Reference photo resources

This month we're talking reference photos: how to use them and how to take them. Besides taking out own, there are tons of reference images available online either free for use or available in large sets for a small fee. It's important to not rely on other people's copyrighted art, which includes photography and other intellectual property, as references without permission. For this reason, I try to stay away from photos that are shared on Instagram or that I find floating around on Pinterest, unless they are expressly shared to be used as reference photos (especially if I plan to share my art in any way). But don't worry – there are plenty of images out there that we can use!

Sources for reference photos

• Unsplash and Pexels are two major royalty-free use photo archives, and both have paid versions as well that unlock more images. These sites are very easy to use and have a clean interface and good search engine. They are used by a lot of professional photographers and tend to have more highly processed, edited and staged photos. They are high quality but can have a bit of a commercial feel.
• Flickr has a creative commons section where users can tag their photos under different kinds of usage terms. There's a helpful key on the right side of the home page helping you understand how you can use the images. Since Flickr is used by a lot of people sharing day to day photos, you may have more luck finding more ordinary, realistic and less edited/staged images here. Notably, the interface is not as easy or beautiful to navigate.
• The Library of Congress has a massive digitized collection of public domain photos that are free to use and fascinating to peruse.
• There a lot of groups online who create reference images specifically for artists and make them available for a small fee. One that I am most familiar with and have used quite a bit over the years is Croquis Cafe (note: many of their images are of nude models, which may include the banner photo). They have a lot of specialized references, including timed life drawing videos, 360° poses, facial expressions and references with more than one person. They are also growing their collection to include landscape and nature photos as well.
• Openverse is a newer catalogue that pulls usable images from around the internet into a library of 700 million images and sounds.
• Some creators on Instagram share reference photos and invite artists use them. They usually want you to tag them if you share your artwork, and sometimes they reshare participants' art – but be sure to check out each account's rules and instructions. Two that are on my radar right now are the Landscape Art Club and Alai Ganuza and Dennis Pfeil's weekly #foodpaintchallenge.
• Artist Dylan M. offers her Inspiration Binder for free to subscribers of her newsletter.
• And of course, our growing collection here on EDI!

Okay, now go paint!