end0skeletal:

For this blog, I often use pixabay and unsplash and similar websites that offer all photos with free use. On those sites, attribution isn’t required (but it is appreciated by the photographers), and you can use the photos for whatever you want for free.

When doing informational posts with multiple photos, a lot of times I use the photo directly from a wikipedia page. Usually those are either free to use or just ask for attribution.

I also use flickr which has filters you can use to show only results that allow free use, usually with attribution. I choose “all creative commons” in this menu after a search on flickr:

All results after you choose that filter would be from photographers who allow their work to be shared. There are certain restrictions on some of the photos, sometimes that you cannot change the work in any way or that you can’t make money from using it. Flickr has icons under each photo that show which uses a photographer allows, like this:

If you click on the icons, it tells you what’s required to use the photo. In the above case, these are the terms:

So they make it pretty easy to find photos that you’re allowed to use without getting in trouble.

I’ve also found DeviantArt is pretty safe, since they allow creators to choose whether or not to put Share links on their work, like this:

Plus, then you can hit the share on tumblr button and it opens a window to create a post of the work with links to the photographer’s page already inserted. I have come across pages with Share links enabled but then under the photo it says that it may not be used or shared, so be on the lookout for that.

Hope that was helpful! I’m sure there are many other sites out there that offer photographers the choice to share their work or not, but those are the ones I use the most.