50 Free Creative Commons Images for Lifestyle Websites

High-quality images (in every sense) are crucial to making your website engaging, but it can be hard to find what you need. Many website owners are also operating under tight budgets, so images need to not only be beautiful and high-quality, but also free.

We’ve written about finding high-quality free images before and shared before some great sites to visit for Creative Commons images. Of course, we recognize that there is a still an overwhelming number of images to sift through. With that in mind, in this article we have shared 50 beautiful and free Creative Commons images that you can use for your lifestyle website (with the necessary attribution, of course). We will also give you some tips on how to choose great images when browsing these sites.

We’ve categorized the images into some broad themes to cover various topics common to lifestyle websites. Let’s get started!

Clothing and Fashion

If you are covering clothing and fashion, clothes will obviously play a big part in the photography on your site. Clearly, you will have some of your own photography, especially if you are doing outfit-of-the-day type posts. But for more general fashion discussions, you can include stock photography if you choose carefully.

When looking for stock photography to support fashion-oriented topics, there are a couple ways to go:

1. Think small and focus on details. This would include things like accessories (shoes, bags, etc.) and elements like stitching or buttons.
2. Think big, such as the surroundings and weather.

The images you choose can then support your content, even if not directly linked to your post content, for example. We have some examples below that could be useful.

Photo by Lori Semprevio / Flickr

Photo by Pei Hua Yeap / Flickr

Photo by Ana_J / Pixabay

Photo by Public Domain Archive / Pixabay

Photo by Fulvio_Tognon / Pixabay

Photo by Alex Hockett / Unsplash

Photo by Marek Prygiel / Unsplash

Food and Recipes

If your website ventures into the food and recipe arena, there is no question that you will need photographs of the actual food. Especially with recipes, the proof in is the pudding, so to speak. However, it is possible to use third party photography for other purposes in your website.

Similarly to our advice for fashion and clothing websites, you can use the concepts of thinking big and thinking small when looking for suitable images. The small focus would include things like ingredients (spices, vegetables, etc.) and tools (like knives or pots). Thinking big would take you to a broader view of a kitchen or a market, for example.

By broadening your image selection in this way, you can use some of the available images to make your site even more appetizing. We have found some yummy examples below to give you a taste.

Photo by Anelka / Pixabay

Photo by ShortSword / Pixabay

Photo by Kai Jerke / Unsplash

Photo by Michael Stern / Flickr

Photo by condesign / Pixabay

Photo by Moyan Brenn / Flickr

Photo by Brooke Cagle / Unsplash

DIY and Home Décor

Moving on to the DIY and home decor sphere, we can start having even more fun. Once again, you will likely need some of your own pictures, especially of those cool DIY projects you have completed. However, don’t go feeling like you have to only use your own pictures; using free images can help to free up your time so you can get back to being creative.

This category is pretty broad, as nearly anything can work. You can focus on details and tools, like curled ribbons or scissors; look for images of beautiful rooms or areas of a home; and/or use photographs of people and animals for broader topics (e.g. pet-friendly furniture).

The DIY and home decor space allows you to get creative, so take a look at some of the images below and see how they might be used on your website.

Photo by PIxolga / Pixabay

Photo by Erika Wittlieb / Pixabay

Photo by milivanily / Pixabay

Photo by Wicker Paradise / Flickr

Photo by 931527 / Pixabay

Photo by Emily May / Flickr

Diet and Fitness

Diet and fitness is a very popular theme for lifestyle blogs right now. There is some overlap with the food and recipes category we looked at before, so you may still need some photographs of your own if you’re sharing healthy recipes, for example.

The advice we gave for food and recipe websites is much the same for diet and fitness. Ingredients, tools and settings all play a big part in the imagery here. But you can think even broader and include people and activities (think happy joggers). Another direction for images in this category is humor, which can help keep the tone of the website light.

The diet and fitness marketplace is very crowded, so the right imagery can help your website stand out from the crowd. We’ve selected some interesting images below to help you start.

Photo by mojzagrebinfo / Pixabay

Photo by Alan Cleaver / Flickr

Photo by Francesco Gallarotti / Unsplash

Photo by Jonathan Rolande / Flickr

Photo by Christopher Campbell / Unsplash

Photo by StockSnap / Pixabay

Family and Parenting

Family and parenting is an interesting category when talking about website imagery. People in this space are often divided on the issue of privacy – some have no problem using images of their own family, including their kids; while others are not as comfortable with publishing their private lives in that way. Stock photography can help both groups.

The key to finding images for this category of website will be to focus on what else is being discussed. If writing about activities, you can use photographs featuring people doing that activity, or the tools or equipment needed (e.g. sports equipment). Another advantage to using third-party images is you can showcase a more diverse set of people than your family may include.

We’ve chosen some great images to help you add to your family and parenting content, so take a look and see how you could use them.

Photo by Benji Aird / Unsplash

Photo by Drew Hays / Unsplash

Photo by RebeccaVC1 / Flickr

Photo by rachel_pics / Flickr

Photo by sarahbernier3140 / Pixabay

Photo by sebagee / Pixabay

Health and Beauty

Health and beauty is, unsurprisingly, an image-heavy field. Health may include food and recipes, as well as diet and fitness, so the tips provided for choosing images for those categories still applies here. But this category will often go further into areas like hair and skin, and will include discussions of products like makeup and shampoos, for example.

One key feature of images in this category is for them to look clean and inviting. Scare tactics can work in the content, but you want your images to be very attractive. Images of tools work well in this category, like makeup brushes. This category will also often use images of people, but be sure to include as diverse a mix of people as possible if your site is meant for a general audience.

Health and beauty is an interesting category for images, so have fun with it. Check out our selections below to see how you can start to beautify your website.

Photo by BRF Klätterträdet / Flickr

Photo by Li_sy / Pixabay

Photo by Anna Sastre / Unsplash

Photo by Manu Camargo / Unsplash

Photo by Darko Stojanovic / Pixabay

Photo by Take Back Your Health / Flickr

Travel

Hopefully, if your website is dealing with travel, you are doing some travel yourself. In that case, you likely have photographs from your trips to include. But, if you either have no photography skills, or want to add even more sights to your site, then some images from around the web can help.

In the travel category, you want to make sure your pictures are relevant and fit your website content. If you write about the people and cultures of places around the world, you will need to make sure you have representative pictures. Is your focus the sights and tourist attractions, or the food? Look for images that support your choice. You will need to make sure that you are using photographs appropriately, so you don’t go using a picture of Morocco while saying it is Greece.

We’ve selected some more general images that may be handy to add to your travel stories, so take a look and upgrade your website!

Photo by Nicolai Berntsen / Unsplash

Photo by Gregory Bourolias / Unsplash

Photo by Steve Richey / Unsplash

Photo by stevepb / Pixabay

Photo by Giampaolo Macorig / Flickr

Photo by VanessaC / Flickr

Work From Home

Many lifestyle websites are run by, or targeted at, people who work from home. This growing lifestyle is becoming even more popular as communities develop and technology improves. Images can help to cement a website and its content in that culture and community.

It is very common to showcase workspaces of those who work from home, but if you only have images of your own desk, the internet can help. There are lots of images available to show workspaces, desks, and tools of people who would work from home. Of course, since the topic is working from home, other areas of the home are also up for grabs.

We have picked a few images that we think show an interesting side of working from home, so put your feet up and browse through our picks.

Photo by Breather / Unsplash

Photo by Nick Turner / Unsplash

Photo by Mark / Flickr

Photo by kaboompics / Pixabay

Photo by Tran Mau Tri Tam / Unsplash

Photo by krzyzanowskim / Flickr

Conclusion

There is no shortage of beautiful images out there available to be used for free. You really have no excuse for not using high-quality images on your website.

We waded through several sites to find 50 perfect free images for your lifestyle website so you can choose a few and start beautifying your site today. Your website visitors will be sure to love the new look.

Clearly we have only scratched the surface of the images available for lifestyle websites. We would love you to share any other relevant images you’ve come across in the comments section below, and feel free to give us your tips for choosing the right Creative Commons images too!

Image by Lanteria / shutterstock.com.