For a beautiful website, you need beautiful content – and the right image can often be more eloquent than the fiercest copy in terms of getting the right impression across of just how fabulous your business is… If you have enough money in your budget I’d always recommend getting some professional photos done – you can’t beat brilliant, personal shots to make your website sing. But – this isn’t always possible – or always appropriate (maybe illustration would work better for you – see some of my recent illustration work in my Stressbusters website, or original content with a more corporate angle in my site for Windich Legal).
There are lots of online libraries of stock images – places like shutterstock, istock, or envato market’s photodune, though these can be silly money for quite average images (think lots of frustrated out of work actors staring off into the mid-distance with the death of their soul reflected in their eye…) If you need lots of images – which you definitely will if you’re thinking of running a blog on your site – you need some good resources to find some bodacious FREE (that beautiful word) images…
Here’s a list of the sources I use most frequently – hope it’s useful – and let me know if you find anymore!
Unsplash
The home of the painfully hip free photo – everyone in these shots seem to be living the MOST amazing instagram life – that said there are some gorgeous images on here if you look hard enough – and it’s growing in popularity all of the time which means all the more images for us photography leaches!
Rawpixel
This has been my go-to for a while – its a mix of free and premium photographs and you can normally find a photo to match your theme (whatever that might be!) They also have a fair few vectors and PSDs on there for the more adventurous picture hunter. The premium choices are fairly affordable too if you want to splash out!
Pixabay
A ridonculously big library of pictures with a great search and filter function. Go CRAZY!
Gratisography
All the photos on this site are by just one dude – a Mr RyanMcGuire. They’re totally copyright free and they’re are some decent ones – who knows maybe the PERFECT one for you. Cheers Ryan!
Pikwizard
A new contender on the scene – and another good resource! The images seem to be primarily standard stock style pics – and they’ve got some free video footage too (for those of you who like your images to mooooove).
Free Images
Does what it says on the tin… can’t ask more than that!
Flickr
The internet’s most popular way of saving and sharing images! Lots of images on here will cost you – so be sure to do an advanced search (with your keyword) and select CREATIVE COMMONS to see all the images that you can use free of charge
So there you go – there are more out there – but sometimes you can have TOO much choice… These are the ones I use most of the time – and they’re my gift to you (aren’t I kind!)
Happy picture shopping!
Xxx
