Where to Find Beautiful, Diverse, Cheap or Free Stock Photos
If you’re writing a blog post or a new section of your website, you need to include some photos or videos to go along with it. Whether you’re a nonprofit, small business, or a freelancer, stock photos from places like Getty or iStock can be expensive (nevermind hiring a photographer yourself!). Good thing there are plenty of generous professionals out there who are glad to provide you with high-quality images, videos, and graphics for your content—with or without credit, and often without a fee.
If you’re looking for some photos or videos for your site, check out these cheap and free stock media resources:
1. Pexels
Pexels is a collection of free stock photos and videos designed to help anyone looking for stunning, high-quality visuals that can be downloaded and used for free (like free-free—no strings attached). If you’re a photographer or videographer yourself, you can also contribute your work to Pexels for others to use.
2. Reshot
Similar to Pexels, Reshot’s photos are free for commercial and noncommercial uses and pride itself as a “non-stocky” stock photo site. You can download, copy, modify, distribute, and use these photos for free without permission or attribution. So go nuts!
3. StockSnap.io
StockSnap is our last “do what you want” type stock photo website to list. Search for, download, and use photos from StockSnap for free without any gimmicks or fine print.
4. Nappy
Traditional stock photo sites have one glaring issue: lack of diversity. Enter Nappy. Nappy was launched to “provide beautiful, high-res photos of black and brown people to startups, brands, agencies, and everyone else. Nappy makes it easy for companies to be purposeful about representation in their designs, presentations, and advertisements.”
Nappy will contribute its photos to Pexels and Unsplash, as well, but you can also go right to the source to find some beautiful and diverse images.
5. Disabled and Here
Similar to Nappy, Disabled and Here provides a collection of diverse photos often lacking on your typical stock photo sites. Disabled and Nappy is a “disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive stock photos shot from our own perspective, featuring disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color across the Pacific Northwest.”
If you want to support the teams’ work, you can also donate here via the Allied Media Project.
6. Gender Spectrum Collection
If you’re looking for trans and non-binary models, the Gender Spectrum Collection is the place to go. Vice has put this collection together to “help media better represent members of these communities as people not necessarily defined by their gender identities” but, instead, as people with lives, jobs, relationships, and interests.
7. Freepik
Like the other services, Freepik offers you a rich database of high-quality photos. Unlike the other services, Freepik also includes vector images, illustrations, and PSD files that you can use for creative projects. Because of the diversity of media types that you can find there, the usage rights and prices will vary—not everything is free to use or use without crediting the original creator. Still, they have an impressive offering and are worth checking out.
Each of these sites has its strengths and weaknesses regarding quality, diversity, and usage rights (make sure you take a look at the usage rights before using their photos/videos). Together, they provide a relatively comprehensive database of options for you to use with a very small—if existent—price tag attached. Just remember that even if the photo doesn’t require a shout-out or credit to the photographer, it is courtesy whenever you can do so. And because many of these images and graphics are high-quality, make sure that you resize them appropriately for your website (you can check out this blog post if you need help with the resizing).
What stock photo sites do you frequent most?
