I’ve been sharing my photography for free on Unsplash for the past 4 years, here’s what I found
Jan 23, 2018
Samuel Zeller
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What is Unsplash?
It’s a website where photographers can share high resolution images, make them publicly available for everyone for free even for commercial use. It was created in May 2013 by Stephanie Liverani, Mikael Cho and Luke Chesser in Montreal, Canada.
Four months after creation they hit one million total downloads, and a year after they had more than a million downloads per month.
Now there’s 400’000+ high resolution images hosted on Unsplash which are shared by 65’000+ photographers from all around the world.
Last month 2400 photographers joined Unsplash and shared 25’000 new images (not just snapshots, some really good photography).
Here’s a few examples below:
Visitors in the last month viewed 4 billion photos and pressed the download button 17 million times.
The average Unsplash photo is viewed over 600’000 times and downloaded over 4000 times. No other social network can give you those numbers.
Unsplash is massive, and it’s (currently) one of the best place to get visibility for your work as a photographer.
Some of my most appreciated images were viewed over twelve million times and downloaded a little bit more than 125’000 times.
Here’s the top nine below:
I receive 21 million views per month (677’000 per day) and 93’000 downloads (3000 per day). As a result, every day there’s one or two person that credit me on Twitter for an image they’ve used. I also get emails regularly and new backlinks to my website every week.
And it’s not just for old users who’ve been sharing for a long time, here’s the stats from someone who joined Unsplash just three days ago:
I have to be honest: in 3 days since i joined @unsplash, this has blown me away!! I can’t even believe the amount of exposure this site has brought me!! Seriously anyone who isn’t on this already needs to be!! @instagram time to setup and adapt!! 🙌🏼❤️ pic.twitter.com/VxMhbrd1l2
— Taylor James Photos (@taylorjphotos) January 6, 2018
In total I’ve uploaded 460 images, they’ve been viewed over 255 million times and downloaded over 1.7 million times. Of course it’s just numbers but they are incredibly more meaningful and bigger than the likes you can get on Instagram or Facebook.
Designers all around the world have been making album covers, posters, article headers, blog posts, adverts and billboards with my images on Unsplash. Like many photographers I chose to turn what was idle on my hard-drive into a useful ressource for other creatives.
Here’s a few examples:
That’s not all, one of my first client (when I started as a freelancer in 2016) found me on Unsplash. They’re the biggest bank in Switzerland and I did four projects for them. One included spending a night at 3,571 m (11,716 ft) at the highest observatory in Europe, the Jungfraujoch Sphinx observatory to document it (full project visible here), the second one was much lower at the Zürich airport photographing below aircrafts like the Airbus A340.
The reason why they reached out to me? They were already using a few of my Unsplash images in their global database and wanted more in the same style.
Fast forward to a few months ago, I landed a new client (a design firm) and at one of the meeting they introduce me to one of their designer. The guy said after hearing my name “I know you already, I’ve been using some of your images on Unsplash, they’re great”
The problem with social networks
People and specially the new generation are becoming incredibly lazy. The attention span is lower than ever and we get stuck in nasty dopamine loops. We literally need to check our phones multiple times a day.
Social networks make us think we need to post new work often to get good engagement and get noticed. The truth is that great photographers take a year or more to publish new projects (for example Nick White “Black Dots” or Gregor Sailer “Closed cities”). Good work will always takes time, and it will always be noticed.
We all fight for attention, for likes, for numbers that will not bring us anything good. We are in that aspect devaluing our own craft by over-sharing and by being tricked into becoming marketing tools for brands.
The rise and fall of Instagram
What will you do once Instagram becomes old school? I don’t know if you noticed but Facebook are ruining the whole Instagram experience, they’re bloating the UI and releasing features for brands.
Here’s the user interface in March 2016 and today on an iPhone 5/SE screen.
Seriously, what the heck? I can’t even see the user images anymore when I land on their profile.
Before Facebook bought it the app was a simple, chronological photo-sharing service. Now they’re rolling out “recommended posts” from users you don’t even follow right into your feed. The suggested content will be based on what people you follow have liked (and probably on how much brands are paying to shove their ads right into your smartphone screens).
By sharing on Instagram daily as a photographer you are basically taking a ton of effort to grow a following on a network that’s taking a wrong turn. It’s like trying to build a sand castle on a moving elevator, it works but it’s not the most effective way.
Not only « real » engagement is dropping but soon your reach will crumble unless you pay to promote your posts. I’m running an account with a little bit over 50’000 followers (Fujifeed) and for a post that reach 25’000 people only 170 of them will visit the account, the rest will just merely glance at the image for a second (maybe drop a like) and keep scrolling.
People create accounts on Instagram then stop using it after some time. Truth is, most of your followers are inactive by now and most of the ones that are active don’t care enough about your work to even comment on it.
What’s even worse is that Instagram makes photographers literally copy each other styles because only a few type of images can get better engagement and please the mass. Think of all those « outdoor slash explorer » taking pictures of forests from a drone or hanging feet off a cliff. They’re diluting their work and style by focusing on what will grow their account.
Followers are still valuable now but in two to three years they’ll be worthless. There’s a ton more 50k+ accounts than two years ago. Brands are now looking into accounts with 100–150k to do collaborations. Instagram is a big bubble that will blow one day and I don’t want to have all my eggs in the same basket when it happens.
Would you take someone seriously if he told you « I’m working on my Myspace/Flickr account every day! I got soooo many followers, I’m famous! »
I have 16’500 followers on my personal Instagram account and I could close it any day. The reason why? I also have a newsletter with over 25’000 subscribers. Guess which is more valuable and long lasting.
Too many photographers today are forgetting that a portfolio, experience, publications and exhibitions are far more important than building up their following on a social network.
There’s still a lot of good sides to Instagram, the community aspect to start with and also the fact that there’s not yet a proper contender to replace it.
It’s still (to me) the best place to discover emerging photographers and get your dose of inspiration. There’s also a great deal of photography magazines that are actively curating work on it.
The culture of the new
That’s the big problem with photography online as curator and photographer Andy Adams explain « It’s always about the new which inevitably means the not new drops off our radars way sooner that it should »
Social network like Instagram and Facebook are flawed for photographers for this particular reason. They are great for brands who can afford to hire social media managers and post regularly or sponsor content.
There is other social networks that don’t rely on a feed but rather on search, for example Behance or EyeEm. Those are way better for photographers in the long term. They have a higher rate of discoverability.
The images I share on Unsplash don’t lose value, in fact there’s no difference at all between a year old shot and a week old shot. Their value are not based on time. I could stop uploading new images and still have a lot of visibility every day. Try not posting on Instagram for a month…
Here’s a real example, those two images below were shared on Unsplash in October 2014. Notice how they still gather a ton of views/download per month even after four years?
Leaving a mark
Last year in February I lost my dad to cancer, he was diagnosed just a month before in January. I wrote before on the concept of memory and digital data (See: the data we leave behind) but his sudden death made me realize how short life can be.
We always say « we need to enjoy every moment, life is fragile » but it’s impossible to understand it fully until you have lost someone close. My father had bookmarked my website, my Instagram account and my Unsplash account on his laptop, he was checking them often, he was probably my biggest fan.
What’s left of him are memories but also his files on his computer, photos of him and his art (he was doing digital art and uploaded a lot of pieces on DeviantArt). I’m grateful to have all of this to remember him.
As a photographer and artist I feel like it’s a necessity for me to also leave something behind, because we never know what will happen tomorrow.
Having some of my images on Unsplash is one way to ensure that even if I’m gone my work will keep on living. Another way is through prints and books. Speaking of which, I’m finishing my first book that will be published in April by Hoxton Mini Press.
Photography isn’t about making money as a freelance photographer, it’s also a part of us, stories of where we traveled, visual tales of our singular experiences with life. I choose to share it as much as possible because I can.
There’s one last reason why I share photographs for free and Josh summed it up very nicely in one of his Medium article, here’s what he wrote:
“Beauty has always been free. It came in the box with sunlight and eyeballs. It was granted to us upon birth as we first laid eyes upon our beautiful mothers and then mother earth. For those of us with extreme empathy and a wide-eyed approach to seeing the world, finding the beautiful all around us and capturing it is a deep and glorious honor. Yes, you can have that image at the top for free — perhaps not because it has no value, but because I simply want you to see what I can see. I want to share in the joy of this world’s beauty. The image, in that scenario, is only a document of our mutual appreciation for it. And maybe taking money off the table in that discussion is actually what helps it remain beautiful.” – Josh S. Rose
What’s next
I feel like Unsplash is just the beginning of a new era of photography. It’s thrilling to be able to grow with it. I was born in 1990 just before the world wide web and I’ve seen how technology evolved for the past twenty years.
I’m afraid of how addicted we have become to it. How fast paced things have become. We need more generosity, community based efforts, human curation and less algorithms driven by the need of profit. We need to slow down.
Some projects are trying to focus more rewarding artists instead of advertisers and Ello is one of them. I’ve made the decision to stop using my personal Instagram account and switch to their social network.
You can read my motivations in this article.
About the Author
Samuel Zeller is a freelance photographer based in Switzerland, an ambassador for Fujifilm and the editor of Fujifeed magazine. You can contact him here and follow his recent work on his website and Ello. This article was also published here and shared with permission.
[Lead image: Stairs in Coimbra, Portugal — one of the 460 image I uploaded on Unsplash]
We love it when our readers get in touch with us to share their stories. This article was contributed to DIYP by a member of our community. If you would like to contribute an article, please contact us here.
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36 responses to “I’ve been sharing my photography for free on Unsplash for the past 4 years, here’s what I found”
In 4 years you got 2 jobs that got you money from unsplash? therefore you wasted 120.000k of money if you only would get 1 dollar per download. These websites not only shift the mind of people and understanding in value of photography, but as well give you a false hope for getting a job. the more people offer their work for free, the less it’s worth for people. only for the fame and exposure and the hope that they might get some bucks from this someday. Don’t get me wrong I like the idea of unsplash and to share the work in lower res as kind promotion for your work. but rights for an image should never given away. i just read the terms and I could use ur freakin image for everything I want. I could even make a calender, book, whatever I want and don’t need to even name you. Where is you exposure then? I could litraly just download the images, let design a book over fivrr and sell it. Without anybody giving a crap or earning a dime. that’s just nonsense:) A great network would be if users can download low res but have to pay for highres. and if only a buck in a crypto currency. it’s about the value and not about a like or some “numbers” how many people you reached. :) just my 2 cents. but I look forward to other opinions.
I’m a photographer but for 30 years a tennis coach. I’ve many many times offered deals or even free lessons (in certain circumstances) over thanepeiod of time. I can honestly say, that sadly, it never did me any favours. When it’s free, it has no value or loyalty value…so personally I’m against giving images away for free…
What the hell? Why would anyone do this? Soon as I saw the word “free” I was out. Exposure doesn’t put food on your table or pay your bills.
I’ve been able to live from photography in the first year I started freelancing. Had zero clients and not a good portfolio. Unsplash helped me land a dream client, I did 4 projects for that client and it helped me land another client + many recommendations. I also license images regularly, what’s on my Unsplash is maybe 0.5% of my total personal work. Now I’m finishing my first book with a publisher, got my work published in plenty of places both online and in print (mags and books). I haven’t lost any money and if I had those 460 images on a stock photography website I probably wouldn’t make much money, as stock is nearly dead.
i think there is no right or wrong way. doing something for 4 years will/should pay off, if you do it right and frequently. i know that stories of clients coming from flickr and 500px as well. I got tons of requests from FB and Insta as well. Doing Insta for only 3 years. the difference is: I still own the rights to publish and get paid for every print in magazine, poster, whatever. But I think giving away 3-5 Images on unsplash that rest on the external drive anyway and are not planned to be sold anyhow, is a good way as an add on. thank you for your article.
Kurze Frage zu deinem Post. Ist es nicht so dass Facebook und Instagram deine Bilder zu Werbezwecken einsetzen können ohne dich zu vergüten oder hab ich das falsch verstanden?
Benjamin Jaworskyj I’ve been a freelance photographer only since January 2016, not for 4 years. Before that I was a full time senior 3D designer and I was already putting some images up on Unsplash. I have 168000 followers on Instagram but I live in Switzerland and people here specially magazines are 4 years late to the Instagram game. For example a museum here just opened an account this january, even if they had people tagging their name for years! I would get much more clients if I was based in a country that’s full on social media like UK/US/Germany
Looks very interesting. Thank you for sharing.
What the hell? Why would anyone do this? Soon as I saw the word “free” I was out. Exposure doesn’t put food on your table or pay your bills. Secondly I have never even heard of Unsplash. It’s like all these other photo services that are popping up. Thirdly I guarantee you they have no idea what the word copyright means. Stay far away. They don’t have the photog’s best interest in mind.
Maybe you never heard of Unsplash but agencies and designers worldwide knew about it since a long time. It started in May 2013. Here’s some global stats https://unsplash.com/stats
Samuel Zeller do your give your work away for free?
Chris McGathey no I don’t, I never work for free.
Likes and views don’t pay the bills silly.
Tell that to big influencers ;) Got an additional 12k of revenue in my first year as a photographer thanks to a client who found me on Unsplash. The fun part, it’s the fault of all photographers who use social media, you all helped “followings” become a currency
Wow.12k. It is half the price for a single one photo if it’s bought for a national billboard campaign… Not even talking about big companies here…
That’s normal if such a shitty platform is known all over the world by advertising/marketing agencies: that’s because it’s gold for them! They love to screw people like you.
It seems like you feel really angry against influencers, you sounds like a really frustrated guy (sorry for you) but you’re not hitting them that way. You’re actually killing the value of professional photographers who don’t care about any social media numbers (nor Instagram or Unsplash), just professional artists who don’t have any followers and aim to be fairly paid for their work.
They all thank you for that.
I wish you will become someday the “employee of the month” of the billion worth company which is Unsplash.
Sounds like the 1 client you found worked out well, but what about all of your images offered up as stock photos for free? Fine line between using social media for exposure and lessening your value of your images….it becomes an all or none frenzy. Worse than that, it lessens the value of other photographers work in the process.
Erin Ballantyne Granzow it’s not the only client that found me on Unsplash, the reason why is that Unsplash is used worldwide by advertising/marketing/design agencies to find images for doing comps for pitching clients. I know I worked as a designer in agency before and we used Unsplash a lot. By putting a fraction of my images there I ensure they land on the desk of agencies everywhere, and a small fraction of them will have their client say “who’s the photographer who shot that? Can we hire him?” Note that the images I share on Unsplash wouldn’t perfom well on stock photography websites as they are not generic enough.
So they are also low res images, and really only for viewing ? I can see how that could work. Unusable images but they are downloadable and show the sample of work.
Erin Ballantyne Granzow no, the images I got on Unsplash (460 images) are all high res and downloadable. That’s the reason why they get viewed and used so much. Because it’s convenient. In return it creates a ton of backlink to my portfolio (my website), there’s currently 7021 link on the web that direct to my portfolio. Sometimes it’s an image being used for an article (for example on Fast Company) or an image used to illustrate a Facebook post, or a Medium blog post etc… I’ve got images used in books, music albums, brochures, annual reports etc… Most of them mention my full name and sometimes my website. Of course I don’t directly make money out of this, but it help me build a long lasting visibility.
Right on. I also publish some of my images on Unsplash. They are all high res, in different niches. I am getting a bit of a leg up in exposure. I started uploading there in 2025 and continue to do so.
That long lasting visibility of a photographer who gives away free images.
Tarron Bell the fun thing is that clients don’t care, a client want me to do good work and provide quality images in short deadlines with a competitive price, they want me to provide added value to their brand/business and that’s what I do.
fuck no!
Tiens Pigeon Gratuit, tu le connaissais celui la?
Interesting idea. Good for you having been able to get to market and differentiate your work in an off-mainstream way. If the approach produces tangible results (add your targets here…)there must be some truth to it no matter how much economic theorizing may claim otherwise. Many complex phenomena of network economics flesh out their nature only if one experiments with them open mindedly or even with some hypothesis.
Great article and perspective Samuel. I’ve gotten a few images from Unsplash myself, and have considered uploading there as well. After reading your article I’m going to give it a try.
Put a low res shot on unsplash and if someone wants a high res version charge them a small fee. You would most likely make more money that way vs putting the shot on one of the paid stock photography sites.
Also if you can have a consistent feed brands might contact you to do contract work for them.
Many of my design clients have zero budget for stock photography. Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay and similar websites have been an amazing tool for finding great imagery. I think I’ve actually used Samuel’s photos in quite a few things. As a photographer, I don’t see an issue with giving out a handful of photos for free in return for the exposure. Its free marketing. You aren’t going to sell every photo you take. Might as well put some of them to good use and help out other creatives with their projects.
It is nice for those who are lucky enough to get assignments through this, but I have to say I agree with Benjamin Jaworskyj, I don’t like where this is going. Photography is already being under-valued by most people, by providing them with thousands and thousands of free high quality images you’re not doing it any favours. Companies and people will always need photography for all sorts of reasons, but by making them used to high quality photographs being free I believe they will not be prepared to pay the amount those custom images are worth.
It seems like photographers are determined to ruin their own industry. I do agree Instagram has become a lost cause, but surely there must be other ways out there to get a name for yourself without giving away quality work. I get the idea, and am convinced myself of the advantages of freebies but there’s a time and place for them and I I think this is a step too far. Even though I am working hard on getting a spot for myself out there, I am not planning on joining this network. I understand it is good for companies looking for images, and it’s popular, but I’d rather keep my images (which I have put a lot of time and effort in) for myself to enjoy than to hand them out like as if they’re worth nothing to me.
At least Ello suggests paying for work through the possibilities of putting Collaborate, Hire me, and Sell Image buttons on your profile. They show that good work is worth paying for, and that that is normal, and that is the direction we need to go in. Not more free photo spam in an already overcrowded industry.
I do love what Ello is doing as well and that’s why I also wrote an article on them. I didn’t put much time and effort in the images I have on Unsplash, because they’re mostly images that I shot during travels (for clients or for myself). I put more efforts into doing exhibitions or my last book, or when I work for a client. Unsplash is doing a good thing for photography, it made a ton of companies realize that generic stock photography isn’t “quality”, that instead they choose images that have a soul. That’s why you now have stock photography websites like Offset and Stocksy that “curate” proper imagery. What we all did as photographers in the last years was to put too much importance on growing a following, that turned a ton of clients into hiring “instagrammers” instead of real photographers. But fear not, there is always a need for pros and there will always be.
This very naive approach to his photography business means he won’t be in business for very long. Wake up kid, you’re not here to be part of the sharing economy! You’ll need money to survive and create new work…oh and to live too. Each free high-res image you post is another nail in the coffin of the photography industry and you are willingly going along with it just for a little attention.
Fun thing is, I’m still in the business. Currently working on a travel guide for Monocle. I’m still selling prints. Finishing my first book (editor from London, 3000 copies). Preparing a third solo exhibition. I get money from clients, what I do with my personal images is my choice. The photography industry is perfectly fine, it’s just that there’s more amateurs than ever because everyone can buy a good camera.
Everyone is holding on their photos like gold in a chest. Wake up. Everyone has a d5200 or a 700d or a A6000 and create beautiful photos. Not higher end but above average. By keeping your photos in a hard drive they have no value. You will never get paid for them and the value of a photo is already piss poor. Stock photography is dirt. This site is only to build up exposure and your local client will be able to see that you have for instance 200k followers and ppl love you.
Thanks. I just discovered Unsplash today and I am about to launch a print shop on my website. Or maybe a very competitive company for YellowKorner idk yet… No need to say that I won’t credit any of the photographers, I might even credit myself as the photographer.
Apparently @samuelzeller at unsplash.com no more….
Apparently no @samuelzeller at unsplash.com no more….