As it is famously said, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Every person sees a picture from a different perspective.
Beauty is not in the picture, but rather in the meaning that these different people make from it. 🙂🙂
Marketers use this particular trait of the human personality to their advantage and use it to appeal to the wider audience. Companies deliberately associate their products with certain images, so that whenever consumers see that image, they are reminded of the product. Because certain images are viewed distinctly by different people, companies can attract all kinds of people through one image. ☝️☝️
Photographs are an important part of one’s life. Since the invention of the camera, photographs were used to convey deep, real-life messages.
For instance - values, respect, strength, chivalry, power etc. which are ineffective and difficult to convey when written in words. 👀👀
This reminds us of the Chinese proverb: Pictures are worth ten thousand words.
Historically, images were also used widely to capture important events, festivals and memories. In this rapidly changing world, photographs have reached a whole new level in terms of their importance in our day-to-day lives. Images are now used for promotions, advertising, marketing and PR. 🗣🗣
People have recognised the growing importance of photos and have started using them for more than just capturing memories. And in their main purpose of marketing and advertising, images have proved to be highly beneficial. 💪💪
There are some facts about images which show us the importance of pictures for the human brain. People only remember 10% of information 3 days after hearing it; adding a picture would improve recall to 65% on average. Nearly two-thirds of people are visual learners.
This spark’s a question in our minds – What is a good image? ❓❓
Well, there is no particular definition of a good picture. There are no such boundaries for an image to be good. The definition of a good image is subjective and would vary from person-to-person. Whether a simple picture or a complex, once-in-a-lifetime capture, a good photograph never ceases to amaze its viewers. ✨✨
But - not everyone is a good photographer. For this reason, this blog post will explore certain websites that offer free and royalty-free images to its users. Small businesses and entrepreneurs can make great use of these images throughout their never-ending path of advertising and marketing.
No tricks, no gimmicks, no barter; just dazzling free images!
Unsplash
Unsplash is a free stock image site offering over 1 million free high-resolution images to its users. Many photographers excessively use this site to upload their images for the general public usage. It has all types of images from business, nature, designs to, home, wildlife and textures. All the images on this website are available at no cost. Whether for commercial use, personal use or business use, Unsplash will deliver you with photographs best suiting your needs.
✔️ It has a community of 157,866 photographers with partners like BuzzFeed, Squarespace, and Trello. The Unsplash library is more accessible than ever!
✔️ When you open this website, you will find some categories from which you can choose your desired photo easily.
❌ The downside of this site is that sometimes, it becomes difficult to find the perfect photograph due to limited categories.
Visit this article on how to use Unsplash for more information.
Stocksnap.io
Stocksnap.io offers free high-quality photos to sparkle up your projects. It is a platform which offers a variety of photographs to view, download and share to any of its users. People can search their desired images from its search option or can go in the 'Trending Images' option to look at popular photographs favoured by the public.
👍 Stocksnap.io adds numerous pictures every week. With a wide variety of pictures, you are likely to find your desired image.
👎 It is vital to note that in Stocksnap.io, not all the images are for free. You need to buy a membership package to access all the images offered.
👎 In some reviews, customers complained about Stocksnap.io not having enough free options to serve its users than its alternatives.
Visit this blog about royalty-free websites to know more about similar platforms like Stocksnap.
Red Bull Content Pool
Red Bull Content Pool is a B2B service offered by Red Bull to provide access to millions of photos for free media, press and journalism purposes. This is the best platform to find sports images. They offer photos, stock videos, news cut and social clips to cover sports, culture and lifestyle topics – all free for the press, with all rights-cleared for editorial and news purposes.
🙂 This platform best suits the needs of businesses and entrepreneurs in sectors related to fitness, culture and sports. You can also get behind-the-scenes content like athlete lifestyle images, videos and stories.
👿 This service is not helpful to business services needing more diverse range of photographs other than just sports and fitness.
Pexels
Pexels is another free stock photo website having its library filled with high-definition pictures. It adds a minimum of 10 photos every day, which adds up to nearly 3600 images each year - making it worthwhile to visit this site every single day. Pexels library is flooded with images of all types. Every photo is offered free to its users with no limitations. Pexels is very easy to use because of its search option for images.
✔️ Pexels have a wide variety of wildlife photographs making it a hot favourite site for animal and nature lovers.
✔️ A side benefit is that you can also customise the image size according to your needs, prior to downloading your image.
❌ It just so happens, that sometimes Pexels team picks photographs from other free image sources to meet their targets.
Visit this website to know more about Pexels.
Gratisography
If you are looking for truly unique pictures, meet Gratisography. This website is created by the famous artist and designer – Ryan McGuire. All the pictures that the site holds have been taking by him. It serves as the gallery for his lifelong work in this field. All the photographs available there are for free to use without any restrictions.
🌟 You can use these unique images clicked by Ryan McGuire to make your business stand out from the crowd.
❌ The platform has limited images and would fall short if the user is looking for wider choices.
Have a look at this blog to know about other websites available for free stock photos.
Burst
Burst is a free stock photo site by Shopify with a library of numerous high-quality images. The website is neat and modern, with wide variety of images. This website is aimed particularly at entrepreneurs and small businesses.
🏆 The most interesting feature about this site is that it also offers business ideas. Under that option, entrepreneurs will find new business ideas and pictures related to them.
🏆 From this website, small businesses can find images that suit their particular niche, which best serves their needs.
There are hundreds of websites offering free stock photos on the internet. Visit this article about websites for free stock photos and images to know more on free images.
Things to keep in mind while using a free photograph
All the platforms listed above are published under Creative Commons Zero or CC0 license. This means that there are no rights reserved for the limited use of these images. A CC0 license is a way for artists and designers to publish their work and allow the public to use it without any boundaries placed on its usage.
Though these images might be free to use, there are certain things the user need to avoid while doing so. Be mindful of these exceptions - think about the following:
👨👩👦👦👨👩👦👦 Are people’s faces identifiable? If they are, avoid using that picture. In these type of photos, you'd need individual consent of the models featuring the images and not just the photographer.
🔴🔴 Can the photo be interpreted in a negative way? If the photo shows someone in a bad manner, or if the picture can be interpreted in a negative way - avoid using it as may result in negative consequences due to misinterpretation.
❌❌ Are any logos, trademark, or products shown? If by any chance the picture shows logos or products of a company, you could be held liable for violation of intellectual property.
🏠🏠 Are there any private property, homes, buildings, automobiles shown? If the picture shows any private property or any personal information, for example, a private vehicle’s number plate, phone number etc. avoid using them.
Moreover, if a photographer decides to remove his/her photos, it is a good practice to respect the photographer’s decision and refrain using that photo.
There are countless websites providing royalty-free images. As all of them have their own advantages and disadvantages, users need to figure out the best site according to their particular needs. There are several tools available to create their own images if a user wishes to.
Would you like to learn how to create content to share on your social media as well as with journalists so you become more visible, more credible and more influential?
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About the Author
Siddharth is a Business Management student at London South Bank University. He is an avid reader and a content writer on various business aspects. Studying in London and raised in Gujarat, India, he speaks 3 different languages. He holds interests in sports, fitness, army and defense services, philosophy, business operations, marketing, and is passionate about becoming an entrepreneur. He is a writer and contributor for High Profile Club. Find Siddharth on LinkedIn here.
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