Great resources for beautiful images and video

If you're struggling to source high-quality media, check out these great sites for collections of free images and video

If you've not got the budget to buy, or ability to create, high-quality media for your online storytelling, there are a number of great resources available online where you can find images and video of a great quality, with no cost attached.

This is mighty helpful when you're looking for that powerful shot to engage your reader and add another layer to your story.

You can use Creative Commons Search to surface images with varying CC licences directly from platforms like Flickr and Google Images.

In fact, there's a note on the CC Search site at the moment to say "CC search is being replaced with a new search tool from Creative Commons", so that's worth looking out for.

And there are also sites which specifically collect and sort great quality images and video that have been made available with a Creative Commons Zero licence.

Below are just two examples:

Unsplash

Unsplash is a fantastic resource for stunning photography, from landscapes to laptops – every 10 days they add 10 images to the collection (and if you register your email address with them they'll email you about the new batch each time too).

They also recently added a search functionality, which makes it much easier to find what you're looking for among their growing collection – either type in a keyword, or choose a specific subject area.

The rules are as follows:

"All photos published on Unsplash are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash"

Pexels

Pexels has a collection of "over 2,000 photos", as well as a sister site – Pexels Videos – which has a hugely diverse choice of video clips.

Again, images are tagged, so you can easily search for what you're looking for and browse through the results.

Meanwhile in Pexels Videos, users can dig into 22 different categories of video clips. Hover over a video to get an immediate playback, and once you've found the one you want, you can click to see more details like the source of the video and its size, before choosing to download the file.

Here's a video from Pexels Videos to show you more.

Again, just like Unsplash, images on Pexels and video on Pexels Videos have Creative Commons Zero licenses. As stated on the Pexel Videos site:

"This means you can edit or change the videos and use them free for personal and even for commercial projects. All without asking for permission or setting a link to the source. So that attribution is not required. All videos are completely free to be used for any legal purpose."

The site does have one caveat though, which is that:

"Identifiable people may not appear in a bad light or in a way that they may find offensive, unless they give their consent."

If you have any other recommendations, please tweet me @rachelabartlett and we'll add to the list

A great suggestion from @willohara:

Quick note: All the images in this story were found on Unsplash and Pexels