90+ Royalty-Free Photos for Every Topic on Medium (A-Z)
A curated collection of breath-taking images for all 51 publication topics; every image is high-res and free to download.
🔎 Use `Command+F` to find photos of a specific keyword.
⬇ Scroll down for more info on sources & licensing .
A is for Art, Creativity & Photography images — for sharing poetry and essays about the creative process, reflections on life as an artist, drawing techniques and studio day takeaways.| Browse Art Photos 🎨
B is for Business, Work and Entrepreneurship, some of the most popular content-marketing topics on the web. These high-res photos are perfect for your next post about side hustle strategies, leadership lessons, or life at an incubator or tech startup. | Browse Business Photos 💼
C is for Culture and Equality — pictures of people from all around the World and all walks of life. These diverse images could be used to accompany posts about social justice, human rights and cultural issues. If you’re looking specifically for pop culture pictures, you’ll need to keep scrolling.| Browse Culture Photos 🌍
D is for Digital Design, and more broadly, Marketing, Social Media, and Freelancing. These images go out to all the graphic designers, branding thought leaders and digital marketers of Medium.
| Browse Digital Design Photos 🖥
E is for Entertainment — blogs about Music, Media, and Film. All those festival recaps, “Best Album of 2017” lists, Netflix reviews, Oscar predictions and pop culture thought pieces.
| Browse Entertainment Photos 🎧
F is for Food! This is one of the easiest photo categories to find online but it’s too good to leave out. Whether you’re writing about your weight loss journey or weight-lifting diet, or sharing your own family-friendly recipes, an appetizing food picture can go along way towards attracting readers to your article. | Browse Food Photos 🍕
G is for going green and protecting the Environment. These earthy images will work well for articles about clean tech, global warming, climate change and being one with Mother Earth. | Browse Environment Photos 🍃
H is for History, which often overlaps with Politics and Philosophy. These timeless images will look great aside retrospectives and reflections on simpler times, nostalgic ramblings, or dissections of ancient wisdom. Unfortunately, you won’t find pics of Trump or Hilary but you may find fitting images for posts about governments, wars, riots and elections.
| Browse History Photos 👨🏫
I is for Individuals— intimate images of introspection for posts in topics like Self, Spirituality, Psychology and Mental Health. You know the articles; they’re the ones about self-care, meditation, mental models and life decisions that appear in your newsfeed every morning. Find the perfect picture to illustrate the deeply personal journey that you’re about to share with a very public audience. | Browse Images of Individuals 🙍🏽
J is for Joy and more specifically, Humor. Maybe you’re looking for LOLs with your comedic lists or witty satire, or maybe you’re compiling inspiring quotes to empower or enlighten others. Whatever you’re writing, if you’re looking to share a smile, then this is the collection for you.
| Browse Images of Joy 😄
K is for keyboards, which are needed for Programming languages like Javascript and more broadly, Software Engineering. If you’re covering these topics and are looking for pictures of developers committing code or just people using computers, then look no further.
| Browse Images of Keyboards & Programming 💾
L is for Literature and Education. These images are perfect for articles about academic ideologies and reflections on campus life, as well as book reviews, fan fiction and short stories. | Browse Literature Images 📚
M is for Money and everything that encompasses, from Basic Income to Cryptocurrency, Finance and the Economy. These images can be used to depict a wide range of topics like: budgeting, personal finance, investing strategies, digital currencies and life lessons about making and spending money. | Browse Money Images 💰
N is for Nature and exploring the great outdoors. Find photos of tree-lined treks, cliff-diving adventures, mountain climbers and even wildlife. These lush landscapes and breath-taking mountains are sure to induce wanderlust. | Browse Nature Images 🌲
O is for Oceans and underwater scenes. While this isn’t a Medium topic in itself, water is a powerful visual that can take on many meanings. These dreamy images can be used for a wide range of intangible topics, like floating through life, feeling like you’re underwater, or the tides of change.
| Browse Ocean Water Images 🌊
P is for Portraits of people; the perfect pictures for your posts about self-discovery, relationships, success and self-awareness. Just like water, these images transcend one topic and can breathe life into any body of text. Portraits capture emotion, style and humanity which gives them the power to amplify the emotional appeal of almost any text. | Browse People Images 🙋🏻
Q is for Quitting and Productivity — for posts about resolutions and new chapters, self-improvement, better habits and time management. If it’s time for a fresh start, or you’re starting to re-think how you spend your time, then these are the images you’re looking for.
| Browse Quitting & Productivity Images ⏳
R is for Relationships and Sexuality. These photos are great for posts about love and lust, modern romance, online dating, married life, and more. | Browse Relationship Images ❤️
S is for Science, Math and beyond. These types of images are often abstract, which means they could potentially be used to represent other hot topics like Cybersecurity, Data Science and Neuroscience as well.
| Browse Science Images 🔬
T is for Technology, a hot topic on Medium. Some of the most exciting publications explore topics like Artificial Intelligence and speculate about the Future. | Browse Technology Images 👨💻
U is for Urban — city life in the downtown core. These pictures depict concrete jungles, traffic jams, skyscrapers, and death-defying rooftoppers. You’ll find scenes from places like Toronto, Chicago, LA, NYC, Paris, London and beyond. | Browse Urban Images 🚕
V is for Vacations and posts in Travel publications. This scenic collection is sure to induce wanderlust, or at least, inspire you to browse some last minute flight deals. | Browse Vacation Images ✈️
W is for Wellness— striking photos will encourage you to nourish your body and soul. These healthy-living images are ideal for Medium articles about Sports or Health; common topics include meditation and mindfulness, body building, self-improvement, and trade / draft speculations. | Browse Wellness Images 🏋🏿
X is for X-Files. What did you expect? There are very few useful English words that start with X. Fortunately, there are a ton of captivating Space images in the public domain thanks to NASA. | Browse X-Files Images 👽
Y is for Youth in all its glory. These adorable images feature kids of all ages, from newborn infants to school-aged children and their families. These shots allow you to add an image to your reflections on parenthood, or stories about your sons or daughters, without uploading a personal photo.
| Browse Children Images 👶🏾
Z is for Zoo, of course! These images aren’t just limited to caged animals; you’ll find a range of heart-melting dogs (like Petunia the Pug), curious cats, and a handful of exotic animals as well. This collection’s helpful when you’re reflecting on life as a pet-owner, or speculating what humans could learn from the instincts and habits of less civilized species.
| Browse Zoo Images 🦏
This is just a small sample of the incredible range of free stock photo collections that are available on the web. If you’re looking for a plain text list of resources, check out Thomas Oppong’s comprehensive review of 39 royalty-free photo sites.
Another great resource for passive photo discovery is Dustin Senos’s “Wall Cat” Chrome Extension that delivers a stunning new royalty-free photo in your browser every day.
Be sure to always double check the license of the photos you download; while many use Creative Commons Zero (free to use for any purpose without attribution) there are sometimes slight variations in the fine print. And while you usually aren’t required to link back to the photographer, it’s always nice to give credit where credit is due. ✌🏻
