Do you know that – we all share over 700 billion images a year on Facebook alone? Quite astonishing right? Well, that has been the revolution of photography over the last decade. The world has modernized from having an exclusive camera to high definition cameras in mobile phones.
We snap more pictures every two minutes than the whole of humanity did in the 1800s.[1] With the world getting more digital and the fact that – the human brain processes images a thousand times faster than text, getting good quality and creative photos have become the need of the hour for all individuals and organizations. There are millions of photos available on the web. Well, not all are free.
Here are few sites which will give you free access to millions of their stock photos:
1. Freepik
Freepik is a platform/website with millions of stock photos and vectors. It was founded in 2010 by brothers Alejandro, Pablo Blanes and Joaquín Cuenca. It is recognized as “1000 Europe’s Fastest-Growing Companies” from Financial Times with over 50 million views & over 100 million downloads per month. A platform for both Photographers and Graphic Designer to share their creative skill sets.
2. Unsplash
Unsplash is a hub of photos with the tagline “Photos for everyone”. Today, Unsplash has over 2 million free high-resolution images and over 100,000 contributors. Unsplash arose from the frustration with the lack of good, usable pictures. They’ve built an incredible community by sharing hundreds of thousands of their own images to inspire creativity all over the world. So either register for free or don’t. In any case, you get access to over a million photographs under the Unsplash licence, which allows you to do whatever you want with them.
3. Pexels
It is a must to mention Pexels not just because of the free stock photos but also the free stock videos. Yes, you heard it right. Pexels provides you over thousands free stock videos and has been a go-to site for many designers and business stakeholders. Pexels is not only known for best stock photos but is one of the most organised websites ever with a very friendly UI/UX.
4. Yandex
Yandex, founded in 1997, is a technology business that creates intelligent products and services based on machine learning. It is the largest media destination in all of Russia. Yandex, like Google, provides free email, real-time traffic maps, music, videos, photo storage, and other services. One such service is the free stock photos where you can download thousands of images for free. It also gives you a chance to explore some beautiful videos.
5. Picjumbo
Picjumbo is founded by Viktor Hanacek who is a 26-year-old photographer and designer living in Czech Republic. Victor was 14 years old when he first landed a client by creating a website for a local business with his exceptional coding skills. He tried several gigs as a Freelancer and finally decided to study at a university. In 2 weeks, he dropped out and decided to do whatever it takes to be successful on his own.
Victor started graphic templates, WordPress and Tumblr themes and sold them online. He eventually got into photography which he always enjoyed since his school days. He started with a bang by selling a package of 94 pictures on Creative Market. But soon things turned around and all his photos started getting rejected due to lack of quality; which made him start his Picjumbo. Today, Picjumbo has over thousands of photos and is a free stock photo community with creative and beautiful stock photos.
“All of the stock photo sites rejected my photos. Looking back, I am incredibly grateful for that.” – Victor
6. Pikwizard
Pikwizard has millions of free stock photos for commercial and editorial use. It is a huge collection of stunning, high-quality, royalty-free stock images with No attribution required. But, what sets them apart is their offering of a design wizard which allows you to make basic edits before downloading. Their paid version gives you full edit access with many features.
7. Pixabay
Pixabay is a website with over 2 million free stock photos. It is business-oriented towards and mainly used by Marketers and Bloggers. Pixabay also offers free vector images and illustrations. They have now expanded to provide royalty-free music and videos as well. With Instagram Reels, Tik Tok and YouTube growing rapidly more than ever, it will be a must-have on the list.
8. Reshot
Reshot was started with a mission to provide a platform to emerging photographers and designers. Photos, Illustrations and Icons are their three main offerings. Reshot has over 25,000 stock photos, 1,500 illustrations and over 40,000 icons. With the tagline – No attribution. Just attitude; the contributors get all the credits.
9. Stockvault
Stockvault is a website founded in 2004 where photographers, designers and students can share their photographs, graphics and vector files with each other for free. It was created with the purpose to gather high-resolution images that photographers, designers, and students can use for personal and non-commercial design projects. Today, Stockvault has over 1.3 Million images/designs and is very well categorized.
10. Morguefile
With the tagline “for creatives, by creatives”, Morguefile is a free stock photo website founded in 1996. It was started to serve as a free image exchange for creative professionals and teachers to use for their work. Many contributors are now exploring this platform and uploading their work here. It is one of the oldest platforms.
Few other platforms to download stock photos:
- Rawpixel
- StockSnap
- Burst
- Foodies Feed (mainly food photos)
- Picography
- Gratisography
Author: Anoop Sajjan
Also, recommended read – Top Ten Influencers on Instagram – 2021
