Your Stock Photos Survival Guide (Up To 13 Creative Commons Sites)

To all content creators out there, I know some of you might struggle to find good pictures. I do too at times, and there are only specific kinds of pictures that I approved.

To earn my approval, the pictures need to evoke emotions and are pleasing to my eyes.
 

 
It's kinda like aromatherapy. Very much a personal preference yet it has to be gentle enough not to turn off.

Not to mention the suitable mix of color themes and palettes.
 

 
Like website designs, photography is a saturated field of art and a damn challenging one.

But you'll know they're good photos when there are more requests and singing praises for your pictures, and if there are people who are willing to pay for your work— perfect.

Unfortunately, not every good photographer starts off with a paid gig. Some need to build their portfolio, and one way of doing so is by contributing to the creative commons.

Fortunately for us, we get to enjoy the fruit of their hard work. To appreciate their sweat and blood, it's fair that we credit these artists when using their pics (yes, even though it's free, a little credit won't hurt. If you can't find their names, credit the source then)
 

 
Since I'm all in for great visuals and would highly recommend anything when I'm a happy user, I've curated a list of FREE stock photo sites for you so you can enjoy them as much as I do.

✰

1. Stocksy
   ➮ Includes films and videos. Limited but good enough

2. Giphy
   ➮ Not stock photos but still epic GIFs. You can also create your meme and GIFs using their tools

3. Death To The Stock Photo
   ➮ VSCO-ish filtered pictures. You might think the name sounds morbid but I swear the pictures aren't

4. Foodies' Feed
   ➮ Every. Single. Food. Photography.

5. Magdeleine
   ➮ Minimalist visuals

6. Unsplash
   ➮ One of the most popular stock pics sites. Lots of VSCO pics but more organized in categories

7. Designers' Pics
   ➮ Domain name is irrelevant. Seldom use this even though pictures are good, mainly due to limited choices

8. Jay Mantri
   ➮ More like a personal curation. But mainly on landscape, scenic pics albeit most of them are not organized according to categories or even types, making your search difficult

9. All the Free Stock
   ➮ The name says it all. Literally everything from music, and videos to icons.

10. Visual Hunt
    ➮ Searches the kinds of pictures you want from the tags you keyed in

11. Life of Pix
    ➮ Lots of nature, landscape, animals, and scenic pictures. Easy search function too

12. Splitshire
    ➮ More free videos here. I just didn't like the ad that appears on every page of the site

13. Getty Images
    ➮ OK, this one is not free but I thought of mentioning it because the pictures are awesome, so much that they're indescribable. They have the most naturally occurring pictures. Probably one of the largest photo repository too

 
 
Please note… though most of the sites listed here provide creative commons, which is free for all to use, some sites do charge for subscription of unlimited usage or even access to a certain group of visuals.

Feel free to bookmark and resteem this post if you find it useful but if it's not really your cup of tea, and you feel that I can make this list better, please leave me a feedback in the comment section below.

Image credit: All public domain images are taken from Pexels, unless stated otherwise.
 
 

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