The meaning of life (on the web) is shifting it’s definition from one of consumption to one of creation.

Social networking sites and the massive move of Web 2.0 sites and beyond allowing for more user-interaction and user-creation is now evolving to one where publishing is core to the experience.

And expression on the web is no different than online in many ways. It’s not just about words. Making an impact is easily made when you embrace something that’s more powerful than words. Simpler than words. Quicker than words. It’s knowing that. . .

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS.

Nowadays, you can find free & legal downloads of images and photos that you can use for your own purpose without any hesitation. It’s clearly an excuse to stop ripping off images from other people’s sites with Google Image Search.

Here are some royalty-free stock photos sites that have completely free photos for you to download and use:

  • Stock.xchng – 300k+ photos
  • Stock Vault – Be careful to figure out how their search results / links are presented. This site has great images, but their ads are masterfully integrated so that you’ll end up on paid photo sites if you’re just click-happy.
  • Flicr - Free Stock Photo Group
  • Flickr - legal & free photo categories
  • YotoPhoto – searches royalty-free photos sites, Creative Commons, Public Domain, GNU FDL, ‘copyleft’ images
  • ImageAfter – textures and various categories are good
  • MorgueFile – not huge inventory, but one of the more visible stock photo sites

Personally, I have been using a couple of community-contribution stock photos sites like iStockPhoto.com that sells images for a little as $1 each or stock photos, royalty free stock photography, photo searchLuckyOliver another clean discount stock photo site. While the completely free sites are growing and useful, sometimes you can save time and find what you’re looking for on paid sites. But there really isn’t a need to pay those high subscription fees for comstockphoto, photos.com, etc.

But you should visit and browse some of the free sites – bookmark the ones you like and try them out the next time you want to use photos to make your point.

Here are 7 bonus free stock photo websites if you’re now hooked on finding more ways to express yourself:



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