Great photos play a huge role in online marketing, especially in our highly visual fitness industry. How many times have you put hours into a new post only to, seemingly, spend twice as long looking the perfect photos to accompany your words of wisdom?
If you’re the type to just head to Google, type in “fitness” and pick the first photos that pop up then you need to stop. That’s basically theft. And not cool.
No, really. You could end up paying a hefty fine if the original copyright owner catches you using a photo without permission. And if you ‘borrowed’ it from a stock photo website they’ve probably got fancy software and an entire department dedicated to tracking you down and making you pay.
“I didn’t know” or “I gave them credit” won’t cut it. Only use images you own the right to. That includes photos of clients on your website – make sure you get permission!
Don’t risk it. There’s a growing number of websites that offer amazing stock imagery for zero cost. Most of these photos are available under a creative commons license meaning you won’t pay a penny to use them and (probably) won’t have to include a credit. But make sure you read the small print, as licenses can differ from site to site.
We’ve compiled a list of free, high quality stock photo resources for all your social media needs. Some have more fitness photos than others.
Unsplash
Unsplash is one of our favourite resources and adds 10 new free to use photos every week. Every photo published on Unsplash is free to and under the CC0 license. Feel free to edit, add text, or simple post the photos anywhere you like.
Try searching for: Fitness, Workout, Gym, Athlete, Exercise
Pikwizard
Pikwizard is a great new website that contains over 100,000 high quality images, with around 20,000 exclusive images you won’t find anywhere else.
This website features high quality images of people, which are usually few and far between on free stock photography websites. There is no attribution required and as well as this, they have a free image editing tool.
Try searching for: Fitness, Workout, Gym, Athlete, Exercise
StockSnap
In their own words, “StockSnap is the best place on the internet to find beautiful free stock photos.”
It’s a bold claim but they’ve got the chops to back it up.
Try searching for: Fitness, Sport
Pexels
Pexels keep things simple on their licensing page: “All photos on Pexels are free for any personal and commercial purpose.”
Doesn’t get much clearer than that.
Try searching for: Fitness, Workout, Gym
Pixabay
With over 780,000 photos, illustrations, vectors and videos, Pixabay is one of the best sources of free to use stock photos. Everything is available under the Creative Commons Zero license.
Try searching for: Fitness, Workout, Gym
Foodiesfeed
Sometimes all you need is a photo of a salad. But, like, a good looking salad.
Foodiesfeed has you covered.
Burst
Burst is a free resource from Shopify, created especially for small brands and entrepreneurs. All images are available under the CC0 license and free to use however you want.
Try searching for: Fitness, Yoga
Freephotos.cc
Freephotos.cc is an aggregator website. Essentially, they automatically search a bunch of other free photo resources and display the results in an easy to use format on their own website.
It’s like Google Images, but only shows you free to use photos. Pretty handy stuff.
Try searching for: Fitness, Gym, Running, Yoga
Focus Fitness
PT Brian Syuki of Focus Fitness created a great selection of free to use images for fitness professionals. He’s even put in the effort of giving everything SEO friendly, descriptive titles, like the “Fit-athletic-man-doing-semi-planche-push-ups.jpg” image you see right here.
Drop him a tweet. Say thanks.
Honourable mentions…
These sites might not have many, or any, fitness photos, but I’m sure there’s loads you’ll be able to use. Sometimes you just need a photo of a beach. Or a cafe.
If we missed your favourite free photo website get in touch and we’ll add it to the list:
Death to Stock
Fancy Crave
Freerange
Good Free Photos
Gratisography
ISO Republic
Jay Mantri
Kaboompics
LibreShot
Life of Pix
Magdeleine
Negative Space
New Old Stock
Morguefile
Picjumbo
Picography
Public Domain Archive
SplitShire
Startup Sock Photos
Stokpic