What is Unsplash and how to use it for your advantage
Unspla… What?
As we enter 2019, and as creators prepare themselves to create new visual content, more and more are in the search of tools and resources to aid them in their exploration of art, a handy tool comes in play: the website that changed the face of the internet with pretty pictures and an army of photographers Unsplash.com.
What’s the deal?
Unsplash.com is a website that stockpiles free stock photos generated by generous photographers which is ready to aid you in your creative endeavor in the new year of 2018 in whatever way you want to use them. Unsplash started in May 2013 as a Tumblr blog that curated no more than 10 photos. In the meantime, the platform evolved tremendously reaching over 300k photos with irrevocable, nonexclusive copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute and perform for free.
To start downloading and using the stock photos you don’t even need an account, you just search for whatever you need and use what you find. Also if you don’t find anything you like you could explore the huge number of collections that can have similar things to what you are looking for, like “eyes” or “car” photography. Now that you found your perfect photo just download it on your computer and start creating art. Unsplash will not ask for any compensations or shares or donations in exchange, but it will suggest crediting the author.
Why bother creating an account?
To use the entire potential of Unsplash you need to create an account, which will expose you to a range of very useful tools and features. One of them is the ability to save favorite pictures in collections for easy access when you need some pictures for later, explore the most popular topics or promote your photography. Many times I had seen pictures that were so perfect for some projects that I had in mind and just saved them for later use. And I can say that this feature is a huge time saver and perfect for those who want a little more organization in their lives. Also if you’ve seen some great photography from someone you can follow them and it’ll appear on your homepage under the “following” tab.
Helping the community
Another powerful feature that you have is the ability to search for pictures. Even if the search engine it’s not perfect it gets the job done most of the time. Unsplash uses human-generated tags to search for photos, but sometimes a few photos will be left without a tag-based description for various reasons. One thing that you can do to prevent that and help the community is to tag them yourself. If you follow this link you will be redirected to a page configured to let you tag those photos. Yes, I know, it’s a little bit of work but is not that bad, actually is kind of enjoyable. Let me explain, if I had a dollar for every time I found beautifully crafted photos without tags, I would be filthy rich. So in my leisure time, I brew a big cup of ol’ tea and just sit at my desk relaxing, while adding accurate tags for photos, to be easier to search, to help the community and to discover photography while listening to my favorite podcast.
Finding good inspiration is hard, but it doesn’t need to be. A lot of times I find myself changing the entire design of an ad campaign or a poster after a session of photogazing at the infinite wall of beautiful photography. Seeing the world through the eyes of others makes you change your focus, your point of view, and most of the times resulting in great new creative content.
Creative Mode
I think this is the right time to present you to the madewith.unsplash.com. A sister page of the original website where creatives are sending their “remixes” to be showcased. This is another place of inspiration but from a different point of view. Here you can see how others used a picture from unsplash to design content, and their design might inspire and even release a new wave of creative ideas.
If you’re a photographer you’re in for a treat. Unsplash is the perfect platform as of now to showcase your photography and help the community. With over 21 million visits and growing, it’s the number 1 place of 2018 to get some brand new exposure. In exchange for fame and glory, you’ll need to make the photo free so that others could use and enjoy, and personally consider that this is not a big price to pay. And don’t forget, with great exposure comes great responsibility.
