Where to Find Free Stock Images for Your Articles

"A picture speaks a thousand words," the old saying goes. Which is why your Associated Content article needs a photograph to accompany your text. On occasion, you may be lucky enough to have taken your own photo related to the content you created, as long as it is not a self-portrait. At other times, you will have to find one. You may want to bookmark this page to make the photo finding process easier. Even better, bookmark the individual photo sites you find the most useful.

Even Associated Content recommends the following: "Attaching images are a great way to engage users with your content." Just as we would not want anyone to misuse our copy, we do not want to publish anyone else's photos without permission.

A great way to find photos you need is to use web sites which contain copyright-free photos. Just be sure to include the photographer's name when available and the owner.

Associated Content recommends the following sites:

Bigfoto.com is another great source of photos for travel, as it contains images of Africa, America, Asia and the Pacific. The Themes section includes photos on Architecture, Aviation, Fireworks, Food, Fountains, Sculpture, Railway and Ships.

FirstGov From the FirstGov home page find the "Graphics and Photos" section. Although you can do a search of the whole site, it may be more prudent to find the agency related most closely to the photo you need. There are an incredible amount of images available through this site.

FreeStockPhotos.com is a collection that is best suited to articles on animals, travel, religion the environment and nature. Photo categories are limited to the following: Animals, Christian, Egypt, Israel, Near East, Plants, Rome, Scenery, Sky, Weather and Wildflowers. All photos on the site are owned by Daniel Speck.

GeekPhilosopher On this site stock photos are one small part. Photos include Flowers, Fruit, Objects, Outdoors, People, Vegetables and the Sky.

stock.xchng The gallery on stock.xchng contains more than 200,000 stock photos. Photos are filed into the following categories: Abstract, Architecture, Business, Computers, Concepts, Food, Nature, Objects, People, Places, Seasonal and Events, Signs, Streets and Cityscapes, Transportation and the World.