While there are lots of stock photo sites out there, many of them offering cool images, some of them actually offering cool free images, I’ve found that most of the images found on these sites are just that-stock and non attention grabbing.  More elevator music than Miles Davis concert. So I’ve been finding myself clicking through the Flickr Creative Commons photo galleries with more and more frequency.  The galleries are a great place to find some really creative free images.  And since they’re all liscenced under a Creative Commons agreement, they’re free for the public to use (note-while free to use, different photographers use varying types of liscences with particular attibution and editing rules.  Be sure to check with the photographers before using).

Of course, the quality varies from the not so great to the out of this world, and since lots of pro photogs use the site, it’s really easy to seperate the wheat from the chaff.

Don’t get me wrong, we use sites like stock.xchng and I Stock Photo all the time.  They’re great places to find basic images to illustrate your project’s theme and have huge databases of images to choose from.  But sometimes you need that one over the top image, that really unique eye grabbing photo, and for that flikr’s creative commons photos are a great place to check.

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