When it comes to writing, inspiration can strike from anywhere: a word, a phrase, a quote, and so much more. Many writers are inspired to write using creative writing prompts from photos, using the image as a spark of a scene or character.
Finding high-quality images can be a struggle. While social media platforms like Instagram can give you a huge selection of photographers, it’s not easy to search for what you’re looking for.
Below you’ll find my favourite platforms for images and art to use when searching for inspiration.
Free creative writing photo prompts
For writers who like to be inspired by images, stock photo websites can be a wealth of inspiration. Whether you prefer to search for specific themes or just browsing, stock photos can give you anything from people to nature, buildings to jobs, settings to abstract ideas.
If you like to use images in addition to writing prompts, try my masterlist of writing prompts for short fiction.
Unsplash
Unsplash is a stock photo website with free images and paid images. While paid images in the Unsplash+ programme have watermarks, as long as you’re just looking for inspiration you can still use them to inspire your writing.
The website has a number of categories, as well as tags. The categories give you an idea of what Unsplash photographers focus on:
- 3D Renders (including wallpapers, abstract art, and more)
- Animals
- Architecture & Interiors
- Experimental
- Fashion & Beauty
- Film (as in analog photographs)
- Food & Drink
- Nature
- People
- Sports
- Travel
There’s also a category for Rising Stars, celebrating photographers aged 13 to 21 years old.
My favourite way to collect creative writing prompts from photos is Pinterest. I have multiple accounts dedicated to different genres I write in, with boards for different projects, character ideas, or aesthetics.
Many writers use Pinterest in a similar way. A board is like a photo album, which you can name with an aesthetic, genre, character name, project name, or more. Once you create a board, you can search for photos and then add them (‘pin’) to the board. You can also find more ideas for the board through your home page or the board itself.
When you first create an account, you’re asked to select categories you’re interested in, which will then populate your home feed. I recommend these categories for the best writing inspiration:
- Art
- Clothes
- Home decor
- Photography
- Quotes
- Travel
- Writing
These categories will give you the most variety while you build up your home feed with other interests, which are based on keywords you search for and what images you pin.
Pinterest acts like a search engine for images, so search for what kind of inspiration you’re looking for. Need inspiration for a horror story? Try searching ‘horror aesthetic’. Or need to describe a character? Search for ‘portrait photography’ or ‘person with curly hair’.
Once Upon a Picture
Once Upon a Picture is a passion project that shares images for writing inspiration. The website host provides questions to prompt your imagination further too, so they’re perfect for warming up.
Like Unsplash, the website features categories, known as collections, which are perfect for narrowing down what you’re looking for. The collections include:
- Characters
- Fiction
- Inference
- Non-fiction
- Prediction
- PSHE
- Thinking
ArtStation
Another of my favourite websites is ArtStation, where artists share illustrations, digital art, 3D animation, and more to build up their portfolio. It’s a great place for writers outside of looking for creative writing prompts from photos because book cover designers and illustrators also showcase their work.
The home page of ArtStation displays recent popular art to browse through, as well as a massive list of categories to choose from. Some of my favourite categories, or channels, include:
- Anatomy
- Book Illustration
- Character Design
- Creatures & Monsters
- Fantasy
- Horror
- Illustration
- Portraits
- Weapons
You can also search for keywords to narrow down results, but many of the artists don’t use keywords for their art. AI art is also allowed on the platform, but they can be filtered out when using the search function.
With an account, you can save images to albums to look at later.