You will notice that lots of bigger bloggers have many pretty featured images on their websites, their Pinterest pin images are always pretty and screaming ‘click me’. All their images are not just pretty but also have consistent style/branding. Have you ever wondered how they do it? I did! For the longest time, I struggled so much with sourcing beautiful feminine images for my blog to give it a consistent feel.

I told myself, as long as I stick with one color scheme, I will just google pictures and download everything for free. Wrong! Not only will that violate the copyright of some images, which can result in a big fine. It also takes forever to find pictures that have the same color scheme and similar styles in the sea of google images.

After reaching out to many other bloggers to ask them how they source for their images, I tried all the methods they gave and finally developed a system for myself.  All the images you see on my website and on my Pinterest are coming from one of the following options:

 Take My Own Images

All the Food recipe images on my site are taken by me with my trusted Canon camera. I do use a DSLR but you can still take amazing pictures using your cell phone. My first ever sponsored content was actually taken by my android phone and processed through one of the  Android apps called  ‘Facetune’. If you are serious about food blogging or photography, I do suggest you invest in a DSLR at some point. Because the image quality does improve dramatically and you can charge brands more if your picture quality is better.

If you are new to DSLR and need some help with photography, I am going to share my favorite resource with you. I learned everything about food photography through this course. The course creator is the face behind one of the most famous food blog Pinch Of  Yum. The things she teaches in her course apply for much more than just food photography, the similar concept applies for portrait photography,  stock images, etc. Her course teaches more than how to use a DSLR or how to do the composition,  it also includes video tutorials on how to use Photoshop and Lightroom! It is super affordable! I know because I was on the hunt for a photography course for months and most of the courses out there charge more than $100!

After the course and lots of practicing, I am now pretty happy with my photography skills. My food photos get accepted by the FoodGawker (a site that features only the amazing food images, it is very famous in the food blogging circle ) every single time, plus brands are willing to pay a good amount of money to me for a single photo. That is why I started to expand into creating stock image products as well. Want to get a set of stock images for free that worth $11? Sign up here.

COLOR U BOLD

This has to be my favorite stock image place. I do not have time to take stock images all the time, but I need pretty stock images for my Pinterest pins. This is my solution! The pictures are bright, clean and very high-quality. New collections are released every single month.

Most amazing thing? It is super affordable! Similar level stock images are very expensive. To give you an example, HauteChocolate is one of the famous stock image websites that are very popular between bloggers. They charge you $99 for 3 months, but with Color U Bold, very similar style stock images, you pay less but actually can get a full year 12 months access to the stock images.

The moment you sign up with Color U Bold, you get access to 400 photos straight away! On top of that, you get a whole new collection of stock photos every month! You can use it however you want, in your Pinterest pins, instragram, Facebook, etc. I would say over 90% of my Pinterest pins and blog featured images are from them.

Creative Market

Another good one! I do not really purchase stock images from them, although I did purchase a mock-up once for a product launch.

I am there mainly for the freebies! Once you sign up with them, you can get freebies every week. Sometimes it can be free mock-ups, sometimes it can be free stock images, sometimes it can be free fonts. All the freebies I downloaded all have an amazing quality. I highly recommend you to check it out.

IvoryMix

I love their photos. They have the most amazing collection of bundles. No matter you are looking for a specific color schemed stock images (like rose blush, ice blue, ect), or specific niche stock images (like craft, mom, kids), you can find it all in there.

They also do custom photo shoots if you have a specific requirement for your brand.

Oh and a bonus point, if you sign up for their email newsletter, you get free photos!

Styled Stock Society

I saw Styled Stock Society in many lifestyle influencers’ Instagram profiles. It took me a long time to track it back to them.

I have not purchased anything from them yet, but I do love their style. Very girly and mostly very pink.

I did sign up to get their free photos and I am pretty happy about it. Who does not like freebies?!

Want to know more about what I used to set up this money-making blog? Sign up below to find out more!