diff --git a/torchvision/datasets/folder.py b/torchvision/datasets/folder.py
index 5eb3126ae96..40adcb9fcec 100644
--- a/torchvision/datasets/folder.py
+++ b/torchvision/datasets/folder.py
@@ -33,8 +33,14 @@ def make_dataset(dir, class_to_idx):
 
     return images
 
+
+def default_loader(path):
+    return Image.open(path).convert('RGB')
+
+
 class ImageFolder(data.Dataset):
-    def __init__(self, root, transform=None, target_transform=None):
+    def __init__(self, root, transform=None, target_transform=None,
+                 loader=default_loader):
         classes, class_to_idx = find_classes(root)
         imgs = make_dataset(root, class_to_idx)
 
@@ -44,10 +50,11 @@ def __init__(self, root, transform=None, target_transform=None):
         self.class_to_idx = class_to_idx
         self.transform = transform
         self.target_transform = target_transform
+        self.loader = loader
 
     def __getitem__(self, index):
         path, target = self.imgs[index]
-        img = Image.open(os.path.join(self.root, path)).convert('RGB')
+        img = self.loader(os.path.join(self.root, path))
         if self.transform is not None:
             img = self.transform(img)
         if self.target_transform is not None: