Imagery can make a huge difference! The right visuals can enhance your storytelling and help your post perform better on Thrive Global and across social media. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to find the right image, so we put together a collection of image resources for you to dig into — along with some best practices for how to choose — below.
Where’s the best place to find great images?
We encourage our contributors to be resourceful and creative when selecting images for their pieces. Rather than going down a search rabbithole, start by checking out these (mostly free) sites for beautiful images to enrich your stories.
- Unsplash
- Gratisography
- Jay Mantri
- Death to the Stock Photo
- New Old Stock
- Women of Color in Tech Flickr stream
- Public Domain Archive
- Superfamous (requires attribution)
- Picjumbo
- The Pattern Library
- Getrefe
- IM Free (requires attribution)
- Magdeleine
- Foodiesfeed
- Picography
- Raumrot
- ISO Republic
- The New York Public Library’s public domain collection
- NASA’s image portal
- CDC’s Public Health Image Library (public domain)
- Pixabay
- Design for Health’s Flickr photostream
- National Library of Medicine’s image library
- National Institutes of Health’s image library
- Stocksnap’s health and wellness images
- Stokpic
- Giphy
- Scopio
How many images should I include?
It’ll vary based on the length of your post, but as a guideline, try to include one photo for every 500 words in all of your posts. (Don’t let this overwhelm you. If you only want to use one image for a story that’s more than 500 words, that’s ok!)
Which image is the most important?
The first one! It should be striking and express the intent of your piece. This is the photo that will be featured on all social feeds.
Do you have permission to use the image? Make sure you do!
It’s very important that you have permission for every image published in your story. Make sure not to steal anything from Google Images or another website; instead, check what kind of rights and licenses image and stock photo sites offer — and then source accordingly. (Or, to make it easier, just use the image resources we’ve collected for you!)
What if I find a photo that I want to use on Instagram? (Or any social platform, for that matter.)
You have two options: 1. You can copy the embed link from the post and paste it into the article. 2. You can reach out to the person who operates the account and request permission. Once you have permission, you can include the photo in your article (without the embed but with a proper source!) and publish.