What are Stock Images and how to use them as a Blogger?

Do you believe you have to be a professional photographer to be a successful blogger? I thought so for years, then I discovered how to use stock images and how to use them as a blogger! It changed everything! Personally, searching for the best new food blogs on the web is a guilty pleasure of mine.

So, being able to take amazing Blog Pics can be a huge asset but depending on what kind of blog you have it is more or less important my friends. When having a photography or a food blog you will depend highly on the quality of your images as people will fall in love with your amazing Blueberry Recipe! But having, for example, a blog about Life Hacks, images are merely there to support your tips and tricks, agree?!

Now there is so much to taking amazing high-quality pics, having the right gear, props, lighting , editing and the use of the software. However, within these upcoming sections, I want to provide you some amazing workarounds – for people who may have more text-focused blogs such as for example me.

What are copyright free Images (Stock)

So, when I discovered free stock my Blog really started taking off! Ok, so what is stock photography or imagery. Basically, in stock photos, the owner/taker of the image gives you the right to use his or her image on your blog without you having to pay him a fee so it does not have a copyright on it!

And yes my friend it is not ok to just go on a random google image search download that image and use it on your blog! You could get into some serious trouble as basically, the owner of this picture has not given you the right to use it on your blog or social media.

Why should I use Stock Images?

So my friends, when finding out about free stock images it was like I just hit the 1 Mio. dollar jackpot. A few years back I was fully committed to taking all of my photography myself and since I am not a professional photographer I would spend my entire energy on staging, taking and editing amazing photos.

But what happened was that – because I spent so much energy on taking amazing photos – I completely disregarded the content, promotion and really the whole rest of my blog. I was working full time at that time and working on my blog on weekends.

Taking and editing photos usually took up my entire Saturday and then I just wanted to get it over with and uploaded them to my blog and that was it! But my friends as we know from going through the past sections of this course there is so much more to a successful blog than photography. Now like I said before this may or may not be true for you or certain niche areas but for a big bunch it is!

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Where can I get Stock Images?

There are amazing websites which provide a ton of stock images for you for FREE! Woop Woop! So, in some cases, the websites may require you to pay a monthly fee to access the photos but there are other ones which are totally for free! Below I have listed you a few of my absolute favorite pages providing stock images, I mean I am just obsessed with UNSPLASH and so glad I found this site! Everything is for free and there are amazing pictures and photos on there – it just has been a true revelation! Here are sources for amazing stock images: