Tookapic was launched as a platform to help users to “develop a habit of daily photo taking in a fun and addictive way”. The habit is gamified where users will be awarded with points and badges. Users are also able to share their images for reuse. The stock photos section of the website presents the pictures shared by the community. As of November 2015, there are more than 14,000 stock photos uploaded with 66% free for download. Users can search or browse by different categories.
Kunstformen der Natur (or known in English as Art Forms in Nature) is a book of prints by German biologist, Ernst Haeckel. The geometric shapes and natural forms captured precisely by Haeckel continue to inspire artists and scientists. Via Wikimedia Commons, you may access more than 100 illustrations from the publication.
BILDGEIST is a “visual journal of scientific illustrations, illuminated manuscripts, photographs, prints and artworks from the public domain”. The images are of various themes including astronomy, alchemy, mythology, cartography, anthropology, zoology, botany, and general curiosa. Users can filter the contents by period, categories and keyword tags.
This collection is a cabinet of curiosities compiled by Sydney-based Paul K (also known as PK or peakay). It contains rare book illustrations and drawings from digital repositories, covering a wide range of “styles, topics and time periods… from astronomy to zoology and from Art Nouveau to the Renaissance”, as indicated by PK. Each set of images are accompanied by a URL linking to the bibliodyssey website that contains the background commentaries. A book titled “BibliOdyssey : archival images from the Internet” was also published in 2007 based on the compilation. As of October 2015, more than 10,000 images have been uploaded to Flickr.
Wikimedia Commons is a “media file repository” of public domain and freely-licensed educational media content, including images, sounds and video clips. Launched on 7 September 2004 by the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Commons uses the “wiki-technology” that is the same technology used in Wikipedia. Wikmedia Commons also aggregates files from other projects, including Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikivoyage, Wikispecies, Wikisource, and Wikinews. As of October 2015, there are more than 28.7 million files in more than 120,000 collections. Users can conduct a keyword search or browse the content by topic, type, author, location, license and source.
DesignerPics.com is developed by Jeshu John, a web designer and developer based in Kochi, Southern India. Users can search by keywords or browse by categories.
Picjumbo is developed by photographer, Viktor Hanacek. Users can search by keywords or browse by different categories.
Photogen provides free high-resolution photographs for download and reuse. Users can search by keywords or browse by categories.
Pixabay is a photo community that provides images on public domain. The site contains curated images contributed by photographers around the world. As of September 2015, there are more than 470,000 photographs, vectors and illustrations. Users can search by keywords or browse by various categories.
Developed by Brooklyn-based interface and experience designer, Jeffrey Betts, MMT is a site that contains high-resolution photos on public domain. Users can search by keyword or browse by different categories.
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the national museum of New Zealand. Their collections online contain information of more than 500,000 works of art. Among them, more than 30000 have downloadable images for reuse in high resolution. Users can search by keywords.
Raumrot.com presents “free, handpicked stockphotos” for commercial and personal uses. As of July 2015, there are 681 of such images. Users can browse by categories or by special image sets.
Lock & Stock Photos provides photographs taken by social media marketeer, AJ Montpetit.
Developed by Italian photographer and graphic designer, Daniel Nanescu, Split Shire provides copyright-free photographs for designers, bloggers, social marketeers and commercial companies. Users can search or browse images by categories.
Built by web designer and developer, Adrian Pelletier, Free Nature Stock provides free public domain images that focus on nature. The site is updated with a new photo daily. Users can search or browse the images through the Archive.
Founded by a startup based in Switzerland, PLiXS is a database of free high resolution images. As of August 2015, there are close to 3,400 images, contributed by photographers around the world. Users can search or filter their search by photo filters and categories.
Skitterphoto provides photographs that are taken by three photographers based in Groningen, The Netherlands. Since the platform launched in 2014, a photo is uploaded every single day. Users can search or browse by categories.
Since 2013, British Library released more than 1 million images to Flickr Commons. The images were obtained from the Library’s digitised collection of 65,000 books of the 17th, 18th and 19th century. The release of these images indicates the Library’s desire “to improve knowledge of and about them, to enable novel and unexpected ways of using them, and to begin working with researchers to explore and interpret large scale digital collections”. The images are arranged by different themes, such as book covers, illustrated letters, maps, flora and children book illustrations.
Vintage Printable provides images that are believed to be on public domain or out of copyright. Most of the images are focused on vintage naturalist or scientific illustrations. Users can search or browse by different categories.
Travel Coffee Book is a photo blog that provides photographs captured by photographers around the world. They are mainly travel photographs. 10 new photos will be added every 10 days.
