diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 335a4c1..91a8d45 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -154,6 +154,20 @@ you want to use a different caching implementation, it's probably easiest to
 just make a copy of `cmd/imageproxy/main.go` and customize it to fit your
 needs... it's a very simple command.
 
+### Default Base URL ###
+
+Typically, remote images to be proxied are specified as absolute URLs.
+However, if you commonly proxy images from a single source, you can provide a
+base URL and then specify remote images relative to that base.  Try it out by running:
+
+    imageproxy -baseURL https://octodex.github.com/
+
+Then load the codercat image, specified as a URL relative to that base:
+<http://localhost:8080/500/images/codercat.jpg>.  Note that this is not an
+effective method to mask the true source of the images being proxied; it is
+trivial to discover the base URL being used.  Even when a base URL is
+specified, you can always provide the absolute URL of the image to be proxied.
+
 
 ## Deploying ##
 
diff --git a/cmd/imageproxy/main.go b/cmd/imageproxy/main.go
index 8ee260a..20840b6 100644
--- a/cmd/imageproxy/main.go
+++ b/cmd/imageproxy/main.go
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ import (
 	"fmt"
 	"log"
 	"net/http"
+	"net/url"
 	"strings"
 
 	"github.com/gregjones/httpcache"
@@ -39,6 +40,7 @@ var (
 
 var addr = flag.String("addr", "localhost:8080", "TCP address to listen on")
 var whitelist = flag.String("whitelist", "", "comma separated list of allowed remote hosts")
+var baseURL = flag.String("baseURL", "", "default base URL for relative remote URLs")
 var cacheDir = flag.String("cacheDir", "", "directory to use for file cache")
 var cacheSize = flag.Uint64("cacheSize", 100, "maximum size of file cache (in MB)")
 var version = flag.Bool("version", false, "print version information")
@@ -66,6 +68,13 @@ func main() {
 	if *whitelist != "" {
 		p.Whitelist = strings.Split(*whitelist, ",")
 	}
+	if *baseURL != "" {
+		var err error
+		p.DefaultBaseURL, err = url.Parse(*baseURL)
+		if err != nil {
+			log.Fatalf("error parsing baseURL: %v", err)
+		}
+	}
 
 	server := &http.Server{
 		Addr:    *addr,
diff --git a/data.go b/data.go
index c1f9af0..6505d2e 100644
--- a/data.go
+++ b/data.go
@@ -199,7 +199,7 @@ type Request struct {
 // 	http://localhost/100x200,r90/http://example.com/image.jpg?foo=bar
 // 	http://localhost//http://example.com/image.jpg
 // 	http://localhost/http://example.com/image.jpg
-func NewRequest(r *http.Request) (*Request, error) {
+func NewRequest(r *http.Request, baseURL *url.URL) (*Request, error) {
 	var err error
 	req := new(Request)
 
@@ -220,6 +220,10 @@ func NewRequest(r *http.Request) (*Request, error) {
 		req.Options = ParseOptions(parts[0])
 	}
 
+	if baseURL != nil {
+		req.URL = baseURL.ResolveReference(req.URL)
+	}
+
 	if !req.URL.IsAbs() {
 		return nil, URLError{"must provide absolute remote URL", r.URL}
 	}
diff --git a/data_test.go b/data_test.go
index 2f86ad2..4e4f616 100644
--- a/data_test.go
+++ b/data_test.go
@@ -150,7 +150,7 @@ func TestNewRequest(t *testing.T) {
 			continue
 		}
 
-		r, err := NewRequest(req)
+		r, err := NewRequest(req, nil)
 		if tt.ExpectError {
 			if err == nil {
 				t.Errorf("NewRequest(%v) did not return expected error", req)
diff --git a/imageproxy.go b/imageproxy.go
index a718af0..9993098 100644
--- a/imageproxy.go
+++ b/imageproxy.go
@@ -43,6 +43,11 @@ type Proxy struct {
 	// Whitelist specifies a list of remote hosts that images can be
 	// proxied from.  An empty list means all hosts are allowed.
 	Whitelist []string
+
+	// DefaultBaseURL is the URL that relative remote URLs are resolved in
+	// reference to.  If nil, all remote URLs specified in requests must be
+	// absolute.
+	DefaultBaseURL *url.URL
 }
 
 // NewProxy constructs a new proxy.  The provided http RoundTripper will be
@@ -75,7 +80,7 @@ func (p *Proxy) ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 		return // ignore favicon requests
 	}
 
-	req, err := NewRequest(r)
+	req, err := NewRequest(r, p.DefaultBaseURL)
 	if err != nil {
 		msg := fmt.Sprintf("invalid request URL: %v", err)
 		glog.Error(msg)