Stock photos aren’t right for everyone or every project
… but if you’re not a photographer and don’t have the budget to hire one, sometimes they can be just the solution you need. For lots of good reasons—like the ubiquity of certain images, or copyright infringement, or poor quality—the days of pilfering art from Google Image Search are over. Why not try some of these free options?
Pixabay – I first heard of Pixabay when I started using ImageInject, which is one of my favorite WordPress plugins, ever. It lets you search for an image right from the Add Posts screen and inserts them into your media library, adding whatever attribution the creator asks for.
Unsplash – Here are some absolutely beautiful photos from great photographers. Lots of nature photos. Even if I’m not looking for something to use for a project, sometimes I enjoy just scrolling through these images. They add 10 new images every 10 days. Unsplash also actively tags images, so you can search easily.
Getrefe.tumblr.com – This is a Tumblr site with infinite scroll. A nice place to get lost.
Public Domain Archive – A good name is what it sounds like. Nice and scrollable. Tons of ads.
New Old Stock Photos – These are mostly vintage photos. I get the feeling that they were culled from The Commons at Flickr, another site where, if you’re lucky, you can stumble on a diamond in the rough. New Old Stock finds them for you.
Travelcoffeebook – This works similar to Unsplash, and features a lot of travel-related photos.
Here are some more that I haven’t looked at before. Hat tip to this YouTube video and this Medium post for the links.
- Jay Mantri
- Jeshoots – I think you pay with a tweet for these pictures.
- Pexels
- Gratisography
- Picography
