Free: Fun, Funky Professional Images and Curated Color Palettes

Designer, artist, and photographer Ryan McGuire creates fun, free, and sometimes downright funky photographs, as well as an array of color palettes based on art masterpieces. I like to use his photos on my website, in articles, and on social media posts, and I'll dip into those color palettes, broken down into hex codes, for websites I manage. Cool stuff. 

Below is a look at some of his photos and color palettes.

Gratisography: Photos by Ryan McGuire

From serious to funky, here's a sampling of Ryan McGuire's photos. As he has graciously put them in the public domain, they are yours to steal (as a courtesy to the artist, please credit Ryan McGuire for any images you use.)

Color Lisa: Color Palettes Based on Art Masterpieces

Color Lisa is a curated list of color palettes based on masterpieces of the world's greatest artists. Each palette has been painstakingly created by color-obsessed designers, artists, museum curators, and masters of color theory. Below are a few to feed your eyes (they're larger and easier to view on the Color Lisa website). 

Left to Right: The Kiss by Gustav Klimt; A Basket of Clams by Winslow Homer; Black King Catch Scorpio by Jean-Michel Basquiat; and Pink Panther by Jeff Koons

Ryan McGuire's free photos: Gratisography

Color Palettes: Color Lisa

Free Professional Photos, Videos and Audio

Do you write a blog?  Craft a newsletter?  Manage your own website?  Then you probably like to occasionally plug in photos or images to accompany your articles or maybe to add some pizzazz to the page.  Did you know iStockphoto, a site that sells professionally created photos and more, also offers free downloads?

I've purchased iStock photos for my blogs and websites. For example, I purchased the background of Colleen Collins Books (the vintage green typewriter illustration) from iStock.  I also purchased the image for my nonfiction book HOW DO PRIVATE EYES DO THAT?

​How Do Private Eyes Do That? by Colleen Collins

​How Do Private Eyes Do That? by Colleen Collins

What's cool is that iStock also provides free downloads, too.  Sometimes an image or illustration will fit something I'm writing about on a blog; otherwise, I save the image for later use.

The only requirement is you need to register with iStock to access their freebies.  To go to their website, click here

Examples of Free iStock Image Downloads

iStockphoto offers free downloads every week in each of these categories: Photos, Illustrations, Audio and Movies.   Below are two free photos I've recently downloaded - nice, huh?  Below these photos is a banner for my new book Secrets of a Real-Life Female Private Eye -- the photo of the woman's eyes is also from iStock, and although it wasn't free, it was very inexpensive (a couple of dollars).

blond girl headshot black and white.jpg
city landscape reflection in water.jpg

To go to book's Amazon page, click on above banner

To go to book's Amazon page, click on above banner