How to find inclusive stock imagery

For many years, quality stock images almost exclusively showed a world of glossy-haired, conventionally attractive, white, non-disabled men and women.

 

Stock images showed us such a narrow slice of reality that they spawned jokes and memes like woman alone laughing at salad.

But that’s started to change. Stock images are starting to reflect the incredible variety of communities and identities in the world, thanks to a wave of beautiful, diverse, varied, and free stock image collections.

 

They focus on the people who’ve been excluded and marginalised. With collections dedicated to disability, racial diversity, gender identity and presentation, and more, it’s never been a better time to commit to using inclusive visuals as part of your charity’s inclusive communications.  

 

But first, a few tips.

 

 

How to use inclusive stock images

 

When you’re using inclusive stock images, we recommend that you:

• Mix them up. Relying on a narrow selection of images won’t make your content truly diverse and inclusive, even if the handful of people you’re portraying are Black, wheelchair users, or gender non-conforming
• Remember alt text and image descriptions. A powerful image can’t do its job, unless it’s made accessible
• When using free sites, try to trace the photo back to its original photographer. Some photographers have their work stolen and added to free sites without their knowledge
• Be mindful of the context you use images in, particularly when using recognisable photos of people. Ask yourself: “could someone reasonably expect their image to be used in this context?”
• Check licensing, usage, and attribution requirements. Images from the same sites can have different restrictions
• Try not to reduce people to a single identity. It can be easy to think that when we’re writing about racism, for example, this is when we specifically need to show more racially diverse people. But the opposite is true
• We should be using images that reflect a huge variety of identities, all the time. Don’t use images of Black people only when you’re talking about anti-racism, or photos of gender-nonconforming people only when you’re writing about LGBTQIA+ issues
• Remember that many identities are non-apparent. For example, you can’t guess somebody’s disability, gender, sexual orientation, or race from looking at them. Think intersectionally. Remember that a wheelchair user may be neurodivergent, an East Asian person may be gay, a woman wearing a hijab may be working class, and so on

We’ve organised these stock image sites into categories. But of course, people have many different characteristics. You’ll find beautiful images of disabled people in the body liberation section, and of LGBTQIA+ in the racial diversity space, and many more.

 

 

Race and ethnicity

 

 

Nappy

 

Featuring some of the most beautiful images available on any paid or free stock site, Nappy is an incredible resource.

 

This diverse collection covers almost any context you can think of, with gorgeous photos of racially minoritised people at work, studying, in healthcare, running, doing yoga, exploring the outdoors, celebrating holidays, and more.

 

 

UK Black In Tech

 

As you’d guess from the name, UK Black In Tech features Black people working in, studying or using a range of different kinds of technology.

 

 

Despora

 

Despora is focused on South Asian (Desi) representation. It’s a relatively small collection, but it covers a good range of different gender presentations.    

 

 

PICNOI

 
PICNOI is a co-op providing a wide range of gorgeous images of people of colour. They’re free to download individual images, or you can pay to download the whole database.

 

 

#WOCInTech

 

You can browse #WOCInTech’s whole section of images of women of colour in tech contexts on Flickr. They’re also tagged for download on Pexels and Unsplash.

 

 

POC Stock

 

Another outstanding collection of beautiful images of people of colour is POC Stock.

 

 

Macro

 

Macro is a free collection of inclusive images by a diverse group of creators in New Orleans and Washington D.C. Many of the images don’t show people, since Macros’s focus is the artists themselves. They’re all racially minoritised, and their photographs show a varied way of looking at nature, cities, and everyday life.

 

 

Jopwell

 

Jopwell is a career advancement platform for people of colour, and it also has a varied library of images of Global Majority people in professional settings. 

 

 

Death to Stock

 

Download premium images of people of colour, for free, from Death to Stock’s Elevate and Represent a Diverse Internet.

 

 

Fat and body liberation

 

 

Body Liberation Stock

 

Whether you’re focused on body neutrality, body acceptance, or body positivity, you’ll find a range of joyful photos of fat and plus size people at Body Liberation Stock.

 

 

We Are Many Plus Size collection

 

If your charity has a Getty Image licence, you can access Refinery 29’s We Are Many Plus Size collection.

 

 

Gender diversity

 

Vice’s Gender Spectrum Collection presents a mixture of people with varied gender presentations, including gender non-conforming people. There are friends, couples, individuals, and a variety of settings, including workplaces, homes and outdoors.

 

 

Sexual orientation

 

 

Queer in Tech by Mapbox

 

Mapbox were inspired by the Women of Colour in Tech project to create their own Queer In Tech stock photo collection.

 

 

Disability

 

 

Disabled and Here

 

Affect the Verb’s Disabled and Here collection includes stunning images of people with a range of apparent and non-apparent disabilities.

 

 

Disability:IN

 

Disability:IN offers a small but varied collection of photos of disabled people, with a mixture of apparent and non-apparent disabilities.

 

 

Age and ageing

 

The Centre for Ageing Better’s a collection of images of ageing better show older people smashing ageist stereotypes, being active and enjoying a rich social life.

 

 

People experiencing homelessness

 

Homelessness Impact has a free library of non-stigmatising images of people experiencing homelessness.

 

You can also find great inclusive images and illustrations through sites like Pexels, Unsplash, and Adobe.

 

Canva’s premium subscription, Canva Pro, has a particularly good range of inclusive images and illustrations, and Canva Pro is available free to charities.