3 Reasons Why I Unsplash
If you've followed me for sometime then you'll know that I post some of my photos on Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a website that allows user to upload their own photos for others to use royalty free. Great images to use free of charge. I'm sure this makes some photographers cringe while it makes people who want to use great images for free really happy. So why do I choose to contribute to a site like this? There are a couple reasons. So let's dive into them.
Give a penny, Take a penny.
I use Unsplash for a lot of projects that need placement photos for moodboards. Its a great resource for high quality images. And like the saying goes if you take a penny then you have to put one in at some point. Since I use Unsplash and the communities photos I figured I'd jump right in and give back.
Its really cool to see people use, view and share my images. Here are some cool emails they send me periodically as well as a screen shot of some stats on one of my images.
Seen in the wild
Stumbling across one of my images in the real world is pretty cool. A quick image search on google can show you where and how your images are being used. My food images get used the most but other times its something random. Here are a few shots of my images being used in the wild.
Apparently the Clover Bar in Belgium serves the pepper cranberry vodka drink I shot on my kitchen table.
My French Toast being talked about in Memphis
Did you know this shot of a hotel in downtown Las Vegas I took, can also double as a hotel in Washington D.C. That's cool.
Facetune used my mug on a video for their app. Which was pretty cool but kind of strange. lol
My most viral image of all time. Greyson used as the background for this video about a student and teacher, this post is up to 63 million this video is also shared on other pages and accounts with millions of more views. Go internet! (Fun fact: We call Greyson Teddy sometimes (its the kid's name from the story).
This are really cool examples of how your images can be used, the french toast image was also replicated almost exactly by an oil painter in Europe but I can't find the image.
Digital Dust
Lastly the reason I share my images is because I shoot a lot of images that never see the light of day. They are just sitting in my Lightroom catalog collecting digital dust. Sure I could post them to a stock site and try to make money off of them but I'm not interested in that. I think you should give back and this is a great way to do so. The image are just sitting there so they might as well get used by someone. Image how cool it would be (and interesting) if everyone had gateways to their Lightroom catalogs online and you can access them, view and use other photographers images. Crazy and stupid idea I know... or is it?
Let me know what you think and if you have ever used my images for anything shoot me a link I'd love to see how you are using them.