reproduced in a container, following how to cite artwork in MLA. Your name goes in the author position, the photograph's title is italicized, the year of the photograph follows, and the container in which it was published comes last. Cite it in the text by your surname.

Photos you posted on social media

Posting a photograph publicly makes it a findable source, so MLA expects a works-cited entry when you reuse it, with the platform as the container and your handle in square brackets after your name. The post text is the title, in quotation marks; a post with no text takes a description. The platform patterns are in how to cite social media in MLA.

Chicago 18: credit lines and captions

Chicago handles illustrations in chapter 3 of the manual, not in the citation chapters. A caption identifies the figure; a credit line at the end of the caption identifies its source. For material the author created, Chicago's credit line is a short phrase such as Photograph by the author or Photo by author, and no note or bibliography entry accompanies it. Chicago also says a credit line for the author's own material can be omitted entirely when the preface or acknowledgments state that all unattributed illustrations are the author's, which is common in theses.

Chicago is flexible about how the reference in running text looks: figure 1, fig. 1, and (fig. 1) are all acceptable as long as the form is consistent. Lowercase the word in running text; capitalize Figure only at the start of the caption itself.

Your own published work in Chicago

A published photograph or article of yours is cited like any other author's, in a note and in the bibliography, with your name in the normal position. If you reproduce your own published photograph as a figure, the credit line names the original publication and, where the publisher holds the copyright, adds the permission wording the publisher requires. Footnote and bibliography forms for artworks are covered in the Notes and Bibliography guide.

Author-date

Chicago author-date moves the year after your name and cites (Okafor 2024) in the text. The caption and credit line for an unpublished photo are unchanged; author-date only affects published work. The reference-list forms follow the Author-Date guide.

Someone else's photograph is a different job

Everything above assumes you made the image. The moment the photograph is someone else's, all three styles want a full citation: a reference-list entry in APA with the photographer, year, title or description, and source; a works-cited entry in MLA; and a note in Chicago, plus a credit line under the figure if you reproduce it. Those forms are in how to cite an image in APA, how to cite an image in APA, step by step, in MLA, and in Chicago. Reproducing another person's photograph in a published work may also require permission, which is a copyright question rather than a citation one.

Common mistakes

• Adding a reference-list entry for an unpublished photo that only exists on your device. A reader cannot retrieve it, so it does not belong in the list.
• Leaving an original photo unlabeled. Without by the author or Own work a grader has no way to know it is not downloaded.
• Writing a copyright attribution under your own unpublished photo in APA. That line is for reproduced material.
• Citing your own published work in the first person: my 2024 photograph. The reference and the in-text citation use your surname like anyone else's.
• Reusing paragraphs from your published article without quotation marks and a citation. APA calls that self-plagiarism.
• Submitting an old course paper as new work without permission, then citing nothing because "it is mine."
• Forgetting to mention the figure in the text. Every figure needs a reference by number in all three styles.
• Capitalizing Fig. and Figure in running text in MLA and Chicago; both lowercase the word there.
• Treating a photo you posted on Instagram as unpublished. Once it is public, MLA and Chicago can cite it, and a reader can find it.
• Using this guide for someone else's photograph. That case needs a full citation and often permission.

Related guides and official manuals

• How to Cite an Image in APA
• How to Cite Artwork in MLA
• How to Cite a Source with No Title
• How to Cite Personal Communications
• How to Cite a Dataset in APA
• How to Avoid Plagiarism
• How to cite an image in APA
• How to cite an image in MLA
• How to cite an image in Chicago
• APA Style: figure setup
• APA Style: photograph references
• APA Style: plagiarism and self-plagiarism
• MLA Style Center
• Chicago Notes-Bibliography citation guide
• Chicago Author-Date citation guide