Stock photos can be completely awkward, or awesome – it really depends on how you use them in your marketing. Obviously as a photographer, you should be taking your own photos, especially if the purpose is to showcase them on your own site. That goes without saying.

But there are many occasions where using stock photos and assets can come in handy. In this case we’ll focus on illustrations and vector graphics. Admittedly, Adobe Illustrator is not the weapon of choice for photographers. But, using illustrations and vectors in your marketing, web presence, or even in client projects can really help bring the whole thing to life.

Whether it’s picture frames, stars, light rays, or even vector characters – stock assets can really help. Let’s have a look at how to search stock photography websites and how to use stock assets in your projects – oh and avoid stock photography clichés at all costs.

If you want to skip to the fun part of searching and using stock assets right away, check out Depositphotos’s Flexible Plan.

Search For The Right Keywords

The very first step is to ensure that your search terms are accurate and reflect what you’re looking for. Ideally, using between 2 and 4 keywords in your search will yield the best results.

Make sure to try a few alternate searches as well as synonyms in order to uncover even more files. Stock photography websites have hundreds of thousands of images in their database – something is sure to fit your needs, you just have to find it. The search engine on Depositphotos is quite powerful too; simply searching for multiple keywords that describe what you’re looking for should return hundreds, if not thousands of results. Then it’s simply a matter of refining your search.

Inspiration

Trends come and go, but in the world of stock photography, what you want is to avoid the clichés. To do that, it helps to identify what some of the clichés are. Follow the latest visual trends on the Depositphotos blog to know what type of images will get the most attention from your target audience.

Here’s just a few examples of images you will find on Depositphotos – definitely not your stock photography clichés!

Depositphotos To The Rescue

Depositphotos is one of our favorite stock photo websites where we often download illustrations, graphics and assets for various Contrastly marketing materials and projects. Their Flexible Plan, at $29/mo is a no brainer.

They have over 50 million images available and your unused download credits roll over to the next month, so you’ll likely never run out of credits to download new assets.

Give it a try and check out Depositphotos!

This article was sponsored by Depositphotos via SyndicateAds.​