If you’re a photographer, illustrator, stylist, or brand who has landed on this page because you spotted your work somewhere on Hearth Diaries, you’re in the right place, and there’s no hard part ahead. Tell us what you’d like done and it gets done. The rest of this page explains where the images here come from and how to reach someone quickly.
Where We Stand On Other People’s Work
Decorating content lives or dies on pictures. A written description of how a 68-inch sofa sits under a window is worth almost nothing next to a photograph of it, which is why Hearth Diaries publishes hundreds of images across its archive and why the people who make those images matter to this site.
Photography is skilled work. So is styling a room, lighting it, and shooting it in a way that makes 400 square feet look livable rather than cramped. Every image on this site was made by somebody, and that somebody deserves credit, control, and the ability to say no.
Our Good-Faith Position
Hearth Diaries believes that its use of third-party images falls within the fair use doctrine or the public domain, or is covered by a license the site holds. Images are sourced carefully, licenses are checked before use, and attribution is provided wherever it’s called for.
There is no intent here to infringe on anyone’s copyright or intellectual property. If something on this site slipped through the process and shouldn’t have, that’s a mistake rather than a position, and it will be treated as one.
A Breakdown Of Every Image Source On This Site
Images published on Hearth Diaries come from six places. Here’s each of them.
Brand, editorial, and press images. Product coverage makes up a large share of what this site publishes, and reviews, comparisons, and roundups frequently include manufacturer product photography. These images appear in an editorial context, supporting commentary, criticism, comparison, or reporting on the product in question, which the site believes qualifies as fair use. They are used at reasonable size, alongside original written analysis, and never presented as though Hearth Diaries created them. Where a manufacturer or press kit specifies attribution terms, those terms are followed.
Original photography. A meaningful portion of the images here were shot for this site, in real apartments, usually the author’s own. Room shots, before-and-after sequences, storage solutions in use, close-ups of hardware and finishes, and most of the hands-on testing photography fall into this category. These images belong to Hearth Diaries outright.
Licensed stock photography. Where original photography isn’t practical, images are licensed from commercial stock libraries. The site holds licenses through platforms including Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Depositphotos, iStock, and Canva Pro, and each image is used within the terms of the specific license purchased for it. Interior photography from these libraries is what fills the gap when a piece calls for a room type or a style the site has no way of photographing directly.
Creative Commons images. Some images come from Creative Commons sources, including Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, Burst, and Flickr Commons. Licenses within Creative Commons differ considerably, so each image is checked individually against its own terms. Where a license requires attribution, such as CC BY or CC BY-SA, the photographer is credited and the source is linked. Where a license restricts modification or commercial use, those restrictions are respected.
Public domain images. Older photographs, architectural drawings, historical interiors, and illustration used for context or comparison are sometimes drawn from public domain collections. Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Open Access, and comparable institutional archives are the usual sources. Public domain status is verified before use rather than assumed from a label on an aggregator site.
Reader and collaborator submissions. Readers occasionally send in photographs of their own apartments, either as part of a question or because they want to show what worked. When one of those images is published, it’s with the sender’s explicit permission, credited as they’ve asked, and removable at any time on request. Nobody’s living room ends up on this site by accident.
How Credit Is Given
Where attribution is required, Hearth Diaries provides it. That means naming the creator, naming the source platform where relevant, and linking back to the original file or portfolio wherever a working link exists.
Credit appears in the image caption, in a credit line beneath the image, or in a source list at the foot of the article, depending on what suits the layout. Attribution details are treated as part of the article’s factual content, which means they’re checked before publication and corrected afterward if an error is pointed out. If your name is spelled wrong, your link is dead, or the credit points to the wrong person, tell us and it gets fixed.
When Attribution Falls Short
Across a large archive, some images will not be credited as well as they should be. That’s worth saying plainly rather than pretending otherwise.
It happens for a handful of ordinary reasons. Source links break when a platform reorganizes. An image circulates widely enough that the original creator becomes genuinely hard to trace. A credit gets lost during a site migration or a theme change. Someone on the site makes a mistake.
None of that is deliberate, and none of it is a claim on anyone’s work. When a gap like this comes to light, correcting it takes priority over whatever else was scheduled that day.
You Don’t Need A Lawyer For This
A formal legal notice isn’t required before contacting Hearth Diaries about an image, and neither is a solicitor, an agency, or a takedown service. An email works. A short, plain email works best of all.
Requests are handled directly and quickly here, which is faster and less expensive for everybody than the alternative. Nobody at this site is going to argue with a creator over their own photograph.
Three Ways To Sort This Out
If your work appears on Hearth Diaries and you’d like something changed, pick whichever of these suits you:
- Credit it. Leave the image where it is and have your name, your business, and a link to your site or portfolio added to it. Tell us exactly how you’d like to be credited and that’s how it will read.
- Change how it appears. Have the image resized, cropped differently, watermarked, moved within the page, relinked to a different destination, or displayed under whatever conditions your license or preference requires.
- Take it down. Have the image removed from the site entirely. No explanation needed, no negotiation, no attempt to talk you into option one instead.
Send your preference to hello@hearthdiaries.com and it will be actioned.
What Helps Us Move Faster
None of this is mandatory, and a request missing every item below will still be handled. Including what you can just gets it resolved sooner:
- The URL of the page on Hearth Diaries where the image appears, and a description of which image it is if the page holds several
- A link to the original image, or something that shows the work is yours, such as a portfolio page, a licensing listing, or the original upload
- Your name and how you’d prefer to be contacted
- Which of the three options above you want, and any specific detail attached to it, such as the exact wording of a credit line
What Happens Next
Your email gets acknowledged when it arrives, so you know a person has it rather than wondering into silence.
Ownership is confirmed where that’s reasonably possible, usually by comparing your material against what’s published here. This step is quick and is not a hurdle placed in front of you. Once it’s done, the requested action is carried out, whether that’s adding a credit, altering the display, or removing the file. You then get a follow-up confirming what changed and where, with a link so you can check it yourself.
If anything about the outcome isn’t right, reply and it will be adjusted.
How Quickly We Respond
Every image request sent to Hearth Diaries receives a reply within 48 hours. Straightforward removals are usually processed the same business day, frequently within a few hours, because taking an image down requires no discussion.
Requests involving credit wording, licensing questions, or several images at once may take slightly longer to complete, but the initial reply still comes inside the same 48-hour window.
Get In Touch
Any question about images on this site is welcome, including ones that aren’t complaints. If you’re curious where a particular photograph came from, whether a piece of your work is licensed correctly here, or how the site handles a specific license, ask.
Messages about image rights go to the top of the inbox, and they’re answered by a person.
