If your students want to find free images for whatever awesome projects they're working on, there are plenty of choices. That said, we've taken some of the guesswork out of that search with this post. We're sharing 20 of the open source image resources that caught our eye recently.
These resources are fairly diverse in their content and have a lot to offer. Some are category-specific, and others are downright unique. No matter what, they can all bring creative visual enhancements to many a student project.
StockSnap.io: Browse through hundreds of high resolution images that are added weekly. The images are free from copyright restrictions, so you are free to use and modify them as you like.
Burst: This is a photo bank powered by Shopify, and features dozens of categories to choose from. If you're looking for cover photo tips for Facebook, Burst has a whole page devoted to them.
Pexels: Pexels has top-quality free stock photos licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license. They are all very nicely tagged for searching, and are easy to find through their Discover feature.
DeviantArt: DeviantArt has been around for a long time, and seems to get better with age. A free sign-up process allows you to browse and access over 350 million unique works of digital art.
Free Nature Stock: This is a database of free nature photography created by designer and photographer Adrian Pelletier.
SpaceX: This is an offshoot of Flickr containing space and astronomy-themed photos of all kinds. It is updated with new images every few weeks.
Gratisography: Open source image resources by solo photographers are becoming more and more common on the Web. This one was created by Ryan McGuire, a creative visual artist.
The British Library: Here we have another Flickr sidekick, and this one has an array of vintage photos of all sorts.
Foodies Feed: Pictures of food may adorn some of our social media feeds, but often such images do have their purpose. Food-related visual projects can benefit from this colourful and interesting range of pictures.
Negative Space: NegativeSpace is a community of photographers sharing their work with visitors who want to use"beautiful,free high-resolution images without any restrictions."
Viintage: As the name suggests, all things vintage can be found here. Check out posters, graphics, icons, postcards, and more with an old-time flair.
SkitterPhoto: SkitterPhoto was launched in 2014 by two amateur photographers from the Netherlands. There are some terrific and very unique images here that are free to use even commercially.
Kaboom Pics: Kaboom Pics offers both free and premium images of superior quality.
Old Book Illustrations: This is a charming site offering many scanned images focusing on Victorian and French Romantic book illustrations. Resources are searchable by artist, language, or birthdate. Although they make every effort to source strictly public domain images, copyright laws vary from region to region. Visit their terms of service for more information.
Public Domain Vectors: Open source image resources offering vectors are always useful for school projects. The vectors you can find here are royalty-free and can be downloaded as EPS and AI files for maximum customization.
Reshot: Reshot has plenty of photos you likely won’t find elsewhere. Their images are free to use both commercially and editorially with zero attribution.
Picography: Picography has stunning images submitted by independent photogs and camera hounds all over the world. No attribution required for any images on their site, and all photos are CCO licensed.
New Old Stock: This is another site recapturing history through its photos. These are vintage photos with no known copyright attachments.
Death to the Stock Photo: You almost have to include a site with this name just out of curiosity, but it’s a fantastic site. They offer a 14-day trial and will submit 20 new photos to your inbox every month. Stunning—if not a bit unorthodox—images are the order of the day here.
Kaboompics: The photos on this site are bright, fun, and entertaining. Kaboompics is one of the most popular sources of free images for lifestyle, interior design and bloggers of all sorts.
As your learners build stunning visual projects as evidence of learning with the stock from these unusual and fun sites, the best place for them to display that learning is on Wabisabi. It’s our web app built for teachers and students alike, featuring real-time reporting against standards, rich media-driven portfolios, a vibrant collaborative learning experience, top-notch unit plans from teachers around the world, and much more.
Go ahead and explore Wabisabi now, and prepare to get excited about the learning journey every day.
Ed note: This is an updated version of the original article.