Stock Photography… think before you download
I wrote this article about how to find free and cheap photos for your website a few years ago. Customers were downloading photos that they did not purchase and getting demand letters and I thought this would be helpful. Recently, I was told of some amazing resources including websites dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion. Although I’ve always been a believer in the rights and importance of inclusion and diversity, I did not recognize that we did not include enough diversity and inclusion in our imagery until a colleague recommended some stock photography sites that specialize in this type of stock photography. So this article is being revised to ask you to think before you post an image. Are you representing all people of all backgrounds? If not, please consider some of the stock photography sites bolded below.
Here are some of our top picks for finding stock photos free
- Unsplash.com: find free photos at unsplash.com
- Nappy.co for beautifully diverse photos
- genderphotos.vice.com is a free creative commons stock library offering authentic photos of trans and non-binary people representative of all identities.
- Photopin.com – Make sure you select commercial images if you will be using the photo for your business. Once you find an image, just follow their easy instructions for appropriate crediting. They have photos of local places, too, many from Flickr, etc. Do a search, and you’ll see what I mean. We highly recommend this site for finding stock photos free that are OK to use and easy to credit.
Visit http://www.photopin.com/ - Videos, photos and Illustrations at Pixabay
- FreeImages – You will need to create an account, but it’s a good resource for free images. You won’t need an account to check the site out, only once you want to download a photo. If you don’t see what you want, it also shows you results for “premium” images from IStockphoto.com that are not free. So you can kind of compare the free ones to the ones that you have to pay for and see if the cost is worth it.
Visit https://www.freeimages.com - Creative Commons
- Dreamstime free photos and illustrations, try https://www.dreamstime.com/free-photos
- PICoGraphy, Stocksnap.io
- artgrid.io
Free resources for specialty images like illustrations, icons, patterns, health and wellness photos, historic images and animated photos and gifs.
- Looking for food pics? We love Foodiesfeed.com
- Public Health Images from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention + the National Images of Health – History of Medicine
- Looking for a historic photo? Check out the New York Public Library Online Collection
- Lifestyle Health and Wellness Images
- Looking for patterns? This is the ultimate free pattern website – The Amazing Pattern Library
- Looking for free animated GIF’s … Try Giphy
- https://www.iconfinder.com/ – Here you can search for any icon you are looking for; just make sure to select “For Commercial use”, and like PhotoPin, just follow the instructions for proper crediting.
Here are the best places for inexpensive (ie: cheap) stock photos & illustrations and videos
- StoryBlocks is a great site for people who are integrating video into their marketing on a regular basis, they have subscription plans that are affordable starting at $15/month for 5 downloads. Video often can tell a story in ways that flat images can’t.
- https://www.canstockphoto.com
- https://tonl.co/ offers incredible stock photos that promote inclusion and diversity
- (They have a large selection, and if you buy their credits, extra-large photos would be about $2.50 and smaller photos $1.25)
- Fotalia
- https://createherstock.com/ a beautiful stock photo subscription for melanated women
- https://www.tetraimages.com/
- http://www.crestock.com/
- https://www.masterfile.com/
- https://www.bigstockphoto.com/
- https://morguefile.com/
Still can’t find the right stock photo?
When you can’t find what you want in the cheap and free options, try these; they have the best selections for quality stock photography:
When this doesn’t work, find a local photographer; they can either take a photo for you, or they may just have what you need!
Why not create your own graphic and image?
- Use PicMonkey.com this is a great tool for making your photos fun with words and graphics. You can make great collages as well.
- I love www.canva.com for creating graphics with sayings and photo collages.
- SomeEcards.com is great for making your own sharable greeting card graphics.
- Remember, read the fine print, some images and tools are free for personal use and not for commercial use.
Related reading: Images & Copyright – What To Look Out For
Credit: This article was updated to share some of the photography sites that offer diverse images to support diversity and inclusion, they were first shared with us by Oomph, an award-winning digital services firm.
