Last updated: 20.04.2017 – 104 SOURCES and counting!
Stock photos are generally bad for your conversions. But if used as a decorative element or for blog post images, they can be pretty effective.
A big problem however is that large stock photo sites only offer clean, unnatural looking photos, and is possibly the least persuasive type of imagery in existence.
There are tons of free photos out there. It can take hours to sift through them and find the best for your website. You know, those with laptops, hipster coffeeshop workplaces, and so on.
Luckily, I’ve prepared 60 handpicked startup photos for your blog or website to hurry up the process. It has mostly shorts of workplaces, tables, laptops, and technology, you know, the type that comes most in handy. Grab the bundle for free!
Should you need something more, I’ve also been collecting sites with free stock photos for a long time now — and I decided to share this personal list of sites with free stock pictures with you. I sifted through the list and tried to only keep those that are producing their own photos, not reposting the same ones as the rest of the sites.
Multi-Author Sites
FreeImages (used to be Sxc.hu)
This website is one of the oldest free stock sites I know. Some photos are useful and others aren’t. Worth checking out.
morgueFile
This site, too, has been around since forever. A great collection of free photos by various authors.
Flickr‘s CC search
Flickr has been offering free image hosting for more than 10 years now. Not many people know about the “Creative Commons” search which turns up free photos.
For searching Flickr, you can also use tools like PhotoPin, CompFight, or IM free.
WikiMedia
This Wikipedia’s website offers different types of public domain content — photos, video, and even sound. Some need attribution, but it’s definitely a site not regularly used by people in need of free stock pictures.
Pixite Source
An interesting new kid on the block of free stock images and textures. Founder Greg reached out to me with an interesting pitch for this website: Each week we feature a piece of content for our #pixiteweekly edit challenge on Instagram. Artists remix and edit this original content into new pieces of art that we then showcase on both platforms.
Magdeleine
Every day, there’s a new free photo available here. You can browse the collection by colours, tags, or categories.
FreeJPG
Authors can submit photos to this site if they want them featured. A nice collection, worth taking a look!
Ancestryimages
Historians, genealogists and anyone undertaking family history, ancestry or local history research – welcome!
Boss Fight
Their mission is to be your final “Boss Fight” when it comes to finding completely free (do whatever you want) stock images, photos, and photography.
Find a photo
You can select through thousands of free stock photos and browse by color, collection or source. Basic but resourceful.
Free Range Stock
Photos that make it into the collections are either artistically and photographically interesting, or they provide photographic documentation of an item or event. So, every photo of a rock on the site may not be great art, but it’s still worth your while.
Free Digital Photos
Also illustrations for websites, advertising materials, newspapers, magazines, ebooks, book covers and music artwork.
Single-Author Sites
LittleVisuals
These guys regularly update their collection with photos from nature. You can also subscribe to their emails and get a weekly pack right into your inbox.
UnSplash
UnSplash is quite similar to LittleVisuals. You’ll find great photos here, all 100% free to use.
New Old Stock
If you run a website for hipsters, you’ll love these old, mostly black-and-white pictures.
SuperFamous
Sometimes, a nice natural texture or a bird eye’s view of Earth is what you need for that special design. Attribution required!
Death To The Stock Photo
This is an email-only delivery of beautiful free pictures every month. Due to the photos not being available to just anyone, these are pretty rare to find being used around the web. Highly recommended.
JéShoots
These free photos are taken by Jan Vašek. Under devices, you can also find free iPhone mockups for interfaces.
GetRefe
Beautiful free photos taken by my good friend Tomas Laurinavicius during his travels. There is a premium version of this website available here with an awesome section of free photos (this site’s header photo is one of them).
PicJumbo
Very high-quality photos. These can be extremely useful as they feature a big variety of topics — from mobile phones to food. [/halfhal]
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Gratisography
These amazing conceptual photos are unfortunately being used by everyone on the web. It’s also one of the few sites that offers free pics of people.
StartupStockPhotos
This website needs more far more publicity. If you’re in need of some fresh office photos (and we all are), this site will provide it.
RaumRot
Markus Spiske offers his own photo packs as well as curated Flickr photos for creatives. These are truly priceless collections of hipster photos.
Jay Mantri
Another nature photographer who decided to share their photos with us. No attribution required.
TravelCoffee
Very high-quality photography from travels, this time more varied. From waterfalls to cities.
PhotoStockEditor
Another website with a few very nice photos. Mostly travel-related, but also some business and food imagery.
FancyCrave
Free and unique images taken by the well-known founder of InspirationFeed. Definitely worth checking out.
SketchJar
Need pics of monkeys? We got pics of monkeys. And many others. If you’re looking for some images with personality, this is the place to find ’em.
GoodFreePhotos
An insanely large collection from a single author with various themes, ranging from travel to technology and art.
Freenaturestock
Designer Adrian Pelletier’s blog will not only offer amazing photos, but also some tutorials on effectiveness.
End the Echo
Andy is a freelancer and the creator of The Print Handbook. He lives on the beautiful north coast of Northern Ireland.
Special Mentions
This pack of food photography
These photos require attribution, but it’s not very common to find good quality photos of cooking ingredients (mostly you’ll only find full meals). Enjoy!
The Pattern Library
Even if you’re not looking for patterns, it’s worth checking out this website. Be warned, however: scrolling though them is super-addictive.
SubtlePatterns
Although not exactly stock photo site, this list would hardly be complete without SubtlePatterns. If you’re in need of nice, seamless textures for use in web projects, this site is what you need.
Free Goodies For Designers‘s photography category
In this category, you can find a couple of themed photo bundles, such as textures, sky photos, and nature photos.
Graphic Burger‘s photo tag
A quick search on Graphic Burger will reveal a few high-quality photo packs, as well as psd mockups and textures.
Mazwai
Need a special hero shot for your website? Why not try these amazing hi-def video clips by Matt Devir?
Distill
Alternatively, you can get 10 free HD videos every 10 days. Seems like a bargain, doesn’t it? 🙂
StockSnap
Amazing resource to help you search for free stock photos. Highly recommended, just like Pexels (similar concept).
Conclusion
The best way to stand out from the rest is really by shooting our own photos or at least adjusting them to our own style. But this can be a chore, and sometimes we just want to ship something out there without making our lives harder. I hope this list will help you out when you need it.
Now — I promise I’ll keep it updated, and you promise you’ll share it around. Deal?
READ NEXT: Do you want to learn more about creating graphics for your blog? Here’s the last guide on that topic that you’ll need.
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