No matter what field you work in, chances are good that you will, at some point, need high-quality photos. These days, it’s not enough to throw any old thing up as a header image. With all the noise online, you need to stand out from the crowd and adding a nice photo to your project is a great way to do that.

As a writer, I’m oftentimes responsible for finding images to accompany my articles, blog posts, and presentations. As a fan of, and contributor to, the Creative Commons, I like to pull images from the commons and attribute their creator with a link.

You can find a ton of Creative Commons images through Flickr’s Creative Commons search feature, which is generally the first place I head, but be prepared to look through hundreds or thousands of snapshot-quality photos to find one that’s publication worthy.

There are a growing number of platforms that collect Creative Commons photos (I’ll pull the best ones together in a blog post soon), but one of my favorites is Unsplash.

A platform that releases 10 new photos every 10 days, Unsplash uses a Creative Commons Zero license, which means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash.

The photos on Unsplash are heavy on nature, but there are also incredible images of urban life, humans and animals, work-related scenes and more. And, they’re all pro-quality, high-res, and free.

Unsplash may not meet all of your photo needs, but it’s a great first place to check, because if the platform has an image that works for you, it’s going to be a top-notch addition to your project.

If you’re a photographer who wants to share their work, you can submit photos to help make Unsplash even more awesome.

Note: the photo is from Unsplash, of course 😉