5 Best FREE Stock Photo Websites
Sometimes businesses may not have the budget or time to hire a professional photographer to create unique images for their website or marketing materials. Although in many cases having these unique personal images can make your business stand out, it is also possible to use high quality stock images instead. There are plenty of stock imagery sites to scour for the right photos, including www.istockphoto.com, www.gettyimages.co.uk and www.shutterstock.com. The prices of these images and their accompanying licenses can vary greatly and can create a steep additional cost.
BUT what many people don't realise, is that there are also a number of FREE stock photo websites which offer just as high quality images for zero of the cost! Using a specific license, Creative Commons Zero, the content available on these sites can be free to use globally without restrictions. Creators add their work to the websites allowing other users the right to share, use and build upon their work.
When searching for suitable imagery for many of our clients, we will often look at these websites first. If we can find the perfect image for free then we can save our clients from paying extra costs, keeping the project within budget.
Below are our top 5 websites for free stock photography:
Unsplash is a personal favourite of mine and my number one free stock photo website to check out. Every photo published on Unsplash is licensed under Creative Commons Zero, which provides users with the freedom to copy and modify all of the photos without permissions or attribution.
Negative Space offers up new free stock photos every week all taken and submitted by members of their Negative Space community. Their aim is to give visitors easy access to beautiful, high-resolution photography so all photos on their site are free. All of the photos are shared without copyright restrictions, meaning you are free to use them however you please.
Pixabay doesn't only provide free stock photography, but they also offer illustrations, vectors and videos. All content is released under the Pixabay License, making everything safe to use without asking permission or giving credit, even for commercial projects.
These photos are carefully handpicked from a variety of free image sources to ensure that you're getting only the best of the best. Only free images are added to their photo database from sources such as Pixabay, Gratisography, Little Visuals and more. Licensed under Creative Commons Zero or the Pexels License for free use.
Pexels Mission: "We help millions of designers, writers, artists, programmers and other creators to get access to beautiful photos that they can use freely which empowers them to create amazing products, designs, stories, websites, apps, art and other work. We call it: "Empowering Creators"."
Life of Pix is another community based photography website where photographers create a profile and upload their images. Life of Pix also has another website, Life of Vids, offering video clips for free use. You can freely search the site for specific images or can browse ready built galleries for popular search terms.
If you would prefer to create your own unique and personal imagery we offer a photography service from our in house photographer, or we can provide you with details for a number of professional freelance photographers we have worked with in the past. Get in touch and we can discuss the best options for your specific project.
