Reuploading My Photos to Unsplash

Sep 10, 2023

Image is a crucial element in content creation, regardless of the content form you create. Even a simple blog post requires an image to strengthen the story. Three websites I always rely on to supply my imagery needs for my blogs are Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay.

Especially for Unsplash. I have a little story about it. It is one of the startups whose story I followed since the initial stage. How Unsplash was started has inspired me a lot. In case you didn’t know, Unsplash was started as a Tumblr blog displaying 10 photos. Today, there have been millions of photos available on Unsplash, with thousands of contributors (including me 😎)

In addition to downloading photos to supply the imagery needs for my blogs, I also used Unsplash to share the decent photos I took. As a photography hobbyist, I needed a platform to share the photos I took with my digital camera. Instagram was great, but I needed a platform whereby people can download my photos in a larger dimension so they can use them on their creative projects.

I used to regularly upload photos to Unsplash between 2017 to 2022. I stopped uploading my photos to Unsplash started in October since it got acquired by Getty Images. I even decided to delete all the photos I have uploaded.

The stats of my photos were not bad prior the deletion. One of my photos has surpassed 25K downloads, with over 3M views.

The stats of my photos on Unsplash.

Why I deleted my photos?

I am a big fan of bootstrapped businesses. So, when Unsplash made an exit by selling it to Getty Images, I was upset and disappointed. I thought they betrayed the community and I couldn’t tolerate it.

Time went by and I kept downloading photos from Unsplash. Until one day, I started to think that I might a hypocrite. Triggered by the feeling, I finally decided reuploading my photos to Unsplash. After all, I think I need to thank Unsplash for supplying my imagery needs for my blogs this far.

Unlike before, I don’t expect anything from my photos this time. I don’t care about the stat anymore. I just want to contribute to the platform as a part of the community. Unsplash has given me much, so I think it’s fair to give it back.

By the way, you can check out my photos on Unsplash here.