Free stock photos can help your business or website shine. Whether you’re building a website, promoting a business, or just doing a school project, it can be hard to find good photos that you can legally use. Sure, you could take the photos yourself, but if you’re in Los Angeles and you need pictures of snow, good luck.
If you’re in high school, you might be able to get away with using someone else’s photo, but doing so as an entrepreneur can expose you to legal risk. Most importantly, it is just morally wrong. Using someone else’s work without their permission devalues their art. Luckily, there are websites out there that allow provide free stock photos in very high quality.
All of these websites, except one, have photos are released under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, which means that the photos are free for commercial use and do not require attribution.
Without further ado, here are the best free stock photo resources:
This is my personal favorite, with a clean interface, great search function, and large amount of high quality stock photos. The header image of this post is also from Pexels.
If you’re promoting or writing about a startup or web business, consider looking at Startup Stock Photos. It is exactly what it sounds like–a collection of startup-themed photos. Want photos of young people looking at laptops? Here you go.
With over 820,000 photos, Pixaby is a great choice for free stock photos. They have a great search function and an impressive selection of photos in nearly every category imaginable.
Unsplash is a smaller site with a handpicked selection of great photos. This is a definite go-to.
Want to add a classic feel to your website? Consider New Old Stock, which offers free vintage photos with “no known copyright.” It is likely, but not guaranteed, that the copyright owners of these photos are long dead and the photos are public domain.
