(A blog post not just for bloggers)

Hi friends! Honestly last night kind of felt like my Friday because I worked almost all weekend, so as a reward for that I’m letting myself sleep in this Monday morning (translation: I’ll probably wake up at 8:00am). Hopefully you were able to relax or do something fun this weekend?! Oh wait! I did find time to slip in something fun this weekend, I got to hang out with my best friend Emily (hi Emily!) We grabbed lattes and hot coco at The Granola Bar in Westport, and got to celebrate each other’s good news! (More on that in the coming weeks…)

Alright, in full disclosure you might read this blog post and laugh at me for what I’m about to share, but honestly I had no idea a resource like this existed until this past week. Needless to say, my mind was blown!

Do you ever wonder how bloggers seem to have endless supplies of professional grade stock photos for just about anything? Write a blog post about champagne [insert perfect picture here], write a blog post about desk organization [insert perfect picture]….you get the point. I genuinely thought that these bloggers were just way more on top of stuff than I was, and maybe some are, but maybe some (or most) of these bloggers are working smarter, not harder. Here’s what I mean:

Did you know there are websites dedicated to stock photos for bloggers? I didn’t.

Ever since I learned about these websites that provide FREE stock photography, which you’re allowed to use both non-commercially and commercially, I’ve been diving down rabbit hole after rabbit hole to find the best ones! (And I think I succeeded.)

So far I have to say my favorite resource for amazing stock photos for a variety of blog posts is by Styled Stock. You’re even allowed to use them on Pinterest! Speaking of which…if you’re not following me on Pinterest, you should be! I’ve somehow been able to go from 0k monthly viewers to 25k+ monthly viewers in the past 3 weeks! Check me out on Pinterest here 🙂

If you’re interested in learning more about the other website’s I’ve found that have great stock photography for blogs, make sure you sign up for my newsletter, because the rest of the list will be featured there on Wednesday! Sign up here.

Whether you’re a blogger, a business owner, or someone who just likes pretty pictures for their inspiration boards, I hope you feel like this will be a great new resource for you!

But isn’t using other people’s photos weird?

Hmmm, great question. 99% of the images you see on Style Inherited are taken by me, or by my family/friends. Unless I’ve disclosed otherwise, the photos are my own and I’ve always felt strongly that it should be that way. On the other hand, since I’m not a professional photographer it takes me double, maybe even triple the time to get a halfway decent photoshoot executed. For blog posts that don’t require me to be in them, maybe I will think twice before I go ahead and spend all that time taking the photos myself, when I could instead go to my new go-to stock photo websites, download a couple professional-grade images and have time to then focus other things!

Of course going forward if I were to use these stock photos in blog posts outside of this one, I would disclose that they were not my own. I think that’s important here. Although you’re not required to credit the stock photo website, they do appreciate it, and I think it’s the right thing to do.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this! Have you known about these kinds of stock photos for years? Are you just figuring this out with me? Comment below!