Medium Tools
12 Free Stock Photo Sites for Medium Stories
Finding a unique featured image for your Medium articles
I’ve written before about how to choose the perfect featured image for your Medium publication:
One of my tips was to try to pick images that were both unique and of high quality.
However, as many of my readers have pointed out, while it is great that Unsplash has become such a well integrated source for Medium article images, this has also lead to the problem of sourcing new images.
I’ve compiled a list of free stock photography sites, that are ideal for Medium writers (or anyone searching for royalty-free images):
1. Stock Up
Stock Up indexes 34,178 photos from 31 different free stock photo websites.
2. Pictography
Picography has been providing stunning images to millions of people for the past 3 years. It is now one of the top sources for gorgeous, high-resolution, free photos.
3. Burst
Burst is a free stock photo platform that is powered by Shopify. Our image library includes thousands of high-resolution, royalty-free images that were shot by our global community of photographers.
4. Refe
Refe is a Tumblr account consisting of royalty-free and high quality photos.
5. Picjumbo
Picjumbo is a free stock photo site created in 2013 by designer & photographer Viktor Hanacek. It all started when all of the regular stock photo sites rejected his photos for “lack of quality”.
Two years later, people have downloaded more than two and half million free pictures from Picjumbo! Now it’s one of the best free stock photo sites with thousands of very high-resolution free stock images.
6. Good Stock Photos
Good Stock Photos allows you to search & download free stock photos to use on your website, blog, and social media.
7. Skitterphoto
All photos on Skitterphoto are public domain. This means that all photos are free to use for any purpose. You may download and edit photos and even use them commercially.
8. Life of Pix
Life of Pix contains free high-resolution photos, no copyrights restrictions for personal and commercial use. All images are donated to the public domain.
9. Libreshot
Libreshot is a collection of photos by Martin Vorel. All images are free for commercial use.
10. Barnimages
Barnimages was launched in March 2015 by Igor Trepeshchenok and Roman Drits, two photographers from Latvia. They created Barnimages with the hope of redefining traditional stock imagery.
11. ISO Republic
ISO Republic is an independent website that provides curated collections of stock images and videos that you can use both personally and commercially.
12. FOCA
FOCA provides free CC0 photography for personal and commercial use on websites, projects, themes, apps, and more.
If you are still looking for truly unique images for your Medium article, here is a link to Shutterstock, which is offering a free one month trial, or 10 custom stock images.
Thanks for reading this article! Leave a comment below if you have any questions. Be sure to sign up for the Blogging Guide newsletter, to get the latest tips, tricks, and news about writing on Medium and to join our Facebook group, Medium Writing, to share your latest Medium posts and connect with other writers.
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Casey Botticello is a partner at Black Edge Consulting. Black Edge Consulting is a strategic communications firm, specializing in online reputation management, digital marketing, and crisis management. Prior to founding Black Edge Consulting, he worked for BGR Group, a bipartisan lobbying and strategic communications firm.
Casey is the founder of the Cryptocurrency Alliance, a Super PAC dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain advocacy. He is a graduate of The University of Pennsylvania, where he received his B.A. in Urban Studies.
You can connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or by following his Medium publication, Blogging Guide.
