Free Photography Resources That Don't Suck

Our three favorite websites for free stock photography that don’t suck.

Yes, this is an article about free stock photos, and I promise that once I have said my piece, that is exactly what I will deliver.

Please consider getting brand photos done if you can. While stock photos can have their place in your website design or your marketing efforts, good branding photography is worth its weight in gold. It can help tell your story and your business’ story in a very unique way, a way that is entirely yours and true to your vision. It will help you stand out in a crowd of people who are also reading this article in search of high-quality, modern or non-sucky stock photos.

There is hardly anything that can help sell your vision more, that can help your clients lean in more, than good branding photography – well, there is one exception to this, great copywriting, but that’s a story for another day.

Sometimes though, hiring a photographer isn’t an option for a variety of reasons. Budget, time constraints, general anxiety over being seen… I get it. It happens. So, now that I’ve said my two cents about getting a professional photographer on board, let’s see what our second-best option is. Good quality stock photos.

There are lots of stock photos out there, but these are our favorites.

The internet is full of free stock photos, but if you like the vibe of the brands we develop here at Urtica, then we will save you the endless headaches of finding aesthetically pleasing stock photos and pull back to curtain to show you where we source them for our clients when we are in a pinch.

First up, Pexels.

We love it because it has a lot of clean, modern images. This is one of a handful of stock photo websites that are content-creator centric. That is, photographers can upload their work as a means to promote themselves (or just for kicks) and offer their exquisite photos to businesses and content creators to us, royalty-free.

Sometimes, when we are looking for color pallets, we meander on here looking for photos of nature — because mother nature never gets it wrong — or photos that have the right “vibe” to use as a muse for the colors of a new brand. Once the strategy, brand positioning and vibe all align, we’re golden.

Bonus: they now have short video clips that you can use in reels!

Up Next, Unsplash.

We love it if you can't get it on Pexel, odds are you can find it on Unsplash. They were recently purchased by Getty, but have retained the bulk of their creator focus. The image quality, with very few exceptions, is stellar.

One of the Unsplash features that we really like using with our clients, is the ability to create private photography collections. We use them to help communicate creative direction or inspiration and to help tell the story of where we think a certain campaign should go visually. It’s also a great way to collect the makings of a “mood board” without needing a Pinterest login. You could also use this feature to create private galleries of things that inspire you or the types of images you’d like to try shooting — Mel does!

Bonus: you can follow creators and even hire them through the platform!

Last but certainly not the least, Death to Stock.

We love it because it shows up in your inbox, monthly, no questions asked. Like Pexels, they offer video as well as still images, which seems to be the way everything is heading these days.

If you peruse the DTS website, you will see that they offer different tiered paid plans, but this article is about free resources… so what the heck? Pro tip! Get on their newsletter, that’s where the free goodies live.

Bonus: As I mentioned above, they have a premium subscription and we think it’s pretty kick-ass.

Honorary Mention: Moyo Studio

A quick glance at their website will have you wondering how they made it into the “free” pile but I will let you in on a little secret, joining their mailing list will give you 50 free super aesthetically pleasing stock images. Tadah!

That being said, note that Moyo Studios is very popular in design circles, and you may end up looking a bit “me too” if you use copious amounts of their mockups and photos throughout your website and marketing.

That being said, Moyo is one of our go-to resources for Brand Book mock-ups. We use them to showcase our work in a way that our clients easily grasp how it will look like in the real world or the digital sphere. Something to be said about the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words.