For years I’ve been using Morguefile.com to find photographs for free.

Morguefile.com is an interesting site because they have free photographs hosted there that you can “copy, distribute, transmit… and… adapt.“  In fact, attribution is not even required (a kind word for the author is always appreciated but not required).  Most photos for my blog posts were coming from this site.

Well, since then I have begun to use a plugin called Zemanta which makes it really easy to find photos for blog posts from WITHIN WordPress.  It also makes it easy to add links and tags but the photo is what was taking the most time to format to the posts.

Blogging is not the only place photos are used, though.  I use photos for all kinds of creative pursuits, including photo-puzzles, photo-manipulation, and even converting into clip art.  So, Morguefile.com still fills a void in my life.

Google now makes it east to find free photographs!

NOW, I just read a blog post on Google’s official blog that you can search for photos on their Image Search and narrow it down by license (ie. creative commons, etc.).  It’s really easy to use, just click the “Advanced Image Search” link and notice the “usage rights” section.  If you need help defining the terms, click on “more info.”

You can also search by license on Flickr.com, a Yahoo site.

With sources like these, who’d want to pay for stock photography?  OK, the quality may be a little better on a pay site, but with some sweaty effort, I think you can find some really good quality for free!  Morguefile.com, Google Image Search and Flickr just want to help a bit!

What is your favorite source of free photos?  And don’t tell me you steal other people’s graphics from their websites!