Jump to content

Unsplash

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by StevenGarrity (talk | contribs) at 19:04, 9 February 2017 (Fix typo in domain name). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Unsplash
File:Unsplash logo.jpg
HeadquartersMontreal, Quebec
Founder(s)
  • Mikael Cho
  • Luke Chesser
  • Stephanie Liverani
  • Angus Woodman
URLunsplash.com
Content license
Creative Commons zero

Unsplash is a website dedicated to sharing copyright-free photography under the Creative Commons zero license. The website boasts 25,000 contributing photographers and generates an estimated 1 billion photo impressions per month.[1] Unsplash has been cited as one of the world’s leading photography websites by Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, CNET, Medium and The Next Web.[2][3][4][5][6]

Unsplash allows photographers to upload photos to its website, which are then curated by a team of photo editors. The lack of copyright restrictions on its photos has lead to Unsplash becoming one of the largest photography suppliers on the internet,[7] with its members’ photos frequently appearing on articles on The New York Times, Medium, Forbes, Quartz, and the Huffington Post.[8][9][10][11][12]

Other uses for Unsplash art include album art, advertisements, and product art for companies including Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.[13][14][15][16][17]

History

One of the pioneers of the copyright-free photography model,[18] Unsplash was created in 2013 by Montreal-based entrepreneur Mikael Cho. While creating a new homepage for his company Crew, Cho was unable to find a suitable stock photo and hired a photographer instead.[19] Afterwards, Cho posted the outtakes from his company photoshoot on Tumblr, inviting people to use them as they saw fit.[20] Unsplash photos are covered by a Creative Commons zero license, which allows individuals to reuse and repurpose photos for their own projects.[21] Unsplash received more than 50,000 visits on its first day.[19]

While Cho supplied the first batch of Unsplash photos, the site is now sustained by community contributions from amateur and professional photographers. Due to the volume of photo submissions, the site employs an editorial team and “curators” picked from the Unsplash community, including Guy Kawasaki, Nas, Khoi Vinh, Amanda Hesser and Om Malik.[22]

License

Unsplash photos are covered by a Creative Commons zero license, which means viewers can "copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash.”[21]

The lack of attribution for Unsplash photos has been the subject of controversy among photography circles,[23] due to some companies using free Unsplash photography for profit without compensating the photographers. Unsplash itself has stated that it does not support the practice.[21]

Unsplash Book

In 2016, Unsplash released the Unsplash Book, the world’s “first ever fully crowdsourced” book.[24] The book’s photos, essays, and funding were all contributed by Unsplash's community.[25] The book raised $106,000 on Kickstarter and included contributions from Harvard law professor and CC0 inventor Lawrence Lessig, and designer Tobias van Schneider.[26]

Unsplash API

In addition to its website, Unsplash provides a public API that powers more than 140M photo requests per month.[27] Some of the products relying on the Unsplash API include Unsplash Instant, an extension for Google Chrome that loads Unsplash photos in new tabs, Unsplash for Apple TV, and Pablo by Buffer.[27]

Unsplash Local

Beyond its website and API, Unsplash hosts photo walks in cities around the world including Tokyo, Montreal, and Boston.[28][1] The photo walks are hosted by guides from the Unsplash community who show participants the best places to take photos in their city, how to use their cameras, and how to compose better photos.[29]

References

  1. ^ a b Unsplash. "History". Unsplash.com. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  2. ^ Laurinavicius, Tomas. "33 Epic Sites With Breathtaking Free Stock Photos". Forbes. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  3. ^ Ark, Casey. "14 Amazingly Free Stock Photo Websites". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 19 September 2016.
  4. ^ Martin, Taylor. "Use these 7 sites to keep your desktop wallpaper fresh". CNET. Retrieved 4 November 2016.
  5. ^ Senos, Dustin. "Stock photos that don't suck". Medium. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
  6. ^ Zee. "Unsplash is a site full of images you can freely use for your next startup's splash page". The Next Web. Retrieved 4 January 2017.
  7. ^ Czikk, Joseph. "Unsplash: We're the most viral photo site". Montreal in Technology. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  8. ^ Staff, WITW. "Fairygodboss offers women a site to review, rate companies' female policies". The New York TImes. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  9. ^ Cho, Mikael. "Unsplash and Medium go on a date". Twitter. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  10. ^ Aarons-Mele, Morra. "This Woman Quit In An Open Letter to Her CEO - Would You?". Forbes. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
  11. ^ Bala, Helena. "Craigslist confessional: 'It felt so shameful to tell anyone that my sister had died of an overdose'". Quartz.
  12. ^ Calvin, Nick. "My Dream Job Destroyed My Dream: An Unoriginal Statement About Education". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 20 December 2016.
  13. ^ Zeller, Samuel. "Why I Give Most of My Photos Away for Free, Even for Commercial Use". PetaPixel. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  14. ^ Briscoe, Jason. "Microsoft's Windows 10 design refresh revealed in leaked screenshots". Twitter. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  15. ^ Simcoe, Jonathan. "Workplace by Facbook". Designer News. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  16. ^ Williams, Owen. "Twitter wants you to stop posting Instagram links". Twitter. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  17. ^ Chesser, Luke. "Pinterest tweet". Twitter. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
  18. ^ Webb, Scott. "Free stock photography websites photographers must know ASAP". Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  19. ^ a b Cho, Mikael. "How side projects saved our startup". Quartz. Retrieved 6 January 2017.
  20. ^ Bourel, Fanny. "Mikael Cho : Une tenacité payante". Les Affaires. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
  21. ^ a b c Unsplash. "Unsplash License". Unsplash.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  22. ^ Unsplash. "Unsplash Collections". Unsplash.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  23. ^ Tyler. "Unethical Unsplash". A Funny Thing Happened. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  24. ^ Ifking, Emma. "The first fully crowd-sourced open book". IT Key Media. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  25. ^ Unsplash. "Unsplash Book". Unsplash.com. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
  26. ^ MacKay, Jory. "Want to be a published author?". Crew Blog. Retrieved 27 July 2016.
  27. ^ a b Unsplash. "Unsplash API". Unsplash.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  28. ^ TimeOut Toronto. "Unsplash Toronto Photo Walk". TimeOut. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  29. ^ Unsplash. "Unsplash Local". Unsplash.com. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Unsplash&oldid=764580589"