Hey hey, it’s time to talk about stock photos!
Are you sick of trawling the internet for beautiful high quality – and most importantly free – images for your blog or business?
If so friends, you’ve come to the right place!
I want to show you the places I go to find the best free online stock photos, so you don’t have to waste your valuable time searching.
Image from goldandberry.blogspot.com (see below for more!)These aren’t just any old free stock photos, I really just want to show you the ones I truly rate for style and quality every time. And I’ve included a few handy tips along the way!
Image from Ivory Mix – see below for more details!Because most Slighlty Sorted readers are women, I often favor more feminine photos, but several of the sites I’ll mention are excellent for lots of different blog niches and businesses.
Some links on slightlysorted.com are affiliate links – please see the disclosure tab on the main menu, side bar or footer for full details, thank you!
Why Is Choosing The Right Free Online Stock Photos Important?
Before we jump right in with the free online stock photos, you might be asking yourself why you’d want to bother with all this?
Why not just lift any gorgeous image you find online?
Well, basically, because you could get sued for doing that.
Chances are that the beautiful image you’ve discovered is copyrighted, so it’s illegal for you to use it – simples.
But it’s important that you create a stylish blog or website to attract a bigger audience, so you still need great images.
Unless you’re happy to take all your photos yourself, or pay for a service, you’re going to need some free online stock photos. (By the way, if you’re interested in a no-nonsense blogging roadmap for beginners, check out my favorite free resource here.)
So guys, without any further chit-chat, let’s jump right in to some of the best free online stock photos around!…
My Favorite Free Online Stock Photos
Here’s the YouTube video if you prefer to watch it, or scroll on down for all of the details, examples, and links to my favorite sites!:
Really Really Gorgeous Styled Stock Photos!
Wow, these images from goldandberry.blogspot.com are AMAZING. I was so happy when I came across these, as in my opinion they’re some of the most stylish free online stock photos that I’ve come across.
This site has a selection of different styles of images – most are in a similar theme to the one above, but there are some more minimalist photos on there too.
I think this lady is an amazing photographer, and she’s gone to so much effort when styling these images! She also does some nice free printables.
Quick tip! Remember to check the terms and conditions on the site that you get your free stock photos from. Some will have restrictions on the way in which you can use them – Unsplash for example (below), like you to credit the photographer, although they don’t insist on it.
My Favorite Free Online Stock Photos Site For Variety
I love unsplash.com and use it all the time, simply because you can find a huge variety of images on there for any kind of blog niche from hundreds of different photographers.
Whether you’re after photos for your tech review site, beauty blog, or personal fitness training business, you can be pretty sure that you’ll find something you like!
I’ve used images from Unsplash for food images, exercise, general models, animals, home decor, florals and beaches! Here are a few of my current favorites so you can see what I mean…
Photo by Brooke Lark on UnsplashQuick tip! Most free stock photo services allow you to crop the photos to suit your needs, so for example in the photo above you could just use the fruit bowl part of the image. I often use google photos for this purpose. Just check the t&c’s when you download the image to make sure it’s ok.
Photo by Roberto Nickson on Unsplash
Photo by Hipster Mum on UnsplashFor A HUGE Selection Across All Niches
A similar site that I really rate is Pik Wizard. The sheer volume of free stock photos on here is impressive, to say the least.
This is another great one to visit whatever your niche or industry, because they have excellent quality pictures in such a huge selection of areas. They also give you helpful little suggestions in the search box, so that you can get really specific with what you want.
Here are a couple of gorgeous ones I came across today after searching for only a couple of minutes…
Too cute!Classic Feminine Styled Stock Photos
When you sign up with your email address on hautestock.co, not only do you get a selection of beautiful images sent to you right away, you also continue to receive monthly freebies!
I love this site for high-quality stylish images, they never disappoint me. Here are a couple of the free stock photos I’ve received from them since I signed up.
Quick tip! Look out for images like the one above, which have plenty of blank space (or ‘white space’) – they’re ideal for creating Pinterest graphics. I do mine on Canva which I love, but you might prefer something like Photoshop if you have access to it.
Savvy Stock
If you go to makeupsavvy.co.uk, you can download 10 beautifully styled free stock images.
Some are makeup related, some are styled desktops/boss lady style, and there are some lovely autumnal shots too.
This lady has some lovely photos on her blog, and she hasn’t skimped on the style for the free ones. These two are my favorites.
Super-Stylish Muted Tones
And another lovely site offering up 10 free stock images is thirteenthoughts.com – Paula has a very distinctive photography style, which I think comes across as very sophisticated. These are my faves!…
Quick Tip! Whenever you can, download your photos rather than taking screenshots. This preserves the quality, but you will often have to resize them if you’re using them on your blog. I often use around 900 x 600 px, as that size works well on Pinterest.
Natural Women
Here’s a fantastic niche collection of free stock photos from the team at Canva. It celebrates women in their natural state, in particular, women who are usually excluded from the media’s representation of ‘natural beauty’.
Their aim in creating this collection is to challenge how women are often stereotyped and represented in stock photography, and highlight the need for change in order to better represent diversity in women – and I think they’ve done an amazing job!
Here are a couple I particularly love…
Huge Styled Stock Library!
When you sign up to Ivory Mix, you get access to a library of over 300 gorgeous free styled stock photos – over 300!
And regular emails with new shots. What more can I say really, other than how extremely generous of Kayla to share so many lovely photos!
She has lots of other free resources too, so I highly recommend visiting the site. Here’s just a little taste of what you can expect…
And that, ladies and gentlemen, just about does it!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little round-up of my favorite free online stock photos, and that I’ve helped save you some time in finding some top-quality images. Hunting down decent free images really can be very soul destroying time-consuming, so I hope this has helped you out!
I’d love to know what you think, and if you have any recommendations of your own? Let me know in the comments!
** PS! If you’re interested in a no-nonsense blogging roadmap for beginners, check out my favorite free resource here **
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I am always looking for good stock photo sites for my projects. Thanks for the great options you shared with us. Also, thanks for the tips you shared as well. I follow most of them as a matter of course but it is great to have them here in case someone else has not included them into their workflow yet.
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You’re welcome Dale, I hope you can find some lovely free stock photos from this little lot! Thanks! 🙂