Stock photography is often contrived, confusing, or altogether nonsensical. (If you need examples, click here, here, and here). And free stock photos? Forget it.
That’s why I was excited to discover such an awesome resource for free stock photography. I don’t receive any sort of compensation for this review — I’m not sure how I could make money off a free stock photo site anyway. But when a site figures out how to combine free stock photos with zero embarrassment factor, I believe it deserves to be shared.
Pexels.com
Pexels offers easily searchable free stock photography. All photos fall under the Creative Commons Zero license, meaning that the pictures can be used for any legal purpose, including commercial. You may modify, copy, and distribute the photos. Attribution is not required.
Pexels also displays sponsored stock photography assets for purchase, including from sites like Storyblocks. I discussed Storyblocks in my recent roundup of cool video tools. Perhaps I should add Pexels Video to the list because it offers free stock video as well!
Quality controls
Every full-size, high-resolution photo on Pexels is hand-picked from photos uploaded by Pexels users or sourced from free image websites. The site hosts monthly photo submission contests that help grow the free stock photo library. For instance, at the time of publication, the current contests seek “everyday people” and “office spaces.” Previous contests include cat photos (with a prize of free cat food!), minimalist photos, and outdoor photos.
Contributing to the community
Once you’ve downloaded a free stock photo from Pexels, you’re encouraged to support the site and community in a number of ways. You can tweet a thank-you or follow the photographer’s social media channels, donate directly to the photographer’s PayPal account, link back to the photo, or click on any of the sponsored ads that appear.
How I’ve used Pexels’s free stock photos
I sourced the featured photo for this blog post from Pexels and then altered it with photo filters and type.
I also used Pexels for almost all the photography in my recently released book, 3 Expensive Google AdWords Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them).
Pexels is a wonderful resource – it’s intuitive, high-quality, and searchable. If you’re out there looking for free stock photos, be sure to try Pexels.com!
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Also published on Medium.
