7 Free Stock Photography Sites for Digital Marketing That We Love
We love photography. We love free. What could be better than putting the two together? We use a mixture of supplied, free stock and purchased stock from libraries such as iStock to create our graphic design, print design, content marketing, websites, videos, and animations for our client’s projects. We like to use natural and realistic-looking settings and models rather than posed stock to enhance authenticity in the client’s business. So you can imagine how chuffed we are when we find moving, ecstatic, and jaw-dropping images that are available for use at no charge.
Here are seven of the free photography resources we have come to be very fond of:
- Free Images – More than 350,000 impressive photos posted by over 30,000 photographers.
- Unsplash – A quietly great Tumblr with 10 new and unique images every 10 days.
- Little Visuals – Similarly, you can have 7 random free images emailed to you in a zip file every 7 days.
- PicJumbo – This one promises new images every day in clever categories like “Abstract” and “Sunlights”.
- Gratisography – Quirky, high-res images all captured by Ryan McGuire of Bells Design and available without any copyright restrictions.
- Refe – This is a new concept from Lithuania – a marketplace for buying and selling the best photos taken by mobile phones. Free images are available on its Tumblr right now.
- New Old Stock – Sometimes the classics express it better. Here is a Tumblr devoted to ancient daguerreotypes and vintage photos of hand-drawn cartoons from the public archives. All are free of copyright and available for general use.
If you are still looking for images, check out these great resources:
- Death to the Stock Photo – While a death sentence may be a little harsh, we agree that boring old images have to go. Allison Lehman and David Sherry provide new world views.
- Pixabay – Like a visual social network, this is a place to find original photos and share your own under a free Creative Commons license. Permission and attribution not required.
All of these represent just a small sample of the many resources we investigate on a daily basis. Whenever you are using images you have found online, please be careful about reading the licensing terms. Many times the image you wish to use may not be clear about how to use it appropriately. Great photographers deserve recognition for their work and it is too easy to cut and paste great images without the proper attribution.
When you need professional digital creative, come to iFactory. We are a design-focused creative and digital agency based in Brisbane. Consider iFactory your partner of choice for creative and digital marketing solutions. Our clients benefit from a local, experienced, committed, and digitally obsessed team. We love creating everything in the digital space; and we do mean everything from desktop and mobile websites to apps, social media campaigns, EDMs, web banners, and branding to digital design and SEO. We would love to work on your next creative project with you.
