diff --git a/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/README.md b/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/README.md
index 5edf65d1e67e1..1a0f682826a44 100644
--- a/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/README.md
+++ b/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/README.md
@@ -22,7 +22,15 @@ images. By default it uses a quality setting of [50-75].
 
 ```javascript
 // In your gatsby-config.js
-plugins: [`gatsby-plugin-sharp`]
+plugins: [
+  {
+    resolve: `gatsby-plugin-sharp`,
+    options: {
+      useMozJpeg: false,
+      stripMetadata: true,
+    },
+  },
+]
 ```
 
 ## Methods
@@ -242,12 +250,37 @@ You can opt-in to use [MozJPEG][16] for jpeg-encoding. MozJPEG provides even
 better image compression than the default encoder used in `gatsby-plugin-sharp`.
 However, when using MozJPEG the build time of your Gatsby project will increase
 significantly.
-To enable MozJPEG set the [environment variable](/docs/environment-variables/#environment-variables):
+
+To enable MozJPEG, you can set the `useMozJpeg` plugin option to `true` in
+`gatsby-config.js`.
+
+For backwards compatible reasons, if `useMozJpeg` is not defined in the plugin
+options, the [environment variable](/docs/environment-variables/#environment-variables)
+`GATSBY_JPEG_ENCODER` acts as a fallback if set to `MOZJPEG`:
 
 ```shell
 GATSBY_JPEG_ENCODER=MOZJPEG
 ```
 
+### EXIF and ICC metadata
+
+By default, `gatsby-plugin-sharp` strips all EXIF, ICC and other metadata
+present in your source file. This is the recommended default as it leads to
+smaller file sizes.
+
+However, in situations where you wish to preserve EXIF metadata or ICC profiles
+(example: you are building a photography portfolio and wish to conserve
+the color profile or the copyright information of the photos you've exported
+from Adobe Lightroom or Phase One's Capture One), you can set the `stripMetadata`
+plugin option to `false` in `gatsby-config.js`.
+
+It is important to note that if `stripMetadata` is set to `false`, **all**
+metadata information will be preserved from the source image, including but not
+limited to the latitude/longitude information of where the picture was taken
+(if present). If you wish to strip this information from the source file, you
+can either leave `stripMetadata` to its default of `true`, or manually
+pre-process your images with a tool such as [ExifTool][17].
+
 [1]: https://alistapart.com/article/finessing-fecolormatrix
 [2]: http://blog.72lions.com/blog/2015/7/7/duotone-in-js
 [3]: https://ines.io/blog/dynamic-duotone-svg-jade
@@ -264,3 +297,4 @@ GATSBY_JPEG_ENCODER=MOZJPEG
 [14]: https://github.com/oliver-moran/jimp
 [15]: http://sharp.dimens.io/en/stable/api-operation/#flatten
 [16]: https://github.com/mozilla/mozjpeg
+[17]: https://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/
diff --git a/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/src/gatsby-node.js b/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/src/gatsby-node.js
index 98c258030c6e4..66c14a6f39f81 100644
--- a/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/src/gatsby-node.js
+++ b/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/src/gatsby-node.js
@@ -1,7 +1,8 @@
-const { setBoundActionCreators } = require(`./index`)
+const { setBoundActionCreators, setPluginOptions } = require(`./index`)
 
-exports.onPreInit = ({ actions }) => {
+exports.onPreInit = ({ actions }, pluginOptions) => {
   setBoundActionCreators(actions)
+  setPluginOptions(pluginOptions)
 }
 
 // TODO
diff --git a/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/src/index.js b/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/src/index.js
index baf2d06aed4d5..dc17f04bcdc0b 100644
--- a/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/src/index.js
+++ b/packages/gatsby-plugin-sharp/src/index.js
@@ -41,6 +41,16 @@ exports.setBoundActionCreators = actions => {
   boundActionCreators = actions
 }
 
+/// Plugin options are loaded onPreInit in gatsby-node
+const pluginDefaults = {
+  useMozJpeg: process.env.GATSBY_JPEG_ENCODER === `MOZJPEG`,
+  stripMetadata: true,
+}
+let pluginOptions = Object.assign({}, pluginDefaults)
+exports.setPluginOptions = opts => {
+  pluginOptions = Object.assign({}, pluginOptions, opts)
+}
+
 // Promisify the sharp prototype (methods) to promisify the alternative (for
 // raw) callback-accepting toBuffer(...) method
 Promise.promisifyAll(sharp.prototype, { multiArgs: true })
@@ -110,8 +120,6 @@ const healOptions = (args, defaultArgs) => {
   return options
 }
 
-const useMozjpeg = process.env.GATSBY_JPEG_ENCODER === `MOZJPEG`
-
 let totalJobs = 0
 const processFile = (file, jobs, cb, reporter) => {
   // console.log("totalJobs", totalJobs)
@@ -124,7 +132,14 @@ const processFile = (file, jobs, cb, reporter) => {
 
   let pipeline
   try {
-    pipeline = sharp(file).rotate()
+    pipeline = sharp(file)
+
+    // Keep Metadata
+    if (!pluginOptions.stripMetadata) {
+      pipeline = pipeline.withMetadata()
+    }
+
+    pipeline = pipeline.rotate()
   } catch (err) {
     reportError(`Failed to process image ${file}`, err, reporter)
     jobs.forEach(job => job.outsideReject(err))
@@ -170,7 +185,7 @@ const processFile = (file, jobs, cb, reporter) => {
       })
 
     // jpeg
-    if (!useMozjpeg) {
+    if (!pluginOptions.useMozJpeg) {
       clonedPipeline = clonedPipeline.jpeg({
         quality: args.quality,
         progressive: args.jpegProgressive,
@@ -231,6 +246,7 @@ const processFile = (file, jobs, cb, reporter) => {
                     args.quality + 25,
                     100
                   )}`, // e.g. 40-65
+                  strip: !!pluginOptions.stripMetadata, // Must be a bool
                 }),
               ],
             })
@@ -242,7 +258,7 @@ const processFile = (file, jobs, cb, reporter) => {
         .catch(onFinish)
       // Compress jpeg
     } else if (
-      useMozjpeg &&
+      pluginOptions.useMozJpeg &&
       ((job.file.extension === `jpg` && args.toFormat === ``) ||
         (job.file.extension === `jpeg` && args.toFormat === ``) ||
         args.toFormat === `jpg`)