Blogs are meant to be informative but they should also be fun and colorful. Photography is the key to adding flavor and life to the text in your blog. However, just because you are a good writer, doesn’t make you an expert photographer or artist. Even if you are a good photographer, you may not be able to get a picture of certain things you write about easily or affordably. How can you get free stock photos for your blog?

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Websites That Offer Free Photography

Stock photos have been around for years. You see them in advertisements, newspapers and websites. A lot of websites charge for a subscription fee or a flat rate per photo. You might even recognize stock photo models or scenery from time to time. Paid sites like SC Stockshop (affiliate) and Haute Stock (affiliate) can get you photos at an affordable rate. However, you can get almost anything you need from free sites like Every Stock Photo, Wylio and Dreamstime. Some of these sites have over 13 million images available!

Making Your Own Photos

You don’t need to be an expert photographer anymore to generate decent quality photos to use on your blogs. A midrange digital camera will do the trick for taking stock photos of scenery, projects, animals, people and food. Taking your own photos also adds personal flavor to your blog.

You can easily find deals on cameras on major electronic retailer’s websites. Camera quality is measured by megapixels. Most experts agree 4 megapixels is the minimum resolution to generate a decent photo. You’ll probably find good deals on even higher resolution cameras. Using them is easier than ever.

Once you have your stock photos, getting them into your computer is easy with most modern cameras. You’ll also probably need some software to resize and edit pictures like PicMonkey (affiliate). Many cameras come with a simple program to help you make these sort of adjustments. If you really want to get into professional photography and editing, you can get programs like Photoshop or other similar programs that help you modify your pictures. Usually you’ll just need to copy the photos to your computer and then upload them through your blog’s interface.

Displaying Your Stock Photos

Most blogging website platforms provide lots of ways to display your photography content. In WordPress, you can include them easily in posts or sidebars. Many of these systems also let you add galleries and slideshows (affiliate) of your photos. You can also create thumbnail graphics that act as a “preview” picture for a blog post on the front page of your site.

Don’t underestimate the value of photos on your blog. Pictures matter. They can attract visitors more than words. Give your users visuals to go with your words, and you may find the number of followers increases overnight.

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