Photography has always been an integral part of web design.
Unfortunately ..
Unfortunately, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing less-than-wonderful stock images of people in suits shaking hands, or that smiley customer service operator holding a phone (ugh). Not only are a lot of these stock photos tacky, but some of them cost money!
Not only are a lot of these stock photos tacky, but some of them cost money!
Thankfully, there’s been a growing number of websites with beautiful stock photography popping up all over the web. Best of all, they’re free.
In this post, we’ve curated a list of awesome websites offering free stock photos.
Bonus: If you’re looking to create highly engaging images for your blog posts, social media, or ad campaigns, check out Snappa – the easiest graphic design tool you’ll ever use.
Quick Note About Licenses
Many of these photographs are free from copyright restrictions or licensed under creative commons public domain dedication. This means you can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
However, some photos may require attribution. We’ve done our best to identify which license they fall under but we still advise you to do your own research and determine how these images can be used.
With that out of the way, let’s dive into our top picks for free stock photos.
StockSnap.io
StockSnap.io has a large selection of beautiful free stock photos and high resolution images. The site also has a very handy search feature making it easy to browse through the thousands of images available. In addition, the site tracks views and downloads so you can find the most popular photos available.
StockSnap adds hundreds of images on a weekly basis and all photos are released under creative commons public domain – no attribution required.
StockSnap Free Stock Photos
Unsplash
Unsplash is a collection of free high-resolution photos and has arguably become the best source for stock images. In fact, we’ve noticed some of our theme authors using these images in their Bootstrap themes & templates.
Unsplash releases 10 new photos every 10 days and they’re released under the creative commons public domain license.
unsplash stock photos
Gratisography
Gratisography offers free high-resolution pictures you can use on your personal and commercial projects. New awesome pictures are added weekly and are free of copyright restrictions. All pictures are captured by Ryan McGuire of Bells Design.
gratisography stock photos
Negative Space
Negative Space provides 20 new photos every week released under Creative Commons CC0. The photos are searchable and can be sorted by category, copy space and color.
Negative Space Free Stock Photo
Splitshire
Splitshire is a collection of delicious free stock photos by web deisgner Daniel Nanescu. The photos are free for personal and commercial use.
splitshire stock images
Little Visuals
This mention comes with a bit of sad news. The owner of the site Nic passed away and thus no longer provides new pictures. All photos that have been posted were released under the creative commons license public domain dedication.
little visuals stock photos
Life of Pix
Life of Pix is a resource created by the LEEROY creative agency offering free high-resolution photos with no copyright restrictions. New pictures are added weekly.
life of pix stock images
Death to Stock Photos
Every month a photo pack of 10 photos within a certain category will be delivered to your inbox. The goal of Death to Stock Photos is to bring you a variety of options in which to use for your mockups, blog posts or social media.
Death to stock photo uses their own license which you can read on their webpage.
death to stock photos
Superfamous Studios
Superfamous is the Los Angeles-based studio of Dutch interaction designer Folkert Gorter. You can use the work for your own purposes — including commercial use — as long as credit is provided. Folkert features various collections including aerial, biological, geological, and more.
superfamous stock photos
Picjumbo
Picjumbo is a collection of totally free photos for your commercial & personal works. New photos are added daily from a wide variety of categories including abstract, fashion, nature, technology and much more.
picjumbo stock images
IM Free
A curated collection of free resources, all for commercial use. Since the photos are curated from various sources, some photos may require attribution.
imfree stock photos
Photo by Kevin N. Murphy
New Old Stock
Vintage photos from the public archives free of known copyright restrictions.
new old stock photos
Getrefe
Free mobile photos for your personal or commercial projects.
getrefe stock images
Freestocks.org
Freestock offers a wide range of high quality photos all released under Creative Commons CC0.
freestocks org
Snapwire Snaps
Get 7 free photos every 7 days. Photos are public domain and free from copyright restrictions.
Snapwire Snaps
Jay Mantri
7 new photos released every Thursday under the Creative Commons CC0 license. Jay Mantri posts some really nice photos with a variety of different themes.
Longboard stock photo
Tookapic Stock
Tookapic stock is a marketplace for both free & premium stock photos. You can filter by free photos which are all released under Creative Commons CC0.
Tookapic stock photos
Picography
Picography contains beautiful free stock photos submitted by Dave Meier and various other photographers. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0.
Picography stock photos
MMT STock
MMT Stock is a collection of high resolution photos provided by Jeffrey Betts. Jeffrey likes to share photos of computers and workspaces as well as flowers and nature. All photos are released under Creative Commons CC0.
MMT stock photos
Kaboom Pics
Kaboom Pics offers a wide variety of high quality free stock photos including abstract, city/architecture, fashion, food, landscapes and more. Photos can be used for commercial purposes but cannot be sold or redistributed.
Epicantus
Epicantus contains free original photography by Daria. You can use these hi-res photos for your landing pages, blog posts & designs. All photos are released under creative commons CC0.
WOW .. even more sites;
http://jeshoots.com/
http://pixabay.com/
http://cupcake.nilssonlee.se/
http://www.uhdwallpapers.org/
http://kaboompics.com/
http://www.raumrot.com/10/
http://jaymantri.com/
Conclusion
As you can see, there’s a growing number of fantastic resources for stock photography. These websites have become a blessing for web designers, bloggers and creative people. We strongly encourage you to browse through each of these websites and incorporate them into your own designs.
