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Blogging Tips

5 of The Best Free Stock Photo Sites for Bloggers

Molly Transatlantic Notes

As content creators, it’s important to make sure that the visual elements included in our work help to generate engagement and interest and add to the overall experience we want our readers to have. The photos and graphics we use should be relevant to what we’re sharing, high quality, accessible and inclusive.

If we’re not able to use our own photos, finding appropriate stock images is the next best thing. There are many curated collections online that are copyright free and/or licensed under the creative commons public domain dedication that allow us to copy, modify, distribute and use images without asking permission (although some may still require attribution).

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When using any kind of graphics, illustrations or photos on our site, we should make a point of always adding alt-text to each image. It not only explains the content of images that get blocked or fail to load properly but also enables screen-reading tools to describe them to visually impaired visitors. Accessibility is key to making sure that anyone who wishes to interact with our work can freely do so and, frankly, it’s best practice.

Something else that I personally believe is the best approach when using photographs of people in our articles and blog posts is to ensure our choices and representations are as all-embracing as possible. Humans are remarkable, we are diverse and beautiful and go far beyond restrictive (often White, able-bodied, cis-gendered, heteronormative) beauty norms. Sharing visual design that is inclusive of all bodies, identities, genders, ages, races and ethnicities should be standard but it must be done with sensitivity and responsibility — our editorial decisions must avoid clichés or perpetuate stereotypes.

So what are some of the best free stock photo sites to use? Here are five of my personal favourites …

This is just an outline of each collection so please make sure you check out each site’s licensing policy and terms and conditions before use.

A smiling woman sits at her desk writing in a notebook.
photo via Matthew Henry/Burst

BURST | This resource from Shopify is extremely well-organized and offers diverse, inclusive high-resolution, copyright-free images for personal and commercial use. Attribution is unrequired but encouraged, and you can crop, resize, add text and filters, or otherwise modify their stock photos as you see fit. Another reason that makes Burst one of my top picks is that every image includes a sample of alt-text that can be copied, thereby taking the guesswork out of what to write.

UNSPLASH | You can download and use all the images curated on this site for personal or commercial use with no permission needed for usage and no attribution required (although it is appreciated). Unsplash includes a vast array of high-quality photographs that have been carefully sorted into various searchable categories, making it very easy to find what you need.

PIXABAY | A great range of high-quality photos, music and videos for commercial and non-commercial use that can be modified and don’t require attribution (but they recommend you do). The media on Pixabay is easily searchable and includes illustrations and vector graphics so you’re pretty much guaranteed to find what you’re looking for.

A woman wearing a hat sits at her desk and work on her laptop creating a blog post.
photo via Brandy Kennedy/Unsplash

THE GENDER SPECTRUM COLLECTION | With the aim of better representing transgender and non-binary people in stock photos, this resource developed by Vice was carefully created to provide authentic imagery that helps to “… chip away at harmful stereotypes, pushing more accurate perceptions and understandings to the fore.” While you may copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, the photos must include attribution, be for non-commercial use and cannot be modified. The high-quality photos are sorted into seven categories (lifestyle, relationships, technology, work, school, health, moods) and a guideline page is included (which I recommend you read thoroughly) to help better understand how/when to use the images so that you don’t perpetuate stigma, prejudice or harmful stereotypes.

PICSPREE | Available for personal and commercial use, and backed by Getty Images, Picspree has a decent range of high-resolution photos, illustrations and vector graphics that do not require attribution or permission (unless there is branded or copyright-protected content included in the image — you can find more about that on their license page). Each image is easily searchable and can be found in one of the many categories that are included.

An extra bonus for high-quality royalty-free photos is Desygner; who offer both free and paid plans that give you access to tools for content creation and thousands of pre-designed templates (you gain access to many more if you manage a paid plan). The free option offers quite a decent number of perks like one-click design resize, PDF editing and millions of free images and icons.

I hope you found this useful — now go create some visually stunning, informative and inclusive content!

Did you find this useful? Are you going to try out some of these sites?

Further Info:

The following, and much more, are available to read via Stocksy’s Educational Archive …

Everyday People: How To Better Represent Disabilities In Our Media

Everyday Bodies: How Your Media Choices Can Influence Body Inclusivity

Speaking of Gender: How To Be Inclusive In Your Messaging

45 thoughts on “5 of The Best Free Stock Photo Sites for Bloggers”

  4. These are great! I’m looking for more stock photos soon. I’m getting a bit tired of the Canva ones I’ve been using and seeing everywhere. Thank you for this and I’ll be pinning your post for later! x

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  8. I love using stock photos – it takes the stress off of having to set something up for the lulz. I definitely do agree that we need to be more diverse if we were to use people in our stock photos. I am a big fan of Unsplash!! I didn’t know about the other resources as well! Thanks for sharing!

    Nancy ✨

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  10. Hey Molly, I’ve only heard of Pixabay, Unsplash, and Pexels. The rest of the resources on this list are new to me, and I can’t wait to check them out. I love what you said about choosing inclusive images as well. For all of my Canva products, I always make it a point to select images of people of different ethnicities. Here I was thinking I was the only silly one! Thanks for sharing! 🙂

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  14. Thank you for sharing these. I already use a couple in your line up but you’ve added a few that I haven’t known of so will make sure to take a look at those.

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  16. I love this! I use Pixabay & Pexels.
    So grateful for these sights because they truly allow us to have the best visuals on our blogs.

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  18. I’ve used Unsplash and Pixabay in the past but now I tend to use paid images, especially for Pinterest. That said, the other three sites you’ve mentioned are new to me so I’ll definitely take a look at them, thank you!

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  22. Pingback: 8 Things That Help Make Your Blog Post Great – transatlantic | notes

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