I frequently hear writers, coaches and other creative professionals lament on Twitter and other social media platforms how they’re struggling to come up with a great photo to accompany the blog post they have just written and are poised to publish.
It seems like it can take forever to find an appropriate royalty-free photo that is interesting, not the same generic business stock or ones that aren’t too amateurish.
Just the right image can prevent the ‘yawn effect’ and hook your visitor to read your piece with avid interest.
It may seem impossible to come across an image that makes you say,”That’s it!‘ – something so perfectly representing not only your message for this particular article, but indirectly reinforces your brand, personality and values as well. (Isn’t that a big part of why your readers eagerly seek out your writing, week after week?)
There are some ways you can get an arsenal of images that are just right for you and your work without costing an arm and a leg, or sapping hours of your time and energy scouring through thousands of photos online.
Here are some creative tips to help you find the perfect photograph for your purposes:
1. Be proactive and creative in your online search
Invest an hour per week browsing a few websites that offer royalty-free images proactively, not reactively (as in ‘Yikes I’m in a panic, need to publish in an hour and have no picture to go with my blog post!’).
Schedule a regular slot in your week for when you can peruse sites like Morguefile or Flickr Creative Commons . Save images that appeal to you/your work generally. Make sure to give proper credit to the photographer/source if you use their work found on Flickr.
As well, you can type in the tag or keywords you commonly use in the search engines on your blog/in your writing and see what serendipity searching can do for you.
Another effective filtering technique is to type an emotion, mood, exciting noun or adjective in the search engine and see what images come up.
Being more creative in your hunt for the perfect photo will yield better results, faster than typical subject searches!
2. Take pictures randomly wherever you go
These days most of us have a point-and-shoot camera that is compact enough to carry in our purse or pocket. We also have camera function and apps in our Smartphones or tablets, so we can thank technological advancements for making it pretty convenient now to be creative.
Everyday when you’re out and about, make an effort to be more aware of your surroundings.
Snap pictures often and on impulse.
You never know, one of those photos might be the exact image you’re looking for to accompany one of your future blog posts.
Here’s a photo I took this weekend. I’m not sure why it appealed to me, but it’s now in my photo slush folder for a future ‘ya never know’ opportunity. 
Don’t overthink the process and dismiss a good photo opp. You can always delete a dud but you’ll probably regret the photo not taken for a good long while (apologies to Robert Frost fans for using the obvious pun there).
Your camera and your open mind – don’t leave home without them!
Still think you don’t have the time or the inclination to take your own photos?
3. Recruit your kids!
If they are old enough, give them a sense of the kind of writing you do on your blog, and what your reading audience is interested in, and give them a camera and their ‘assignment’.
You can promise them credit for their photo, giving them publishing experience (ooh, fame!) for their portfolio should they be interested in pursuing a creative career. Writer Patrick Ross used a beautiful photograph to accompany one of his recent blog posts taken by his talented daughter so she’d have publishing credits for her college application.
4. Set the scene – compose/create a picture yourself
If all else fails and you really can’t seem to find the perfect royalty-free photo, take half an hour and set up and compose a picture yourself.
I didn’t have an appropriate shot to go with a recent post, so I pulled out one of my favorite writing books and borrowed a toy from Cinnamon and came up with the perfect photo for that particular piece of writing.
All in all, it took me about half an hour in total and it was fun to put together. I still smile when I look at the results.
What other ideas can you think of to find the perfect free photo and/or image that you need to complement your online writing? Please share in the comments below.
PS I love the idea of kids taking photos. Kids are here about every weekend and they do LOVE to take photos. They actually take some really good ones. They’re at a lower angle than adults, their view is different.
I’ll remember to credit them if I use any of theirs.
Giving credit is very important. Thank you for this reminder.
I’m pretty sure I appreciate and love children as much as you seem to, Terri. Their view is refreshingly different and I’m often very inspired by the way a child sees. I appreciate your thoughtful comments so much!
Thank you Carole, this post has so much helpful information I re-read it several times!
I was delighted to visit Flickr Creative Commons and Morguefile to find so many inspiring photos freely offered for others to use. I was inspired just looking through some of the photos.
I like your idea of having your camera with you everywhere you go and saving photos for future needs. I like the Gasoline, Oils and Grease photo.
It was very nice of Cinnamon to loan you a toy for that great photo over at “Are you a Writer or a Mouse” love that photo and your creativity!
This post is resource rich. I’ll bookmark this one!
Thank you so much for the lovely compliments, Terri. So glad you’ve found some more ideas for finding some photos for your work or to inspire you to go out and capture some (more) of your own.
I can’t emphasize enough how many times I’ve decided to take a random picture on a whim, only to find (sometimes weeks or months later) that it’s the perfect image to go along with a blog post or creative project I’m working on. I just love that synchronicity
This is such a helpful post, and a topic I rarely see addressed. I get most of my free photos from the same website, http://www.everystockphoto.com, and its got a good search engine, but still it can take some time. Once in awhile I find things on Wikipedia. I do my best to be scrupulous about checking licenses, and giving credit and links. But I’m always in the market for new ideas, and you gave me some.
Charlotte Rains Dixon recently posted..And The Winner Is….
Hi Charlotte,
So glad you got a few new ideas how to get some photos for your posts and work. I find you always have such interesting and entertaining images to go along with your quality posts. Yeah, it’s a surprise to me too how this topic isn’t really written about very much – if at all – in the blog posts I’ve read out there anyway. Maybe I can do something about that…hmm…:)
Great post, Carole Jane, and as someone who has worked as an artist’s advocate, I’m glad you let folks know there are plenty of places where they can find photos to use that still respect the photographer, because he or she is making it available royalty-free. When I do slide shows as a public speaker I’ll track down just the right image, but even when I have a license to use it or it’s royalty-free, I’ll list the photographer’s name if I have it, even if that isn’t required under the license.
When I launched my blog I started using photos of my own just to save time and not have to worry about copyright. That meant, of course, that often the photo wasn’t “just right.” It’s become kind of its own thing now, though; sometimes the pictures are only tangentially related, but tell their own story. In fact, the first appearance of Mr. Bacon was in a slide show on my blog, in a post that never mentioned him!
Patrick Ross recently posted..Showing AND Telling
Hi Patrick, thanks again for your kind encouragement. I give the same courtesy nod as you to a photographer even when it’s not ‘technically’ necessary to do so. There are so many wonderful artists out there who don’t get enough attribution/recognition for their work.
I love how you use your photos and captions as a sort of sidebar story to your blog post! I think it’s a charming and entertaining staple of The Artist’s Road
Oh, and that Mr. Bacon – what a greasy grandstander, eh? (sue me, I’m often alliterate and I don’t want the cure)
I love this post! Such great tips! I take almost all my own photos for my blog, but sometimes (if I can’t take one that’s appropriate, especially if it’s something historical) I’ll use wikimedia commons — royalty free for the majority and amazing photos and artwork. And there’s SO much.
Julia Munroe Martin recently posted..Putting Pen to Paper
Hi Julia, glad you stopped by; glad you liked the tips
Hey, thank you for giving us the heads up about Wikimedia commons! I knew of it, but since I haven’t used that resource, I didn’t think to include it as a suggestion. Happy you did!
LOVE this article. I am the kind who ALWAYS has a camera in tow and do the very things you suggest re: building up a slush pile. In fact, I have SO many photos, I doubt I will ever write enough blogs to use them all!
Hi Melissa, welcome! Thanks so much for your lovely feedback.
I figured you must usually have a camera at the ready when you go out of the house, given the wonderful pictures (and video!) you have on your blog. I really like ‘what you saw’, especially since I haven’t visited the western part of the U.S yet – your visual work and your descriptions make me itch to go see for myself.
I have a huge slush pile of photos myself, hoping some of them will come in handy for future creative projects even if they don’t make it into one of my blog posts.
I have a question for you: Do you use a compact camera or your phone when you go out of the house for everyday errands and such, or do you use a DSLR? I’ve been using my (new, 3 months now) smartphone but I miss the control of my DSLR that I leave at home unless I go on a deliberate ‘photo walk/excursion’.
I’m rethinking this, even though it is a bit more ‘baggage’ to carry with me every time I leave the house, and just wondered what other writer-photogs are doing lately. Thanks!
Great tips! A big part of my resistance to blogging comes from anticipation of the seemingly interminable search for the right photo. Love the idea of pulling together a collection before I actually need them. Brilliant!
Sue Mitchell recently posted..The 5 S’s: Magic Bullets for Blasting Through Creative Blocks
Hi Sue,
I don’t know how many bloggers actually have a specific photo or image in mind before or while they are writing up a blog post; my guess would be very few. So they inevitably have the repeated and time-consuming frustration of trying to find an image at the last minute…
It stands to reason then that they could save a considerable amount of effort in the long-run if they regularly collected images as potential candidates to accompany a post and had them handy.
A good photo that we really like in hand is worth two in the bush of images out there IMO:)
Thank you! This was really helpful.
I’m learning the wisdom of having my camera on me at all times. There’s always something interesting going on. However, I’m still plucking up the courage to actually pull it out whenever I want to.
The other day my mum and I were walking along a backstreet and saw a man come out of an apartment complex dragging an old television by its electrical cord, looking for all the world like he was taking his ‘pet TV’ for a walk. Mum and I just stood there in amazement. By the time I plucked up courage to pull my camera out (because I felt just plain awkward about snapping a person) he’d gone.
Also, it’s getting so cold here (-7 this morning with a wind chill of -14) that I don’t want to pull my glove off to get my camera out.
But still, I’ve snapped some great pics over the past couple of weeks. It snowed the other day and I photographed red lanterns half covered in snow. They looked like iced tomatoes.
Jessica Baverstock recently posted..Recuperating from the Fray of Madcap Writing
Jessica, I love your story of the man with the ‘pet t.v’ LOL. I’m sure you could use him and/or that scene in a piece of writing! It is kind of a shame you didn’t snap a photo, but I truly understand your hesitation; I myself have refrained many a time when I saw a vignette involving a stranger. From what I understand, it’s a crap shoot whether or not they’ll approve of you taking the picture. I have asked for permission quite a few times, but by then the spontaneous moment is gone, and very rarely do I get to capture what caught my eye and fascination in the first place.
I also love your description of the photo you took of your snow-covered lanterns. Maybe you’ll use it (or one of the other great shots you recently took) or one of your posts on your site soon? Hope so!
Absolutely! I’m collecting these photos for my new China blog. That one should definitely make an appearance.
Jessica Baverstock recently posted..Recuperating from the Fray of Madcap Writing
Glad you found my suggestions useful, Sarah! I’ve really found quite a few gems when I haven’t been frantic at the last minute too so that’s why I thought it was important to suggest (although I tend to mainly use my own photos or do #4 – I’m too impatient to sift through pages and pages…lol).
I get a kick out of fellow quirky brains who have tagged their photos with the most imaginative words. Occasionally I’ve come across some search results that have made me scratch my head, but for the most part, takes the tedium out of looking and makes the whole time much more entertaining/stimulating IMO.
Thanks Carole! This is very timely! You mean I don’t have to panic every time I write a post and scramble for photos?! What a unique concept. Actually I’ve been trying to practice #2 for a while now – but I often forget. I do love the idea of just browsing through the photo sites for good photos when I’m NOT desperate. Also a good though to search for a particular emotion, rather than an object. Great ideass