My Favorite Websites to Find Free Stock Photos
Photography is such an important component of your brand. Not only can it elevate your website to another level, it makes social media and content creation feel so much more aligned. Read on for some tips on finding your own stock photography, and my favorite sources for where to find photos for your business.
This post includes sources for free stock photos. Soon I’ll be sharing my go-to-spots for paid stock photos. Stay tuned, and sign up for Studio Notes to be notified when it’s ready!
In this articleWhat I Look For in Stock Photos
How Stock Photo Licensing Works
Tips for Finding Free Stock Photos
My Best Sources for Free Stock Photos
More Places to Look
A cohesive collection of photos that embody your brand and help you tell your story to its fullest. That’s the goal with brand photography.
Whenever possible, I encourage my clients to hire a photographer and do their very own photoshoot. This is especially necessary when you want headshots or photos of your process. But there are still times when stock photography might be what you need. Whether you’re using them on your website, designing a new lead magnet, or creating social media content, stock photos can do a great job of capturing the vibe.
With every website project, I source a handful of stock photos for my clients. Depending on their budget we might look for free photos or paid photos. In this post, I’ll share a round-up of my best sources to find free stock photography, plus a few tips to keep in mind as you search.
What I Look for in Stock Photos
When I search for stock photos, I typically keep two things in mind: subject matter and vibe. Subject matter means the actual content of the photo: the who and the what of the photograph. A stock photo of a yoga teacher in a studio, for example. Or a close-up of hands on a massage table. Subject matter is the literal stuff that’s being photographed, and these photos are, of course, a great way to give people a sense of what you do.
Subject Matter Photography
Subject matter photography is often something you need to have taken professionally – for example, if you’re a yoga teacher you probably don’t want to use a photo of an internet stranger teaching on retreat. If you’re an interior designer, you’ll want photos of the actual work you did and not just a nice-looking living room you had no part in creating. But often there’s still lots you can find: props in a yoga studio, a collection of ingredients for an herbalist, a flat-lay of self-care tools. Get creative with your keywords to help you find subject-matter photos that communicate something about your work.
Editorial Photography
The second type of photos I look for are those that say something about your brand vibe. These are also known as editorial photos. They aren’t literal, but a more creative or aesthetic interpretation that help to set the mood of what you do. Because the subject matter of these photos doesn’t matter quite as much, these kinds of photos are generally much easier to come by. And if you find one photo you like, usually you can find several more by the same photographer.
Editorial photos (or “vibey” photos, as I like to call them) are excellent to use as backgrounds, to use throughout your social media content, and to use just about anywhere else in your website or marketing materials. A good collection of vibey photos can really do so much to elevate your website and really communicate the je ne sais quois of your brand – the hard-to-describe things that make what you offer so unique.
How Stock Photo Licensing Works
Every stock photo website has its own licensing structure. This means they set the rules on how you are able to use their photos. Many of them allow for free commercial use any way you like, but others do put some restrictions in place. Restrictions might include things like:
whether you can modify or edit them,
whether you can include them in digital products you sell,
whether you can print anything with them, and
whether you need to provide attribution.
Most stock photo websites will have a licensing page that describes how you can use their photos. Always be sure to read it.
Tips for Finding Free Stock Photos
Using free stock photos can require a lot of time to make a curated collection. There’s a lot of junk out there! One way to shortcut this is to find a photo you like, and see what else that photographer has. This is a great way to find photos with a similar aesthetic, which is so important for brand consistency!
Get creative with your keywords. Stock photo sites can be a time suck, and lots of that is simply because the photos might not be tagged the way you’d expect.
When you find photos you like, gather them in collections. Some sites allow you to do this right on the website (Pexels and Unsplash let you do this). I suggest collections for different subject matter (like teaching yoga, or rituals, or acupuncture, or wellness…) and also for those vibey or editorial photos.
Watch out for AI images. These are becoming more and more common on stock photo sites. At this point in time AI images are still pretty easy to spot, and it may be that AI photos aren’t going to feel very on brand for you anyways. But, just watch out!
Ok, now that you’ve got some context, let’s get to the good stuff!
My Best Sources for Free Stock Photos
Pexels
Pexels is my most-used source, and because they have such a huge selection of photos it’s often where I begin my search. You’re definitely going to find photos that have that generic-stock-photo feel, but the good news is there are tons that have a more authentic and personal feel, too. I like Pexels because they have good vibey photos and a lot of content-specific photos, too. Often I can find everything I need here. And, over time I’ve created many of my own “collections” of some of my favorites. That save me a lot of time when I’m looking for something specific. Here’s a few of my favorites:
My Yoga & Meditation Stock Photo Collection
My General Wellness Stock Photo Collection
Pexels also offers free stock videos. These can be really great for making Instagram reels, or adding more interest to your website. Highly recommend!
Kaboom Pics
Kaboom Pics is an excellent place to find beautifully curated stock photos with a softer, more feminine touch. All photos are taken by the same photographer – Karolina Grabowska – which means there’s a consistent style and often a similar vibe among everything you’ll find. Because of that, it’s much easier to find a strong collection of matching photos here than many other stock photo websites. Talk about a time-saver!
Kaboom Pics excels when it comes to those editorial or vibey shots. You’ll find lots of good photos for lifestyle, nature, beauty, fashion, business, and interiors, but they don’t have much in the way of speciality wellness. If you’re searching for content-specific images of things like acupuncture, massage, etc, you’ll need to look elsewhere. (For that, I recommend looking at some of my sources for paid stock photography – blog post coming soon!)
Free Nature Stock
http://www.freenaturestock.com
This is a great place to find, well… nature photos! Which can make for beautiful backgrounds or textures. Because it’s entirely nature photos, you’ll find lots of close-ups of flowers, stone textures, leaves, sunsets, and more.
Nappy
Nappy offers “beautifully diverse stock photos”. It’s a great place to find photos that represent black and brown people – which admittedly can be pretty tough to find on most other sites. The entire purpose of Nappy is to diversity the world of stock photos, and they do a great job.
More Places to Look
The following are sources that I personally use less frequently, but still can be helpful.
Unsplash
Unsplash might have been one of the original sources for stylish free stock photos. They have a ginormous collection, which is of course great because you’ll find tons of options. But it also means that you might have to do a lot of sifting to find what you’re looking for. They now mix their paid photos with the free photos (which honestly is pretty annoying), but if you don’t mind the extra inconvenience, you can find some really great photos. The vibe often tends to be a little darker and cooler, and the photos more stylistically edited than other sites. If that’s your brand vibe then you’re in luck, but if not you can still find lots of gems.
Another great thing about Unplash is that it has a direct integration with Squarespace. Any time you add a photo to your Squarespace website, you can use their built-in feature to search for a stock image which pulls directly from the Unsplash. It’s a nice time-saver, for sure!
ShotStash
While their collection isn’t as robust as some others I’ve listed, it’s still a great place to look. You’ll find photos of travel, lifestyle, lots of seasonal or holiday photos, and some nice textures, too.
Barn Images
Barn Images is great for lifestyle and travel photography. You’ll find tons of landscape shots which can make decent backgrounds in the right context.
MorgueFile
This is a “community-based” free photo site, meaning the photos are uploaded by creatives and amateurs from across the globe. There’s not much barrier to entry and that means you can get photos of all kinds of quality (lo-res is trending, btw!) that span all types of subject matter. It’s not a great place to gather a curated selection, but it can be a nice place to juice up your creativity.
Pixabay
It’s seldom my first choice but they do have a good selection. Some of the photos tend to feel more “stocky,” and they also include a lot of heavily photoshopped photos and illustrations. (This is where you’ll really want to watch out for AI images.)
Canva
Canva is not the place I often go hunting for stock photos, but if you’re a Canva user it’s very handy to have so many options in one place. A Canva Pro account will give you access to more and higher-quality photos, but you can still find lots with the free account.
Got any other sources you love? Your own tips for finding great stock photos? Share in the comments below!
