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How To Find Great Free Photos for Your Blog
One of the most common gripes I hear from bloggers is that it’s impossible to find good free photos for their blogs. In some cases, this means a lot of text-only blogs. In most cases, it means blogs hijack other people’s work without permission.
Both of these options suck, particularly for a blog that’s just starting out. I’m going to show you a better way; how to find some free high quality photos you can use on your blog.
Where to look
Knowing where to look is just as important as what you find. I know most people’s first instinct is “Google Images!” Ignore that instinct. Google Images is useful for some things, but not really for this. There’s too much of a legal quagmire regarding usage rights and let’s be honest, the photos you find are pretty lame.
Flickr is the first place I look when i want a good photo for my blog. The field is massive, searching is top notch, and the quality is nothing short of outstanding. You can’t just grab any photos on there, there are rules that you should abide by. In order to legally cover your ass, and respect the work of others, you need to be aware of these rules.
Licensing
The rules are simple: Every photo on Flickr has a license and there are two ‘major’ categories of license: an “All Rights Reserved” license and a “Creative Commons” license. A photo that’s marked “All Rights Reserved” means hands off!
You can ask the photographer for permission to use it and some will likely just ask for photo credit or a link. Some may ask for money, which you probably don’t have if you’re reading this. I don’t ask the photographer for permission very often because it’s time consuming and stressful waiting on someone else.
What is a Creative Commons License?
On the other hand, a photo marked “Creative Commons” is the best thing you can hope for. It means that the photographer has reserved some of their rights, but lets people use their photos for free under certain conditions. Each Creative Commons license can be different, but there are 4 major components that you can mix and match. They are Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivative Works, and Share-Alike.
Based on what you’re doing with the images, you need to keep the restrictions of these images in mind. The most important restriction is that you can’t use Non-Commercial images on a monetized blog. The Attribution component is always part of a Creative Commons license, so you will always need to provide credit for the photo with a link to them. I’ll show you how I integrate these photos and links into my blog next week.
How to Search for Creative Commons Photos in Flickr
I use the Flickr advanced search feature. Make sure to check the box stating that you only want Creative Commons photos to display. If you make money off your blog, you also have to check the box to look for content that can be used commercially. Plug in your keywords and it’ll bring up a page with an immense number of results.
By default, the photos are ordered by ‘relevance’. Flickr’s relevance search is pretty useless. So if I’m writing a post about something that’s happened today, instead of sorting by relevance, I’ll sort by “most recent”.
Most of the time, I use the “most interesting” search filter. If you’re not familiar with Flickr’s concept of interestingness, it shows you popular and/or high quality photos. Flip through the first five pages and I guarantee you’ll find something that works!
Other Options
Other photo storage websites, like Thomas Hawk’s Zooomr, also allow you to search through Creative Commons photos. I haven’t tried the search on Zooomr myself, but I have seen photos on there that are every bit as good as what you’ll find on Flickr.
Another option is the free stock photo agencies, such as everystockphoto or stock.xchng. I have no experience with either of these, so I can’t vouch for their usefulness. My friend and fellow blogger Greg G. of DingoRUE swears by free stock photo agencies, but I’m not sure which ones he uses off the top of my head. If you use either one, feel free to let me know what you think in the comments.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, you’ll find that people have a more positive opinion of your blog. When the quality of your images goes up, that helps bring up the quality of your entire blog. Also, Flickr photographers will sometimes link to your site when you use their photo. This can help you get more exposure by increasing your Technorati rank and the number of sites that link to you.
Where do you get photos for your blog? Have I made missed anything important? Comment and humiliate me in front of everyone!
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Beth Said,
March 16, 2007 @ 2:47 pm
I remember reading through this when I joined flickr and then forgetting the bit about all rights reserved photos not being ok to use on blogs - thanks for the reminder.
Joseph Thornley Said,
March 16, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
Andrew,
Thanks for the GREAT post. Lots of practical advice. I try to add an image to every post. But my photographic skills are non-existent.
Now, thanks to your practical advice I know how to find good photos that I can use.
I’m looking forward to next week’s post on integrating the photos and links into a blog.
Andrew Ferguson Said,
March 16, 2007 @ 4:43 pm
Thanks Joseph!
This is exactly how I find the majority of my images. I’m lucky enough to be a reasonably decent photographer, so I can use my own shots sometimes but not always.
I tend not to include images in my weekly linkdumps, but almost every other post will have a photo. It’s a pretty integral part of your blog when you blog about photography :P
Bryan Zmijewski Said,
March 16, 2007 @ 5:04 pm
Andrew, another alternative to using free images is to use low cost imagery (there are many sites that start at a buck). Sometimes you’ll find an image that matches the theme of a blog post much quicker. While its great to be able to use something for free, it’s also nice to tip’ the artist for the use of the image. Many artists don’t want gobs of money- just something to compensate them for their time and equipment!
Where To Find Images For Your Blog : Chris Garrett on New Media Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 3:05 am
[…] Ferguson has posted up a great post on where to find Great Free Photos for Your Blog Knowing where to look is just as important as what you find. I know most people’s first instinct […]
Garrett Albright Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 3:39 am
I like to check Wikipedia articles for whatever topics I’m writing about; often there will be free images in the articles themselves, but if you can’t find a good picture there, sometimes there will be additional images on the topic’s Wikimedia Commons page, which the Wikipedia article will link to (if it exists). And with those images, you’re assured off the bat that they’re free to use; otherwise Wikipedia themselves wouldn’t be able to use them. For example, I found a nice image of an old-timey typewriter on Wikipedia’s QWERTY article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY
…which I used in this article about bad typing habits. It’s simple and muted, but I think it adds a touch of levity to the article and breaks up what would otherwise be a “wall of text” appearance.
http://raygunrobot.com/archives/Our-bad-typing-habits
As you mentioned, Flickr can also be useful, but I find that you sometimes have to wade through a lot of mediocre or irrelevant (over-tagged) pictures before you can find an image which is both free and of quality. It sure beats the shotgun-ish approach of a Google Images search, though.
Marc Chase Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 5:46 am
Thanks for the info, I do need to start adding some images to my blog. I would also like to find a handful of different icons.
http://copyblogger.com/ & http://www.pearsonified.com/ always have some nice little icons and dont know if they make them themselves, or there is a place to get those things.
Interesting Blog Links - Week 6 » All About Blogs and Blogging Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 6:17 am
[…] 1. Andrew Ferguson discusses one of the most common gripes from bloggers which is how to find free photos for your blog […]
Avinash Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 6:29 am
A really good read!
I’ve found Creative Commons highly useful for my sites/blogs. As far as the stock photo agencies are concerned, I’ve been using both everystockphoto and stock.xchng sites to collect free images and most of the time, I’m able to find cool pics on these sites.
Steve M Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 8:39 am
Nice post, what’s your opinion on the growing use of plugins like AutoFlickr which add a random Flickr post based on a keyword? I love the idea of it, but usually hate the results because they can be just that little bit too random.
My 2pworth would be that istockphoto.com is so cheap for web use that if a 3 minute CC search on flickr doesn’t turn something up I’d be tempted to just buy something.
But always credit the photog - you guys can get REALLY grumpy ;)
Trevor Carpenter Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 12:49 pm
You can also find some great photos at Zooomr, http://www.zooomr.com
They have the same rights categories too.
Andrew Ferguson Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 1:03 pm
Wow guys! Thanks for the active response!
@Brian: I’ve thought of microstock websites as a place to find good images, but I wanted to make this post focus on free options as much as possible.
@Garrett: Wikipedia completely slipped my mind, thanks for the tip!
@SteveM: I’m not a big fan of those plugins. Much the same as the ‘Related Post’ plugins for Wordpress, they tend to get a lot of junk that’s not relevant mixed in with the good stuff.
I rarely need to spend more than 5 minutes looking for the right photo on Flickr, so it’s worth it to me to do it manually.
@Trevor: I touched on Zooomr in the post, but I couldn’t go too in depth. The site was down for the couple of days to upgrade to Mk. III while I was writing this.
I wound up having to email Thomas Hawk directly to make sure it was possible. I felt a little silly :P
david koopmans Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 2:10 pm
I can add another nice resource to this that I wrote a post about a few weeks ago here:
http://www.mokumarketing.com
It features www.yotophoto.com, a site focused on bringing together free pics anyone can use from a range of resources, including Flickr, Stock Xchnge etc.
Hope this is of value.
jhay Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 3:47 pm
Great selection of photo sources. I used to use Google Image search, but found it to be a bit limited. That’s why I switched to other sites like Flickr, Photobucket and Creatvive Commons Flickr search.
urbanmike Said,
March 17, 2007 @ 8:52 pm
I personally use Zooomr for my photo storage, but I can’t go past a tool like FlickrStorm for interesting creative commons content:
http://www.zoo-m.com/flickr-storm/
Just hit the advanced button, choose your creative commons license to search through and type your search term in.
ia Said,
March 18, 2007 @ 8:16 am
“Thanks for the info, I do need to start adding some images to my blog. I would also like to find a handful of different icons.”
– Try famfamfam.com. Or search smashingmagazine.com for their list of free icons just like Famfamfam’s Silk. :)
lnahinu Said,
March 18, 2007 @ 9:21 pm
Thanks for the great tips on images. I don’t feel like paying for images for my blog. I wanted to use Istockphoto because they have a good amount of pictures but you have to pay for each photo. Even though each one costs a dollar, dollar after dollars adds up to me spending too much money. But thanks for the great post.
Magnus Said,
March 18, 2007 @ 11:53 pm
These are excellent tips for me to get some nice looking photos. Thanks.
I am in the moment of getting som nice photos for my product websites and hopefully I will find something useful out of these ideas.
/M
ProfiBloger | Kde hledat obrázky pro svůj webblog Said,
March 19, 2007 @ 6:26 am
[…] How To Find Great Free Photos for Your Blog Thank you for reading this post. You can now Leave A Comment (0) or Leave A Trackback. […]
Find Great Free Photos for your Blog - lifehack.org Said,
March 19, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
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simplerich » Blog Archive » How To Find Great Free Photos for Your Blog Said,
March 19, 2007 @ 5:31 pm
[…] Source: How To Find Great Free Photos for Your Blog […]
StatMan Said,
March 19, 2007 @ 7:58 pm
Hey, thanks for the great info. I’ve used Google Images, but was never quite sure which could be used without permission. This is a great help.
Shuchetana Said,
March 20, 2007 @ 1:52 am
Thanx for the helpful post. I’m a newish blogger, and ever since I started, I’ve been wondering where to get pictures from. I asked a blogger whose blog I love where she got hers, but she’d never really given it much thought and just used Google Images: so I did the same. Your post has been very, very helpful.
Shuchetana Said,
March 20, 2007 @ 1:55 am
O, since this is my first visit to your blog, I just had to mention that I absolutely love your header photo :)
Ivan Minic Said,
March 20, 2007 @ 3:26 am
Thanks for this great resource ;)
James Said,
March 20, 2007 @ 5:02 am
I TOTALLY recommend stock.xchng. I get all my photos from there, if I don’t take them myself… Of course, considering I’m using my Cellphone camera to take my own photos, there’s definitely no competition in the quality…
Drainedge Link Tank · Today’s Links Said,
March 20, 2007 @ 8:39 am
[…] How To Find Great Free Photos for Your Blog - goldengod […]
microstock Said,
March 20, 2007 @ 12:57 pm
Hi,
Great article. Thanks for sharing.
I saw that this article is not about micro stock sites, however, if you consider micro stock as an option, here is a huge list of micro stock image sites
Andrew Ferguson Said,
March 20, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
@urbanmike: Thanks for the tip on FlickrStorm, I’ll have to try that out! I showed your site to my girlfriend and she was pretty interested; she really likes the idea of sustainable living.
@lnahinu: For bloggers who aren’t really making money, even a dollar per image from microstock sites is too much. That’s why I’ve made people more aware of the free options they’ve got.
@Shuchetana: Thanks for the compliment! I took it in an alley I was walking past here in Vancouver. Someone had left sunglasses ads strewn all around the place, it was a bit strange but looked really interesting.
Thanks to everyone for the compliments and suggestions :)
links for 2007-03-21 « Sigidisig Said,
March 23, 2007 @ 12:43 am
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Curt Eiworth Said,
March 25, 2007 @ 3:26 am
Great info - but wondering if using Adsense on your blog is considered as monetizing?
Andrew Ferguson Said,
March 25, 2007 @ 1:06 pm
@Curt:
Absolutely. Running advertising on your blog is the biggest form of monetization. So if you start running Adsense on your blog, going forward you want to choose images under a Creative Commons license that do not have the “Non-Commercial” attribute.
For example, if you look at the three images from this post on Flickr, you’ll see that none of them have the Non-Commercial provision. This is something I used to not have to worry about before putting ads on my site, but now I need to be aware.
pligg.com Said,
April 29, 2007 @ 3:10 am
How To Find Great Free Photos for Your Blog…
16. 3. 2007, goldengod - One of the most common gripes I hear from bloggers is that it’s impossible to find good free photos for their blogs. In some cases, this means a lot of text-only blogs. In most cases, it means blogs hijack other people’s w…
photographyVoter.com Said,
May 1, 2007 @ 4:05 pm
How To Find Great Free Photos for Your Blog…
One of the most common gripes I hear from bloggers is that it’s impossible to find good free photos for their blogs. In some cases, this means a lot of text-only blogs. In most cases, it means blogs hijack other people’s work without permission.
B…
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May 9, 2007 @ 3:31 pm
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EduBlog Insights » Blog Archive » A quest for good image sites Said,
June 7, 2007 @ 11:33 am
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OLC HIGH » Posting Pictures to My Blogs Said,
June 8, 2007 @ 10:21 am
[…] you need to find some good free photos. Here are some suggestions. The information provide on copy-write was very […]
David Bradley Said,
August 2, 2007 @ 10:06 am
As a freelance sci-tech journalist of almost 20 years standing, text and image copyright has been a big part of the business end of my work. As such, I recently wrote an advice piece on what’s on and what’s not on in terms of credit and copyright. (It’s not bona fide legal advice so take at face value only, but hopefully it could be helpful to some of your readers).
Please feel free to comment on that item and link back to your own excellent post and list of image sources.
David Bradley Science Writer
http://www.sciencebase.com
Andrew Ferguson Said,
August 2, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
@David: Thanks for letting me know about your article, I’ll head over and give it a read :)
Adrian Bashford Said,
August 3, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
Thank you! That was exactly the information I needed… no wonder you page is ranked so high!
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August 3, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
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September 1, 2007 @ 12:19 pm
[…] a lot. He lists his top photography blog posts on his side bar. One of my all time favorites is “How to Find Great Free Photos”. I posted about that before here but I continue to find on his blog what I consider to be some of […]
therightpic Said,
September 24, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
There is a pretty good list of free photo sources at the Ozzu forums. http://www.ozzu.com/ftopic71016.html
You are welcome to use anything in my gallery as well, which is linked from my name. It is all completely free.
Mathew Said,
October 7, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
I like morguefile.com and pics4learning.com
Andrew Ferguson Said,
October 11, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
Thanks for the links guys :)
Chris Ridley Said,
November 6, 2007 @ 6:14 am
Another great article - I hadn’t used that advanced search technique before.. I’ll have to try that. I must actually do some work today - have spent ages on this site already today!
Thanks!
Vineet Said,
December 23, 2007 @ 12:07 am
I have searched various places like google for photos but they all were not as slick as the ones I found on flickr.
thanks for the gr8 tip.
its really helpful.
the legal information supplied is also good and very clear..
it helps.
Rosie Said,
January 30, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
hi,
this was really helpful.
how do i access the follow-up article that you mention on how you integrate the photos and links into your blog?
Nigerian Entrepreneur Said,
June 26, 2008 @ 8:20 am
I have been admiring other bloggers that have pictures on their blogs. Indeed a picture speaks better than a thousand words. However, I refrained from picking just any picture because I don’t want to get myself involved in legal tussle with anyone.
It is a great relief reading through this post. It has done a lot to educate me that I don’t have to remain a text only blogger. I can add photos that emphasize my messages. Thanks for sharing the knowledge in a practical step by step manner. Cheers.