As a photographer, I respect other people’s work and expect others to do the same. If I see that the photo has a watermark or if asking for permission is necessary, by all means I will do it. I have and always will give credit to the original author because quite frankly it is the golden rule.
Sometimes when I am in the process of writing a blog post, and after spending a little while digging in my photo archives, I can’t seem to find the images to go with the text. So that means that I have to search the web to find the right ones!
However it is a long process if you just Google it or scroll through Flickr right? Thousands upon thousands of results show up and it can truly be overwhelming (not to mention the fact that you spend more time than we should!).
Fortunately I have bookmarked a few excellent sites where you can find public domain & royalty-free photos.
Where do I go to?
Let me show you my top 5 websites for free images.
1- Wikitravel
This is definitely one of the best search sites for anything related to travel! What I like about this site is the fact that once you enter the keywords you are looking for, you get results found in all Wikipedia sites + the web.
There is a great variety of related articles as well as excellent photography.
2- Pixabay
I stumbled upon Pixabay when I was looking for specific city photos. The high quality photography provided by some amazing photographers from around the world. It is a great way for them to get global exposure and their images are available in various sizes.
This is another great site where you will find images that have been released into the public domain by the original author or photographer.
The only request is to link back to the page where you found the photograph which is only fair.
This is just an awesome website where you find high-quality and as the slogan states, breathtaking images that are absolutely free to use for any creative project!
New collections are added every single week. I love the categories, from modern to daily to vintage. There is so much to choose from!
5- Unsplash
This was a pleasant and unexpected surprise! It is a Tumblr site where fabulous and creative images are posted every week and are absolutely free to be used in any way we want.
The name of the original author or creator of the images is clearly marked and as I previously mentioned, it is important to give credit or link back to their site!
So there you have my favorite top 5 websites where I go for original images from talented photographers all over the globe!
Now over to you.
Tell me,
Where do you look for images online?
Are there other sites I should look into?
Let me know!
Until next time,
Kay 🙂
Hey Karla,
What a fabulous list, they are all new to me. I often struggle when looking for a specific type of picture so this will be a big help.
Great!
I’m happy to read that you find it helpful 😉
Awesome resource list, especially for anyone who gets tired of seeing the same images on the same Creative Commons sites. Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure! I used to spend WAY too much time on Creative Commons, Flickr & Google images but now it’s easier, faster and great quality pics are readily available 😉
Hi,
Please also look at http://www.goodfreephotos.com , thousands of free public domain photos, especially of scenics and travel photos. I’d appreciate it alot if you could add it to your list.
Very nice!
I didn’t know of that one but thank you for sharing 😉
Really useful research – thank you
You’re welcome!
Nice list! Another website with free images: http://albumarium.com (it’s farily fresh, just few days old)
Glad you liked them!
Oh that site sounds good, will check it out.
Thanks for sharing 😉
Awesome list! Here are the sites I use: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=travel&ex=1&origin=EC010141330, http://www.freeimages.com/, http://www.freepik.com/ (for vector images), and http://www.morguefile.com/. Hope these are as useful to you as they are to me 🙂
Very cool!
Thank you for sharing those with us 😉
K
This is a great list! Also for those who use WordPress, Pixabay has a plugin that searches and posts the image you select right in your post. It’s so easy!
Is that right? Oh how awesome is that? 😉
Thank you for letting me know.
I use WordPress as well, so will look for the plugin, yay!
Thanks for sharing it with us 🙂