Ah, stock photos. When done right, they can really spice up your work, while also saving you some major time and energy. Good stock photos give visual power to the stories you need to tell. They allow you spend less time creating content for your blog posts and more time creating a beautiful product for your client. But that’s only if those stock shots are visually captivating.
Obviously, there are some brilliant creatives out there (you might be one of them!) that create stunning stock photos and if you can, you should turn to these photographers for your stock needs. But if you can’t for whatever reason, free stock photo banks are a helpful tool for upstart photographers looking to enhance their blogs and social media game.
Read on to learn how you can find your own high-resolution stock photos for free.
Licensing Legalities
First, the legal stuff (sorry, I’ll try to keep this interesting). The free photographs available on the sites listed below fall into two categories: CC0, and CC.
CC0: Creative Commons zero license means that you can use the photos in any way you’d like—copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Take care to remember that these photos can be used for personal and commercial purposes but cannot be sold or redistributed (aka trying to pass off the photo as your own intellectual property).
CC Attribution: Creative Commons with attribution means that you can use the photo in any way you want, as long as you credit the creator of the photo. Attribution is simple: next to the aformentioned stock photograph, write ‘Photo by x’ with a link back to their website or their profile on the licensing site.
It’s usually all as simple as that, but this small legal blurb compels me to say this: I’m a photog not a lawyer, so triple-check the licensing before you click that download button.
1. Pexels
Pexels is one of the first places I go to find incredible free stock photos. All of its more than 25,000 images are not only free for you to use in any way you choose, but they’re all tagged and searchable. I can’t tell you how hugely convenient this is when you need to find exactly the right photo that conveys just the right mood for your project or landing page. Amazingly, some 3,000 images are added each and every month to its database. Pexels is essentially becoming the Google of free, beautiful stock photography. It even has a growing library of free videos.
Licence Type: CC0
2. Unsplash
Unsplash offers a massive, searchable collection of jaw-dropping, high-resolution photos with everything from whimsical work spaces to NatGeo-style photographs of foxes. If you subscribe to its email list, then you get 10 of its best snaps delivered hot and fresh straight to your inbox every 10 days. You can also make a personalized home feed that highlights photos you’re interested in. The site also has a handy feature that displays curated collections of images such as “Women At Work” or “Fashion Startups.” Attribution is preferred but not required. Next to Pexels, this is one of my all-time favorites.
Licence Type: CC0
3. Death to Stock
Death to Stock photographs are insanely gorgeous. Join their mailing list and a pack of 10 photos within a certain category (categories like “mountains,” and “coffee shop”) will be delivered to your inbox each month.
Death to Stock also offers a paid plan where you get an extra 10 photos each month. At the end of the day, Death to Stock excels because their quality in photo style and usability is the best in the biz. But they have their own licensing agreement which you can read more about here.
License Type: Photograph End User License
4. Life of Pix
Life of Pix is a photo service created by the LEEROY creative agency and it is chock-full of free, high-resolution images for any project. Also, if you are interested in donating a few shots for some exposure, there’s a chance that the Life of Pix site will highlight you as a “Photographer of the Week” and if so, they will plug your work on their social media outlets and website (for free).
Licence Type: CC0
5. Tookapic
Tookapic is a curated collection that offers both paid and free stock photographs. It is characterized by its moody, hyper-stylized, people-centered snapshots. You can filter by free photos which can be used for personal and commercial projects, although you must attribute the photo to the artist and link back to Tookapic website.
Licence Type: CC w/ attribution
6. Pixabay
Pixabay is stock marketplace that offers over 850,000 photographs, illustrations, vectors, graphics, and videos, all free of charge. A large portion of their photos could be classified as art pieces, and are as glossy and attention-grabbing as any magazine cover page.
Licence Type: CC0
7. Kaboom Pics
Kaboom Pics is a collection of super high quality, editorial-style photographs that covers everything from fashion to food. It’s easy to browse since you can search via keywords and hashtags. Even though Kaboom is a CC0, the site’s owner does love it when you throw some attribution their way.
Licence Type: CC0
8. FreeStocks.org
FreeStocks offers a wide range of shots for personal and commercial projects. You can browse narrow categories (everything from iphone on desk to girl drinking smoothie), and you can search trending hashtags, which is nifty.
Licence Type: CC0
9. Negative Space
Negative Space releases 20 new photos every week loaded with plenty of street and workflow scenes. Their collections are searchable by category, color and copy space. Here attribution isn’t required.
Licence Type: CC0
10. Epicantus
Epicantus contains Pinterest-perfect photography by Daria, visual & UX designer extraordinaire. These minimalist images with a french blogger edge were specifically created for landing pages, blog posts and the like. All of Daria’s original shots are free and up for grabs for commercial and personal use.
Licence Type: CC0
11. Jay Mantri
Jay Mantri offers a stunning collection of simple, minimalistic images. These lovingly crafted images showcase stunning architecture, rich landscapes, and his beloved oxford kicks. He releases seven new photos every Thursday. You can search and filter the images by date and hashtags.
Licence Type: CC0
Thus concludes our tour of sites with jaw-dropping, free stock photos. When you’re in a pinch, or looking to optimize the heck out of your workflow, turn to these stock photo gods.
And remember: Enjoy, and attribute responsibly!
This is super helpful! I’m not too sure I ever thought about where to get stock photos that are high quality but I’m bookmarking this page. Thank you for sharing!
Glad to be of help! 🙂
While I agree that the sites mentioned in this article have some gorgeous images, as a photographer that makes a good chunk of my income from stock photography, the tone of this blog post left me feeling a little deflated. I work hard to create stock content that is both visually appealing and commercially usable.
As a female creative producing stock content I came to FCA looking for “a global community of women in business as creative entrepreneurs” that I could be inspired by and learn from. When you say, “Most stock photos kinda suck” I think perhaps this is not the place for me. Also, when you ask “what upstart photographer has a thousand dollars to burn on some random stock photo?” it gives the impression that unless they are free, stock photos are priced out of reach to the small business owner, which simply isn’t the case.
I also feel you do a disservice to your readers by not mentioning that if you are using an image commercially any people in it should be model released and any property such as:
modern architecture; building interiors; luxury boats, vehicles, airplanes; unique pets, certain zoo animals; many stadiums, museums, concert venues, amusement parks, etc.; famous landmarks and historic locations; any brand logos including that on clothing,
should have a property release or you could end up in legal trouble.
Hello Siân,
I want to apologize for the effect this article had on you. I think you made some wonderful points and have really illuminated how my tone and choice of words were misguided at best. Right now I am going to make some major alterations to the article, so no one else has to feel the way you felt.
Also people like you make the FCA community truly good, so please consider staying involved, because what does a community do except delicately correct each other and guide one another towards being better, more inspiring artists? So thank you, your gentle words have really affected me and will absolutely affect every freelance blog post I write for the FCA.
Cheers to learning,
Ty
Thank you so very much Ty, for both your reply and the changes you made to the article.