Where writers (website creators, bloggers, social media admins) can get stock photos

Updated 2024 December 28th

Whether you’re also an author of print books, a website creator, blogger, or you create content for social media, we need photos! We also need photos that we can legally use for commercial use (even for book covers) without copyright issues. Where do we find photos at that are high quality?

free photos

Unsplash
www.unsplash.com
The quality of photos on here is truly professional, and there are many to choose from. While there are paid options here, there are plenty of free images that are good quality.
 
Pixabay
www.pixabay.com
This site has a lot! Some are highly professional. Others are amateur. The selection is huge though.
 
Pexels
www.pexels.com
This site isn’t quite as big, but it’s still worth checking.
 
Flickr
www.flickr.com
This is a photography website where photographers can choose if they allow commercial use with or without modification. Make sure you filter what you are searching for by the copyright usage. Some photos require attribution. There are also some that have watermarks on them.
 
Stock Snap
www.stocksnap.io
There are some categories that have a good selection.
 
Free Range Stock
www.freerangestock.com
These are available for commercial use and do not require attribution.
 
Web hosts (who your website is hosted through)
Your web host may offer a selection of stock photos to choose from as well.

Your own

Also consider taking your own photos. You don’t have to have a professional camera for this. Cell phones take amazing pictures nowadays. Build your own collection.
 
Instead of traditional photos, you can make images that are words only or have graphics.

Paid photos

The photographer
You can contact the photographer to inquire about purchasing and usage.
 
Canva
www.canva.com
Known for design, they also offer stock photos. If you subscribe to Canva Pro, you'll have access to thousands of stock photos.
 
iStock
www.istockphoto.com
This is an affordable site to purchase photos.
 
Vecteezy
www.vecteezy.com
There are photos and vectors here.
 
Shutterstock
www.shutterstock.com
There are many options here. You can purchase monthly plans to download a certain number of images.
 
Adobe Images
www.stock.adobe.com
This has a variety as well as some free images. There are monthly plans for specific numbers of photos.
 
Getty Images
www.gettyimages.com
This is a very expensive site to purchase photos from, but they do have millions of photos.
 
Etsy
www.Etsy.com
You may not have thought of this one, but Etsy is a great place to purchase graphics and fonts.