When running a blog, it’s best to use your own photographs where possible. They’re personal, follow your branding, match your site, and you know they are legal to use. However, sometimes this isn’t possible, or you just need something extra. Many have fallen in to the trap of using any images they find online, only to later discover are not legal. Photos have copyright, and you need permission to use them. If you don’t want to face a fine or have your website removed, but don’t want to buy photographs, make sure you use one of these free stock photo providers.

Pixabay

Pixabay is a great source of photographs, hosting not only their own submissions, but also integrating those from other stock photo sites. You can use them for anything you want, and modify them if your need to. There are over 750,000 photos for you to choose from, covering a wide range of topics, destinations and faces. Everything you could possibly need. The database does contain explicit images, so be sure to use the safe-search filter if this isn’t something you want to see. Another fantastic feature of Pixabay is the option to search photos by the camera they’ve been taken with.

Freedigitalphotos

This site contains a smaller selection of photos, but it is still worth a look, as they might have the one you need. Higher quality images are available, for a fee. Photos are kept in easy to search, relevant categories.

Pexels

Again, Pexels don’t have the largest database. But, they do screen all their submissions, so you’re guaranteed a high quality professional looking photograph. Pexels is really easy to use. It may not have much choice in some categories, but it’s definitely worth a look just for the quality.

Flickr

Flickr is often something people miss, as it isn’t known for its free images. So, it may surprise you to hear to its collection of images available for public use exceeds 3 million pictures. This makes it one of the largest free to use image libraries online. Head over to their creative commons section. There’s a fair chance you’ll find what you’re looking for.

Unsplash

Unsplash is run by a marketing company called Crew. So, you’re sure to get great quality photographs. All photos are free to use, you can do whatever you want with them, and are HD quality. There’s also an Unsplash WordPress plugin, so it’s even easier to upload photos to your blog.

Life of Pix

Stunningly beautiful pictures live on Life of Pix. There’s also Life of Vids if you need some stock videos. Not the biggest gallery, but all the photos are gorgeous, and new ones are added weekly, so keep checking back.

Even when using these, and other free sites, always check individual photos for any attribution requirements. Many have none, but some might require you to credit the photographer. If you’re going to use a lot of photos from the same source, it would be polite to credit, and perhaps offer a donation, even if it is not mandatory.