Free inclusive stock images
How inclusive is the imagery you currently use? Does it reflect the true spectrum of the audiences you have or want to reach? Does it represent everyone who works with you?
I saw this post on LinkedIn from Lennart Nacke after Katie Moffat re-shared it (thanks Katie!). It’s such a fabulous list of free and inclusive image resources. I’ve expanded the list here with some examples from each collection and added a few more.
There are some amazing images here we can and should use, all for free (if crediting appropriately).
Age-positive image library
The Centre for Ageing Better created the first free library showing positive and realistic images of over 50s in a bid to challenge negative and stereotypical views of older age. The photos show a more realistic depiction of ageing – to help tackle ageism and challenge the idea that all older people are frail and vulnerable. The library, which contains over 2,000 images and is regularly updated, offers journalists, organisations and individuals a wide selection of images.
Photo: Peter Kindersley / Centre for Ageing Better
AllGo Plus Size collection
As a technology company focused on serving plus-size people, AllGo created this collection to meet their own needs for our company Instagram account. They needed photos of plus-size people doing normal things and existing stock photo sites either didn’t have images they liked, or the costs were prohibitively high. AllGo are committed to doing everything they can to increase the representation of plus-size people and released these for free.
Photo: AllGo
Black Illustrations
Beautiful illustrations of Black people for your next digital project. Free and paid collections for use on your websites, web applications and mobile apps.
Image: Black illustrations
Photo: Jean Cont on Canva
CreateHerStock
CreateHER Stock is a lifestyle-esque, stock photography resource with curated modern and authentic imagery for female bloggers, creatives, and online influencers of colour.
Photo: CreateHerStock
Disabled And Here
This stock library is a disability-led effort to provide free and inclusive images from our own perspective, with photos and illustrations celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of colour (BIPOC).
Photo: Disabled And Here
Disability Inclusive Stock Photography
Disability:IN is pleased to offer disability inclusive stock photography to the public. In an effort to empower business to achieve disability inclusion and equality, they encourage corporations to use this in recruitment material, marketing material, internal and external communications, etc.
Photo: Disability:IN
The Gender Spectrum
The Gender Spectrum Collection is a stock photo library featuring images of trans and non-binary models that go beyond the clichés. This collection aims to help media better represent members of these communities as people not necessarily defined by their gender identities—people with careers, relationships, talents, passions, and home lives.
Photo: The Gender Spectrum
Humaaans
Mix-&-match illustrations of people with a free design library by Pablo Stanley.
Image: Pablo Stanley
Iwaria
Free African high quality photos for your projects.
Photo: Iwaria
The Jopwell Collection
The Jopwell Collection (#TheJopwellCollection) is an album of more than 100 free-to-download stock photos featuring leaders in the Jopwell community – social entrepreneurs, editors, techies, financial analysts, recruiters, marketers, student leaders, and even an Olympian – at work.
Photo: Jopwell
LGBTQ+ on Pexels
Pexels was founded in Germany in 2014 and maintains a library with over 3.2 million free stock photos and videos. There are lots of different collections available, this set of images are tagged as LGBTQ+.
Photo: Sarah Chai on Pexels
Nappy
Beautiful photos of Black and Brown people, for free.
Photo: Nappy
People of Colour on Unsplash
An Unspash collection curated by Aiddie Fisher.
Photo: Aaron Burden on Unsplash
PICNOI
Free stock photos for a colourful world.
Photo: cottonbro on PICNOI
Queer in Tech
MapBox created this photo set to promote the visibility of queer and gender-nonconforming (GNC) people in technology, who are often under-represented as workers powering the creative, technical, and business leadership of groundbreaking tech companies and products.
Photo: CC BY 3.0 US Mapbox Uncharted ERG
Shopify Burst Women Collection
Need a photo of a woman that's free for personal or commercial use? Look no further. You’ll find pictures of women, groups of women, elderly women, young women, moms, sisters, aunts, girlfriends, wives and more.
Photo: Shopify
UK Black Tech
Explore this collection of diverse images, free to use in your next project.
Photo: UK Black Tech
WOCinTech Chat
WOCinTech Chat request you use these photos to show a different representation of all women in tech. That you use these images in pieces about entrepreneurs, software engineers, infosec professionals, IT analysts, marketers, and other people who make up the tech ecosystem. Just as white women have been the default “woman” in technology and American society as a whole, we believe the underlying belief of what it means to be — and who can be — a tech worker in the 21st century can benefit from this form of “disruption”.
Photo: WOCinTech Chat
Additional collections
There are some other paid collections with inclusive imagery worth mentioning too:
ColorJoy Stock, Diversity photos, Eye for Ebony, Getty Images Lean-In Collection, Mocha stock, POCStock and TONL collections.
Let me know if you’ve found any other collections to add to the list!