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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