Friday 15th July 2016
Ah, the stock photo. The very name probably conjures up hilariously bad images of business executives in meetings with clients or some other such nonsense, and rightly so. The classic stock photo is sort of a joke in most design circles by now, and even reached a point where actor Vince Vaughn and his co-stars for the movie Unfinished Business conducted a photo shoot sending up the traditional business settings you find in such photos.
So what are the alternatives? Fortunately as a result of the backlash against these junky stock photos, a number of sites have sprung up with the goal of redefining what 'stock photo' means. We've combed through the web for some of the best stock photo sites. The only thing that's better is that they're all free!
Morguefile is one of the older free stock photo sites, and it has a very eclectic collection that may not always have what you need but it's always worth a look. Despite the seemingly gruesome name, it's actually named after the files kept by oldschool photojournalists of all the images they didn't use previously. Visit it here at
http://www.morguefile.com and see for yourself!
FreeImages, formerly known as the StockxChange, is also an old site with a great collection of images. Just be careful that you don't accidentally choose one of the paid images, as they integrate them into their search results to gain affiliate commissions. See the options here at
http://www.freeimages.com
Those are great choices if you're looking for something that is a bit more traditional, but if you want to take things to the next level there are a number of other free sites available.
One of our personal favourites is Death to the Stock Photo, partly because of the great name and partly because they have some amazing images that are all free to use. Visit it here at
http://www.deathtothestockphoto.com. If you sign up for their newsletter, they'll mail you regularly with new images, and they have a paid option as well if you don't have time to wait.
Another great option is Unsplash, which has a large collection of images and is actually entirely free. It's a bit harder to find exactly what you want, because all tagging is done by the photographers who upload their own images, but you can find some incredible gems in there as well. Check it out at
http://www.unsplash.com/
Last but not least, there is the excellent PicJumbo. This site walks the fine line between high-concept stuff like Unsplash and the more traditional stock photo sites, but there are some amazing images available for free (and some available for purchase if needed). Check it out at
http://www.picjumbo.com/ - just don't use an Adblocker!
Posted on July 15th 2016 on 08:19pm
