Digital photos. There are trillions of them out there. Yet finding good-quality, free images that we can use on our websites, social media, and print publications is somehow still difficult.
We all know about the big stock photo sites. But we also know that the rights to good photos don’t come cheaply. And if you’re lucky enough to stumble upon a decent image, you’ll likely see it cropping up everywhere.
So, we’ve put together a list of 24 of our favorite websites full of free pics to help you stand out with original, high-res images that don’t cost a cent.
1. Unsplash
Born as one of Crew.co’s now-famous side projects, Unsplash is a collection of beautiful “do whatever you want” photos. What does that mean? Exactly what it says on the box. Download them, edit them, use them for commercial purposes… hell, you could wallpaper your kitchen with them for all they care. With over 250k photos to choose from and a thriving community keeping the site very much alive, Unsplash is a great first stop when looking for free stock photos.
2. SplitShire
The generosity of photographers is spreading like wildfire. Daniel Nanescu is largely feeding that fire. A man with not only a cool name but also a large collection of high-quality digital photographs—and all for free. Nanescu was keen not to let his photographs disappear “into oblivion,” so he created SplitShire.
3. Epicantus
Visual & UX designer, Daria, has put together a collection of photos that anyone can download and use in their projects. The images are pretty abstract, so make for great content backdrops. Everything is high quality and free.
4. Picjumbo
There comes a time in every blogger’s life when all they really need is a picture of a man holding a phone, or a cute puppy on a bed. For those inevitable moments, there are sites like Picjumbo. A little less artsy than some of its free-pic website cousins, Picjumbo is full of royalty-free stock images that don’t require any type of attribution.
5. IM Free
From the creators of IM Creator, a sleek website building tool, IM Free is a curated collection of high-quality images broken down into different categories such as Business, Food & Drink, Health, and Technology. They even offer up free icon sets. Although they do ask for attribution, it’s a small cost for top-notch and completely free digital pics.
6. Morguefile
A sizeable, searchable, and very likeable library of free pics—that’s Morguefile for you. It’s got a bit of everything and is a great companion for any blogger. You’re free to use the images as you like, but need to attribute the photographer when you use them in their original form.
7. FreeImages
FreeImages lives up to its nominal promise—it’s full of free images. Attribution is sometimes required, depending on the image you want to use. However, this site is massive—they have almost 25k photos just in the Army & Weapons category. The images are bit more “stocky” than the other sites on this list, but depending on what you’re looking for, can definitely be worth a bookmark.
8. New Old Stock
Ever rummaged around one of those boxes of old photos that people put out at yard sales? It’s a bit like going back in time without needing a flux capacitor. New Old Stock has loads of old, vintage photos that are free of known copyright restrictions. Even if you don’t need any pictures for your project, just browsing this site is a pleasure.
9. Picography
“Free high-resolution photos. Use them however you like.” So reads the text that sits in Picography’s website header. You can’t say fairer than that, right? It’s a simple collection of seemingly random photographs, all professionally taken. If you’re looking for something very specific, this might not be the site for you. However, if you’re after a bit of inspiration, it’s definitely worth a visit.
10. GetRefe
There’s no search feature on this site, but it’s got a pretty solid collection of good-looking free pics that you can use for pretty much anything. While the photo collection includes some stock-like photos, such as people holding mobile phones, it’s probably strongest contender for landscape and travel shots.
11. Jay Mantri
This is a collection of beautifully-shot photos of mostly landscapes and abstract objects which are all the work of one designer, Jay Mantri. The offer he proposes on his website? “Free pics. Do anything. Make magic.” Thanks Jay, sounds good.
12. Superfamous
Would you trust an artist with your website images? If so, give Dutch Artist Folkert Gorter’s website a go. He put together a stunning collection of photos, which look more like paintings, for you to use on your blog, website, social media, or anything else you can think of. What does he ask for in return? Just attribution. Sounds fair.
13. Public Domain Archive
This website puts its pictures into three categories: modern images, vintage images, and weekly images. There’s no search feature, but the pictures are top quality and artistic in style. As the name suggests, all the images are in the public domain. This means you’re free to use them as you wish.
14. Gratisography
Gratisography, or Freeography for non-Spanish speakers, is a stunning collection of free pictures all taken by one man—Ryan McGuire. In his own words, McGuire isn’t a ninja. He is an artist though and he generously adds new images to his collection each week and lets the rest of us use them as we please.
15. StockSnap.io
It’s right there, proudly displayed at the top of their website: “Free from copyright restrictions.” Music to the ears of any marketer, blogger, or general maker-of-things wanting to add beautiful images to their projects without worrying about something as boring as copyright.
16. Negative Space
This is a nifty website to have in your toolbox. The photos on offer are colorful and ooze quality. They have a handy list of categories and a unique “copy space” filter. What’s that? Basically, you use the filter to specify in what position you want to add text to the photo (like an article headline) and it will return results that match your request. Pretty handy, right?
17. Pixabay
Pixabay is a large collection of free pics, illustrations, and even videos. The images are high quality easy to find. When using images from Pixabay, you don’t need to worry about any kind of attribution and you’re free to chop them up and use them as you please. We do recommend, however, not using any image for evil purposes—such as taking over the world.
18. Freestocks
This website offers a good mix of categories all stuffed full of good-looking photos. There’s no catch. Just find, download, and use as you wish. Simple.
19. Snapwire Snaps
The good folks at Snapwire, a platform for requesting custom photographs, offer 7 free pics every 7 days. The images are always high-quality, good-looking, and free for you to use as you like.
20. Tookapic
There’s a good mix of standard, high-quality stock-like photos and more abstract pics on this site. Some of their photos fall under their Premium plan, but there’s also a generous collection of free images on offer.
21. MMT
Time for another one of those generous photographers. This time it’s Jeffrey Betts, a talented photographer offering up his work to be used free from the constraints of copyright. What a guy.
22. Life of Pix
The description is simple, but Life of Pix is a collection of high-res, professionally-taken photographs. All pictures have one-click download and there are absolutely no copyright restrictions. If a list of static photographs isn’t enough to get you going, check out their sister site, Life of Vids—a collection of free-to-use videos.
23. Kaboompics
There are some really good-looking photos to choose from here, from a variety of different categories (such as Abstract, City & Architecture, Fashion, etc.) Once again, everything is free for you to use pretty much as you like (not for reselling—though that should be a given).
24. Burst
If you haven’t heard of Shopify, and have therefore been in some kind of solitary confinement for the last 10 years, it’s a site for creating your own online store. Getting some of the side-project goodness, they’ve created Burst, a microsite with lots of quality product and lifestyle pictures—all for free.
The moth, called Neopalpa donaldtrumpi, lives in a densely populated part of southern California and is struggling to cope with the loss of its natural habitat.
 |
| The Neopalpa donaldtrumpi is a type of twirler moth. |
The researcher who discovered the new species said he hoped that named it after the 45th US President would boost its profile and the need to conserve fragile environments.
But Dr Vazrick Nazari also said N. donaldtrumpi had markings that were similar to the billionaire Republican’s famous hairstyle.
Writing in the journal ZooKeys, Dr Nazari said: "The new species is named in honour of Donald J Trump, to be installed as the 45th President of the United States on January 20, 2017.
 |
| The resemblance is uncanny. |
"The reason for this choice of name is to bring wider public attention to the need to continue protecting fragile habitats in the US that still contain many undescribed species.
"The specific epithet is selected because of the resemblance of the scales on the frons (head) of the moth to Mr Trump’s hairstyle."
He made the discovery while looking through moth specimens kept at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis.
He noticed some did not match any previously known species and, after a thorough analysis, realised they were a new species.
N. donaldtrumpi is a distinct type of twirler moth, which is believed to be seriously threatened with extinction because of habitat loss.
"The discovery of this distinct micro-moth in the densely populated and otherwise zoologically well-studied southern California underscores the importance of conservation of the fragile habitats that still contain undescribed and threatened species, and highlights the paucity of interest in species-level taxonomy of smaller faunal elements in North America," said Dr. Nazari.
"I hope to bring some public attention to, and interest in, the importance of alpha-taxonomy in better understanding the neglected micro-fauna component of the North American biodiversity."
The news comes a month after a type of fish was named after President Barack Obama.
The Tosanoides obama is found only on coral reefs in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off Hawaii, a nature reserve which 44th US President expanded to become the largest protected marine area in the world.
Sources: http://www.businessinsider.com/
http://www.independent.co.uk/
With an estimated fortune of $62 billion, Warren Buffett is the richest man in the entire world. In 1962, when he began buying stock in Berkshire Hathaway, a share cost $7.50. Today, Warren Buffett, 78, is Berkshire’s chairman and CEO, and one share of the company’s class A stock worth close to $119,000. He credits his astonishing success to several key strategies, which he has shared with writer Alice Schroeder. She spend hundreds of hours interviewing the Sage of Omaha for the new authorized biography The Snowball. Here are some of Warren Buffett’s money-making secrets — and how they could work for you.
1. Reinvest Your Profits:
When you first make money in the stock market, you may be tempted to spend it. Don’t. Instead, reinvest the profits. Warren Buffett learned this early on. In high school, he and a pal bought a pinball machine to put in a barbershop. With the money they earned, they bought more machines until they had eight in different shops. When the friends sold the venture, Warren Buffett used the proceeds to buy stocks and to start another small business. By age 26, he’d amassed $174,000 — or $1.4 million in today’s money. Even a small sum can turn into great wealth.2. Be Willing To Be Different:
Don’t base your decisions upon what everyone is saying or doing. When Warren Buffett began managing money in 1956 with $100,000 cobbled together from a handful of investors, he was dubbed an oddball. He worked in Omaha, not Wall Street, and he refused to tell his parents where he was putting their money. People predicted that he’d fail, but when he closed his partnership 14 years later, it was worth more than $100 million. Instead of following the crowd, he looked for undervalued investments and ended up vastly beating the market average every single year. To Warren Buffett, the average is just that — what everybody else is doing. to be above average, you need to measure yourself by what he calls the Inner Scorecard, judging yourself by your own standards and not the world’s.3. Never Suck Your Thumb:
Gather in advance any information you need to make a decision, and ask a friend or relative to make sure that you stick to a deadline. Warren Buffett prides himself on swiftly making up his mind and acting on it. He calls any unnecessary sitting and thinking “thumb sucking.” When people offer him a business or an investment, he says, “I won’t talk unless they bring me a price.” He gives them an answer on the spot.4. Spell Out The Deal Before You Start:
Your bargaining leverage is always greatest before you begin a job — that’s when you have something to offer that the other party wants. Warren Buffett learned this lesson the hard way as a kid, when his grandfather Ernest hired him and a friend to dig out the family grocery store after a blizzard. The boys spent five hours shoveling until they could barely straighten their frozen hands. Afterward, his grandfather gave the pair less than 90 cents to split. Warren Buffett was horrified that he performed such backbreaking work only to earn pennies an hour. Always nail down the specifics of a deal in advance — even with your friends and relatives.5. Watch Small Expenses:
Warren Buffett invests in businesses run by managers who obsess over the tiniest costs. He one acquired a company whose owner counted the sheets in rolls of 500-sheet toilet paper to see if he was being cheated (he was). He also admired a friend who painted only on the side of his office building that faced the road. Exercising vigilance over every expense can make your profits — and your paycheck — go much further.6. Limit What You Borrow:
Living on credit cards and loans won’t make you rich. Warren Buffett has never borrowed a significant amount — not to invest, not for a mortgage. He has gotten many heart-rendering letters from people who thought their borrowing was manageable but became overwhelmed by debt. His advice: Negotiate with creditors to pay what you can. Then, when you’re debt-free, work on saving some money that you can use to invest.7. Be Persistent:
With tenacity and ingenuity, you can win against a more established competitor. Warren Buffett acquired the Nebraska Furniture Mart in 1983 because he liked the way its founder, Rose Blumkin, did business. A Russian immigrant, she built the mart from a pawnshop into the largest furniture store in North America. Her strategy was to undersell the big shots, and she was a merciless negotiator. To Warren Buffett, Rose embodied the unwavering courage that makes a winner out of an underdog.8. Know When To Quit:
Once, when Warren Buffett was a teen, he went to the racetrack. He bet on a race and lost. To recoup his funds, he bet on another race. He lost again, leaving him with close to nothing. He felt sick — he had squandered nearly a week’s earnings. Warren Buffett never repeated that mistake. Know when to walk away from a loss, and don’t let anxiety fool you into trying again.9. Assess The Risk:
In 1995, the employer of Warren Buffett’s son, Howie, was accused by the FBI of price-fixing. Warren Buffett advised Howie to imagine the worst-and-bast-case scenarios if he stayed with the company. His son quickly realized that the risks of staying far outweighed any potential gains, and he quit the next day. Asking yourself “and then what?” can help you see all of the possible consequences when you’re struggling to make a decision — and can guide you to the smartest choice.10. Know What Success Really Means:
Despite his wealth, Warren Buffett does not measure success by dollars. In 2006, he pledged to give away almost his entire fortune to charities, primarily the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He’s adamant about not funding monuments to himself — no Warren Buffett buildings or halls. “I know people who have a lot of money,” he says, “and they get testimonial dinners and hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them. When you get to my age, you’ll measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you, actually do love you. That’s the ultimate test of how you’ve lived your life.”
Source: http://www.warrenbuffett.com/
