Where to Get Great Free Stock Photos for Your Website

Stock photography can be expensive. And randomly grabbing licensed images from the Internet can cost you thousands of dollars if you’re found violating a copyright and threatened with legal action (this happened to someone I talked to at a Meetup).

Free Photos, No Attribution Required

Here are some sources for license-free stock photos! No attribution required (but it is often encouraged, and please double-check, as licensing can change):

• Burst
• FreeImages
• Morguefile
• reshot
• Pexels
• Picography
  
• picjumbo
• Pixabay
• SplitShire
• StockSnap – scroll down past the Shutterstock photos to see the free ones.
• Stockvault
• Stokpic
  
• Unsplash

The featured image at the top of this article is from Pixabay.

Specialty Photos

These are sources of specialty photos:

• Foodiesfeed
  Professional food photos. Attribution is requested but not required.

Archival / Historical

These sites offer free historical/archival photos. Attribution may be required:

• New York Public Library Digital Collections
  These photos are very old but could be useful for a retro or historical site
• Wikimedia Commons
  Some photos require attribution or have other requiremetns.

Attribution Required

These sites offer free images but they may require attribution or have other limitations:

• Dreamstime
  Has a free section but attribution is required.
• FreeFoto
  Attribution and link are required.
• freepik
  Free photos, vector art, icons, and PSDs, but attribution is required.
• openphoto
• pdpics
• PhotoPin
  License varies with photo.

Free Videos

This site offers free videos!

• Coverr

So, as you can see, there are lots of sources of royalty-free photos on the Internet! Don’t take chances by randomly downloading photos!

What are some sources of free photos that I don’t have here? Please comment below. – Brian