A majority of the images on our site come from stock photography companies we use. No one wants to read a lengthy blog post that is not broken up with imagery. Only person who gets away with no imagery is Seth Godin. Stock photography is something we have discussed before. No, you cannot just pull images from Google and use them. You can get in a heap of trouble. One small business was sued for $10K a couple years back for using someone else’s grainy photo. However, we know of several great sites to source your stock photography from for blogging.
Unsplash
This is one of our favorite sources to find stock photography. The imagery is beyond gorgeous we even use some as screen savers for our laptops. This is a free source to use. You have the option of attributing the work to the photographer or the site. You can sign up for the email newsletter and they will email you when new images are available.
Dollar Photo Club
We recently learned about Dollar Photo Club through The Well website. You receive 10 images a month for $10. Each additional photo needed is a $1. Thats a great deal. They have some beautiful work. This is a good way to build your own library of visual content. We have folders with different labels stating what kinda of stock photo’s are inside. They offer monthly membership or VIP membership.
Death To Stock Photo’s
This name says it all and of course we had to use it for our title. I found out about this company earlier this week and literally hit the Jersey Shore fist pump. You receive an email once a month with images they have shot while they were traveling. The work is always crisp and clear. I’ve seen people do amazing work using Death To Stock Photo’s photography. DTSP also has a premium membership.
Flickr
Most people are familiar with Flickr and posting their photos on the site. Using the platform to share the photography with a group of friends or family. It was one of the main sources for our graphics for a while. If you are not familiar with how to use them they have various levels for using their imagery. The most widely used is the creative commons. The site gives you a brief guide on how to use their platform.
Don’t worry if you or someone else use the same photography source. It’s all about the content and what else you do. As you can see all of graphics have titles + boarders. This is great for when we pin the images. If we pinned just a photo of a camera it would not go viral alone. It has a better chance of going viral with a catchy title written on it. People will be more inclined to read the article.
If you are a photographer, this would be an amazing business to start. People really don’t want to use istock or the generic companies. They want real life situations.
What are your thoughts on stock photography for service based companies or blogs? Do you use them? Are you familiar with the ones above?
