Sometimes, finding the right stock photo for your new blog post, email, website graphic, or magazine is stressful. No, I take that back; it’s downright torture. Like, a plucking each individual hair from your head slowly and meticulously kind of torture.
Because, let’s face it, most stock photos are terrible. They’re boring, cheesy, and outdated. Rather than giving your customers a picture of a smiling, inviting person, you instead give them a photo of a man with crazy psycho eyes staring them down until they’re forced to make a purchase…or else!
You don’t want to do that to your customers (or maybe you do. Heck, I don’t know how you run your business). But, if you don’t want to scare the bejeebus out of your customers, then start using better stock photos! You don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for them either. Check out these awesome free, and mostly attribution/license-free, stock photo websites!
Death to the Stock Photo
Founded by two photographers who were tired of seeing brands, bloggers, and creatives struggle to find good photos that fit their vibe, Death to Stock Photos was formed to fix the problem. Sign up for their newsletter, and get awesome stock photos sent to your inbox on a regular monthly schedule. They also have a $15 premium subscription if you’re looking for total access to their awesome library.
Unsplash
Another company that sends out free stock photos in an email each month, Unsplash also has a beautiful and robust library of free images that can be searched by keywords. They’re all large, high-res images that give your branding more of an “Instagram photo” look.
Pexels
This is a great stock photo site that tells you what kind of creative commons licenses are associated with each photo. You can download photos in different sizes, and they also give you detailed info about each image, right down to the type of camera used in the photo and colors used in the photo. Their newsletter signup sends you 40 exclusive free photos to start, and then bimonthly newsletters with more free stock photos.
PicJumbo
Want to know how your free stock photo will look in different uses? PicJumbo lets you preview — or “Test Drive” — your downloads to give you a good idea of how each photo can be used for your needs.
Gratisography
This is an absolutely beautiful website founded by Ryan McGuire, a photographer who started Gratisography to let people use his original images under creative commons zero (meaning no attribution is required, and pictures can be used for both personal and commercial projects). You can browse pictures by category, but there’s no search option for those looking for a very specific image.
Pixabay
Pixabay’s images are released under a creative commons zero license as well, so no attribution is required for any use. They boast more than 500,000 free photos, vectors and art illustrations, so there’s no shortage photos to browse through.
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