As a freelance writer and web developer, I build a lot of websites and blogs online. When I do that work for a client, they either fill in my articles with images as they publish them, or they point me in the direction of a stock photo supplier they have a subscription with and ask me to select some graphic from them. Either way, I don’t pay for those graphics.
However, when I build my own websites and blogs, like my personal finance blog at FinanceGourmet.com, or my parenting blog at UndefeatedDaddy.com, I don’t have the luxury of someone else buying my clip art and stock photos. And, as it turns out, stock photography can be pretty expensive.
For years I got by, by just using the clip art that Microsoft supplied via Microsoft Office. Even when you went and searched online, it was still cleared, and licensed by Microsoft for most uses, including publishing your own blog. However, Microsoft bailed out on that service. The result is that it can be pretty hard to find usable, reasonably priced stock photos. Fortunately, I finally found a pretty solid stock photography resource for freelance writers like me.
Pixabay Free Stock Photography
The website is called Pixabay (at pixabay.com). All the images and videos on Pixaby are free of copyright under Creative Commons CC0 license. I don’t 100% know what that means, but the website clearly states that you can download, modify and distribute the images royalty-free, and attribution is not required. I’m guessing there might be some limits if you are Coca-Cola launching a million dollar advertising campaign, but for professional writers and bloggers like me, that’s good enough. And, unlike a lot of other free stock photography websites, there are lots of really great images to choose from.
Want an example? Sure, let’s search Pixabay for something to use for this post. Let’s search for ‘victory’ as in, “Yea! I finally found good, free stock photography for websites and blogs!”
There are some good images here, and some weird ones. Not sure how the ping pong table with paddles fits in here, and there are a lot of chess boards and pieces. I suppose if you looked closely the pieces might be in a winning position, or something. The fact is, the search engine is nowhere near as a powerful as the one on Getty Images, or something like that, but that’s to be expected when you are comparing a free service to a very expensive one.
But, there are also some really fitting ones, including some of the more clip arty ones with bubble head and body guys doing a high-five. There are also a bunch of race themed ones, and some thumbs up ones which could fit pretty well. Of course, if you didn’t like any of these choices, you can always just search for a pseudo-synonym like ‘success,’ ‘winning,’ or maybe even ‘gloating.’
High-five seems appropriate because you win too, when I share this news with you. Of course, a thumbs up is a good non-specific form of celebration and approval.
I guess we can’t really go wrong here. And, considering it’s just a quick blog post on my freelance writing blog, it isn’t like we need to put hours of thought into it or anything.
The point is, there is a good, usable, free stock photos resource out there.
Go check it out, and let me know how it works for you. Also, if you find other worthwhile stock photography websites that are free, or reasonably priced, shoot me a message. I’d love to check them out, and pass them on.