4 of Our Favorite Free Sites for Sourcing Photos and Videos for your Pitch decks
- Calan Mengel
- Apr 22, 2022
- 3 min read
Looking to source some photos and videos for free? Check our our favorite websites!
Are you working on a school project? Do you want to spice up your presentation or pitch deck so your audience isn't falling asleep while you pitch your epic romance, sci-fi thriller, or documentary? We have some of our favorite free sites for sourcing photos and videos for your deck!
I've done quite a bit of research projects where I needed to source photos and videos to properly pitch an idea to a group of people, and 9/10 those presentations go relatively well-- there is audience engagement, eye contact with classmates is more likely, and with the right amount of interesting fluctuation in your voice, you will have a stellar pitch day.
So, without further ado, let's look at some of my main source sites. We'll go over some pros and cons, as well as if the site is completely free or requires a sign up of some sort to access free content.
Disclaimer that it is always important to check the exact rights of the photos and what kind of copyright they fall under. I will not be detailing this too much in this article, but if you do some quick Google searches you can get explanations on what each kind of copyright term means.
One online source I recommend would be:
The Copyright Society of the USA - https://www.csusa.org/page/Definitions
Pexels
Pexels is a website that hosts video and photos from content creators that are free stock photos.
Pros:
- Photos and videos are easily downloadable and attribution is easy to give
- Tons of content creators who have taken photos of many subjects and locations
- Can advance search by orientations, sizes, and even hex codes
- Probably the best source for free video content to utilize
- Does not require sign-up
Cons:
- All photos and videos are very artsy, posed, or planned. If you are looking for images or videos that are more grungy, you will have a bit of a hard time finding it here. BUT if you want something a bit more artsy, look no further! You'll find an abundance of resources here.
Personal Rating: 8/10
Unsplash
Unsplash is another website, similar to Pexels in it's "freely-usable images".
Pros:
- Easy to download photos with lots of variety
- Pretty user friendly
- Does not require sign-up
Cons:
- Also fairly clean photos like Pexels... grungier content isn't in abundance here
- Only photos are available on Unsplash, not video
- iStock has very prominent advertising space on Unsplash, and new users can easily accidentally click the iStock photos and be redirected to a new page.... make sure to read the heading title of the photos before clicking, you'll need to scroll down to get to Unsplash's creator content
Personal Rating: 7/10
flickr
Flickr is a newer website I've found recently, and it's quite the.... interesting platform. It still made it to this list though!
Pros:
- Very wide variety of photos and videos to choose from
- A great mix of polished photos/videos and grungier photos/videos
- Does not require sign-up
Cons:
- If you are really specific in your searches, you may come across some.... interesting content (uncanny animations, long videos of fairly lengthy and bland interviews, etc.)
Personal Rating: 6/10
Envato Elements
Envato Elements is also a newer site I have been utilizing recently, specifically when other sites did not have the content I was looking for. Be warned though, this site requires the input of credit card information to utilize.
Pros:
- Video and photo content of a wide variety
- Site is very user-friendly
- While I have not utilized them, they also have sound effects, music, graphics, and fonts that you can download
Cons:
- SIGN UP IS REQUIRED FOR DOWNLOAD
- There is a 7-day free trial available to access all photos and videos with unlimited downloads... that being said, you do need to input your credit card information and select a plan. They don't bill you until after the free trial, so just make sure you cancel the trial (or pay upwards of $200 for yearly plans)
Personal Rating: 7/10
While this isn't a giant list, I've found trust in these sites and what I can get out of them for video concept pitches, presentations, and pitch decks. There are many other websites to still discover and explore, but these four are a good start for any beginners looking to broaden their resource and research skills.
I've often heard about flickr, but I've never used it.
I work as a video editor and I would be interested in learning more about this site, as videos and photos from there can be useful for my work. It would be cool if you could record a video from your screen on how to sign up and take videos from there. You can do that with screen recording. This site has a free screen recorder for Windows available.
And please tell me, would I be allowed to use them for commercial work?