If you take a scroll through Instagram on any given day, you’ll probably find a large amount of Lettering work combined with high quality photos. You know the ones I mean? Often they appear with quotes or music lyrics giving a lot of colour, texture and depth to the composition.
Have you ever wondered how artists find these images and how much they might cost? Or you might even think they have incredible photography skills and have taken these photos themselves. Before you go out and spend your savings on an expensive camera or book a flight to Canada for that perfect mountain shot, I’m going to show you 20 websites you can access photos exactly like this for free!
1. SplitShire
- Personal and Commercial use allowed
- Images can be used in products for sale
- Videos also available
- Search functionality
2. Raumrot
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (attribution required)
3. Public Domain Archive
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
4. Picography
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Search functionality
5. picjumbo
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (some images require attribution)
- Search functionality
6. Pexels
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Search functionality
7. Startup Stock Photos
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
8. Pixabay
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Search functionality
9. New Old Stock
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
10. Negative Space
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Search functionality
11. Magdeleine
- Personal and Commercial use allowed
- Collated into Attribution Required images and Free to Use
- Search by Colour Feature
- Search functionality
12. Life of Pix
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Videos also available
- Search functionality
13. Kaboompics
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Images can be used in products for sale
- Search functionality
14. ISO Republic
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Search functionality
15. IM Free
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (attribution is required)
- Search functionality
16. Gratisography
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Search functionality
17. Death to Stock
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Photo packs with a central theme
18. Superfamous
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (attribution is required)
19. Bossfight
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
20. Unsplash
- Personal and Commercial use allowed (no attribution required)
- Search functionality
Check out Made with Unsplash for a showcase of the photos in use.
Licences and Attribution
It’s important you check the copyright and licence terms on each website to be clear on how you can use them. Some sites will allow their images to be used both for personal and commercial projects, though may require attribution to the creator. This means you need to credit the photographer and provide a link to the site.
Some websites will allow their photos to be included in products for sale (like HTML or PSD templates) as placeholder images.
Images using people or famous places may have extra terms associated for commercial use.