Let’s say you’re looking for a photo of a New York skyline for your website. So you Google it, find one in the images section, and call it good right? Wrong. There is a possibility that the photographer of that photo will see you using their image without giving them credit and it can lead to a lawsuit for copyright issues, which is no fun. Most people don’t have the time, skill, or money to create or hire a photographer for their own photos so they usually settle for stock.

We all know a bad stock photo when we see one. They usually have unnatural lighting, unrealistic or outdated situations, and most images look contrived. Some stock photos are actually quite hilarious because of how absurd they are, just look at this site here!

Luckily, there are plenty of places that offer beautiful, crisp imagery that are absolutely free to edit, copy, manipulate, and use for commercial purposes! Say what!? And I’ve gathered my favorite 8 just for you. I put them in order of where I search first. Enjoy!

1. Unsplash

This is my go to for stock images. I only recently found out about this site and I have spent an incredibly embarrassing amount of time searching random words and just gazing all the pretty pictures. What’s cool is every 10 days they put 10 new photos and you can use them for absolutely anything with no worries about copyright. I also really like their secondary page, Made with Unsplash.

2. Minimography

I think this site is great, it’s one of my favorites. It doesn’t have much but if you’re looking for a sleek and minimalistic photo this is definitely the place!

3. Pexels

This is a great site with lots of images to choose from and search for! This one is fun to search through.

4. PicJumbo

A site that has thousands upon thousands of free photos, this is a good one to look into. I didn’t find the search very helpful, so I just clicked on tags I found attached to different images. Also, the site is a little cluttered with ads and you have to go through 3 different pages to actually get the download. But hey, they’ve got to make their money somehow! If you ignore those things the pro for this one is it is never short on options.

5. Picography

A very simple site of random photos from professional photographers. It isn’t searchable but its a great site for some unique and cool photos.

6. Public Domain Archive

Very cool site with lots of images to choose from. You can search a word or search by category and it is completely free!

7. Death to the Stock Photo

Besides an awesome name and sick site, this is a cool place to see awesome photos and you can sign up to receive great images in your inbox each month! They do offer a premium to see their archives and gain instant access to their photos if you just can’t wait.

8. New Old Stock

This site is a collection of vintage photos from government companies or other places that are free from copyright restrictions. You can search at the top left but it is pretty cool to just scroll through, you might find yourself a jewel there!

Here are a few more that are nice free stock sites since I couldn’t really narrow it down to 8. 🙂
Jay Mantri
IMFree
Pixababy

Do you know of any other websites, I’d love to hear more!