Affordable Stock Photo Resources Done Right

Today, we have something different up to share with you guys. We all know the struggle – go on Google, type in some search terms and add the words “royalty free” and “free stock photos” and what comes up is not what you are looking for or can cause you to close your internet browser right there and then because of… reasons, you know?

Fortunately, there’s a team of guys who understand your pain as much as we do and even more so because they are concept artists and illustrators themselves. With that being said, please allow the platform to the amazing team from Photobash. They’ve taken up the mantle of stock photo crusaders to bring you all high quality stock photos that are guaranteed to meet even the highest standards.

Please tell us what Photobash is all about

Photobash.org is a royalty-free reference photography database. We aim to provide themed sets of high resolution photos for professionals and hobbyists alike. Creative minds of all sorts: concept artists, matte painters, game designers, and illustrators.

What sparked the idea of Photobash that eventually became the awesome website

Finding affordable, high quality, royalty-free and large quantities of images based on specific themes: these are all issues we personally encounter while using photo references from resources like Google images and stock websites. We had the idea of creating our own visual archive, beginning with local museums and quickly expanding to beautiful landscapes across the globe.

At some point we decided that we wanted to establish a platform to cater to the creative community and not just ourselves. Some types of images just aren’t available or abundant on the web, so we shot and packaged them ourselves. Most recently, our Art Deco photo pack: containing rare, ornate interiors and designs from rather hard-to-access 1930’s buildings.

Where we can purchase these goodies?

All of our featured products can be found on our website http://www.photobash.org

Who are the founders of Photobash?

The original founders of Photobash.org are Jonas De Ro (Belgium) and Wojtek Fus (Poland). Both work professionally in the illustration and concept art fields, which helped a lot in understanding our customers and how to shoot and process our photos.

As our platform matured we branched out to other artists/photographer friends to help cover the subjects we wanted. Right now our team consists of 6 content creators and 1 coder Vitor Costa, who keeps our website functionality up to date as it continues to grow and change.

Please tell us a bit about yourselves and what you guys do.

We are focused on visually capturing locations from all over the world, each photo set covering a unique theme. Some of us travel very frequently, and some of us focus on studio shot subjects. We work well as a team because we live across separate continents, and individually because all members have freedom in choosing their own subjects in their preferred area.

Please tell us about how you put the photos to use in your own artworks.
(This does not have to be a detailed explanation, just a quick breakdown)

The origin of the website’s name ‘Photobash’ refers to a technique used in digital artworks. Photos are manipulated, distorted and composited in limitless manners in order to execute an image or concept. We also use photos for texturing and as a base for 3D modeling. With high resolution images we are able to use every little detail from the entire photo, not limiting ourselves to the main subjects of the image.

Many of our customers use photos for other purposes, some of which we didn’t even initially intend. Traditional painters, sculptors and comic book artists use photos for reference, or some people just like to print a nice image and put it up in their house.

Please tell us how you decide on what you want to put up next on Photobash

We eventually want to photograph everything in the world that is visually appealing. So far we have touched on main themes: nature environments, urban cityscapes, elements for character and prop designs as well as visual effects. In addition we are beginning to build industry popular categories like: Cyberpunk, Sci-Fi, Tech and Fantasy. We just look at the existing collection and ponder, what are we missing? We like to be consistent but varied in theme in order to keep things interesting for everyone.

Do you have any plans on expanding your products by touring to other countries and uploading images that you took there? South Africa is great and we’d love to take you up Lion’s Head and Table Mountain.

Yup, that’s what we do! In the past few months we’ve hopped through 4 continents, and we would also love to travel to South Africa. We’ve never been there and it would be a great addition to our collection. In an ideal world, we would love to see our website cover every subject an artist could possibly need photos of. Kind of like the Google of high-res reference photography. This is a huge task, but we are well on our way and we will keep adding to our collection in the years to come.

Have you been able to identify your images being used in major productions?

Ideally the original images we sell would not be too noticeable in the final execution of films, games or artworks in general. However we have noticed that from time to time we have purchases from major movie and game production companies, which motivates us to aim for higher and better quality images.

Stock Image theft is something we’ve seen numerous threads on and the products you have here are really affordable and we feel that it is great that you are releasing these packs. Would you agree with us in saying that this is a step in the right direction towards avoiding stock image theft?

With the accessibility that the internet and digital art age allows us, we know that people expect cheap, fast content. We are not overly protective of our images and copyrights because we want people to be as free creatively as possible in using our photos, in hopes that our honest pricing might encourage people to buy our products instead of pirating or stealing them. Nothing would make us happier than if we are able to inspire creativity with our content, and hopefully in the future people start seeing our website as a reliable and convenient image source for their work.

Are there any other platforms where we can stay up to date with the latest and greatest from Photobash?

The best way to stay in touch with the latest Photobash products is to join our mailing list. We try and come up with new content few times a month.

If you ever need a stock photo, rather than spending all your moola on one image, go through to Photobash, buy a whole stock pack for FAR cheaper than you would have paid for that single image.