My ever-evolving list of sites to find media for creative projects - stock and royalty-free photos, illustrations, vectors, videos, music, sound-effects, brushes, 3D models, and more. Let me know in the comments or <a href="/contact">contact</a> me if you know of something I should edit or add.

None of the links in this curated list are affiliate links, sponsored links, or advertisements, although advertisements may appear on this page.

<dl>

 <dt><a href="https://stock.adobe.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Adobe Stock</a></dt>
 <dd>Photos, Illustrations, Vectors, Videos, Audio, Templates, 3D, Free, Premium, Editorial. By subscription or with pre-paid credits.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.brusheezy.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Brusheezy</a></dt>
 <dd>Free Photoshop brushes &amp; PSDs.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.clipstill.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Clipstill</a></dt>
 <dd>Offers &quot;Cinemagraphs&quot; (still photos with animated elements). Some free, others availble with fee for commercial use without attribution, price depending on resolution. Pricing is shown on the download page for each Cinemagraph. Alternatively, you can purchase Lifetime Access to the site for a one-time fee.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.clipstock.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">ClipStock&reg;</a></dt>
 <dd>Exclusive stock video, music & SFX (content not found on any other platform). Content available in all formats from HD – 6K, with no licensing restrictions. One Price. No Up-Charges. Unlimited Downloads. Requires monthly or annual subscription. Features free trial.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://coverr.co/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Coverr</a></dt>
 <dd>Beautiful Free Stock Video Footage. Originally designed for video bacxkgrounds for use on websites, thus a lot of the videos are blurred for better contrast when text is on top.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://dareful.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Dareful</a></dt>
 <dd>100% free 4K video clips, categorized (Aerial, Autumn, Beach, Bokeh, Christmas, City, Cloud, Drone, Fireworks, Lake, Mountains, Nature, Ocean, Snow, Summer, Sunrise, Sunset, Time Lapse, Travel, Winter)</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://elements.envato.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Envato Elements</a></dt>
 <dd>Subscription based service for: Stock Video, Video Templates, Music, Sound Effects, Graphic Templates, Graphics, Presentation Templates, Photos, Fonts, Add-ons, Web Templates, CMS Templates, WordPress, 3D, eBooks &amp; Courses</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.filmsupply.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Filmsupply</a></dt>
 <dd>&quot;The global leader in cinematic footage licensing, representing filmmakers from Stink, PrettyBird, Anonymous Content, and more.&quot; Features per-clip pricing with rates that vary per purpose of use (internal, industrial, web/digital, extended).</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Getty Images</a></dt>
 <dd>High quality stock media (Creative, Editorial, Video and Music)</dd>

 <dt><a href=https://www.istockphoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">iStock by Getty Images&trade;</a></dt>
 <dd>Videos, photos, and illustrations. Requires one of multiple paid subscripton tiers or a paid credit pack.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.lifeofpix.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Life of pix</a></dt>
 <dd>Free high resolution photography</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.lifeofvids.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Life of vids</a></dt>
 <dd>Free videos, clips &amp; loops.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://mazwai.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Mazwai</a></dt>
 <dd>Free, high quality, cinematic style stock footage, that can be used in a wide-range of creative projects. Featured categories (Skyline, Timelapse, Drone, Beach, Nature, Slow Motion, Landscape, Clouds, Smoke, River, Water, Urban, City, Road, Sky, Sunset, People, Stars, Ocean, Dusk, Traffic, Lake)</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://mixkit.co/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">MixKit</a></dt>
 <dd>Free assets for your next video project. Awesome Stock Video Clips, Stock Music, Sound Effects & Video Templates (Premeire Pro, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve). All available for free!</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.pexels.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Pexels</a></dt>
 <dd>Free stock photos and videos, all free to use. Attribution not required. Giving credit to photographer or Pexels not necessary, but appreciated. You can modify the photos and videos.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://pixabay.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Pixabay</a></dt>
 <dd>Photos, illustrations, vectors, videos, and music. A vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images, videos and music. All contents aresafe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.pond5.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Pond5</a></dt>
 <dd>Incredible stock footage. Music for every project. Sound Effects that make an impact. After Effects templates. Images for every project. 3D Models to unlock creative possibilities. Requires paid subscription.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.rawpixel.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">rawpixel</a></dt>
 <dd>Free, premium, and public domain creative resources (royalty free images, mockups, vectors, templates, icons, illustrations, and more).</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.reshot.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Reshot</a></dt>
 <dd>Free Icons, Illustrations & Photos. &quot;Design freely with instant downloads and commercial licenses. No cost. No attribution. No worries.&quot;</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.restoredtraditions.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Restored Traditions</a></dt>
 <dd>High Resolution, Royalty Free Catholic Art Pictures. Features per-image pricing.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.shutterstock.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Shutterstock</a></dt>
 <dd>Images, photos, vectors, video, music, and current editorial (news, sports, entertainment) images. Requires one of multiple paid subscripton tiers or a paid &quot;on-demand&quot; credit pack.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://sourceshire.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">SourceShire</a></dt>
 <dd>&quot;Online resources for creatives that are designed to help you design, create, and grow your online business.&quot; This appears to be a database of sources for creative resources (stock photos, premium stock photos, inspiration, prototyping, UI-UX, mockups, illustrations, icons, fonts, website builders).</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.splitshire.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">SplitShire</a></dt>
 <dd>Free stock videos.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.vecteezy.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Vecteezy</a></dt>
 <dd>Free vector art, stock photos &amp; stock videos.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.videezy.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Videezy</a></dt>
 <dd>Free HD Stock Footage &amp; 4K videos.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.videvo.net/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Videvo</a></dt>
 <dd>Thousands of free stock videos, motion graphics, music tracks and sound effects all in one place. Some videos require attribution.</dd>

 <dt><a href="https://www.vidsplay.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Vidsplay</a></dt>
 <dd>&quot;All footage is completely FREE&quot;</dd>

</dl>

An ever-evolving list of sites to find media for creative projects - stock and royalty-free photos, illustrations, vectors, videos, music, sound-effects, brushes, 3D models, and more.

The Ultimate List of Creative and Stock Media Sources on the Web

While doing research for my book about the Vietnam War, I&#39;ve learned a lot about how to pinpoint locations on a map using coordinates found in declassified after-action reports and command chronologies. Coordinates from these old documents use the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS), so there&#39;s no way to just pull them straight up on a Google map. Here, I will share my procedure for converting an MGRS coordinate to a longitude and latitude coordinate that you can more easily find on Google Maps. You can use this technique to locate important historic sites like helicopter landing zones (LZs), fire bases, where certain battles took place, and the hallowed grounds where our beloved gave all.
<h2>Sources for Vietnam War Map Coordinates</h2>
We must begin, of course, with a source for a given MGRS coordinate from the Vietnam War. Following are a few of the better sources I&#39;ve found:
<ul>
<li><a title="The Coffelt Database of Vietnam War Casualties" href="http://www.coffeltdatabase.org/index.php" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">The Coffelt Database of Vietnam casualties</a> - an impressively comprehensive databse of servicemen and women who died as a result of service in Vietnam. Often, records are accompanied by one or two scanned casualty reports that often also specify a vicinity in MGRS.</li>
<li>Texas Tech University&#39;s <a title="Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive" href="https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive</a> - collects and preserves the documentary record of the Vietnam War and has an enourmous collection of historical documents like after-action reports and command chronologies. Here is an index of <a href="http://www.recordsofwar.com/vietnam/usmc/1stBn3rdMarines.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">documents from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines</a>, for example.</li>
<li><a title="Fire Support Base Locations" href="http://old.506infantry.org/firebaselocations.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Fire Support Base Locations</a> - a table of locations culled already from various historical documents</li>
</ul>
<h2>Convert MGRS to Latitude and Longitude</h2>
Let us use the table of <a title="Fire Support Base Locations" href="http://old.506infantry.org/firebaselocations.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Fire Support Base Locations</a> as our primary example.
Let us say that we&#39;d like to map out Leatherneck Square, which is demarkated by the four corners of Con Thien, Gio Lihn, Dong Ha, and Cam Lo.
The table of Fire Support Base Loactions lists Con Thien at the following loaction using the MGRS: <code class="m_inline-code">YD 113703</code>
We can use the <a title="MGRS / USNG to Latitude and Longitude calculator" href="https://legallandconverter.com/p50.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">MGRS / USNG to Latitude and Longitude calculator</a> (top of page), to convert the MGRS coordinate to a latitude and longitude coordinate with auto-generated links to various web maps, such as Google Maps.
The problem is that the MGRS coordinate, as written in the table, is not complete. If we enter it as-is and then press Calc, we get the following error:
<code>parsemgrs():&#39;YD113703&#39; : Missing Zone Number. Found &#39;Y&#39; instead. Error in input.</code>
Notice that is says, &quot;Missing Zone Number.&quot; So, we need to find out the higher level zone that YD is within and add it to the beginning of the coordinate. To do that, we can use the <a title="GISsurfer Map" href="https://mappingsupport.com/p2/gissurfer.php?center=14SQH05239974&amp;zoom=4&amp;basemap=USA_basemap" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">GISsurfer Map</a>.
Here, we find that <code>YD</code> is located within the higher level zone, <code>48Q</code>
<img src="https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/codyburleson.com/images/2021/06/yd-in-zone-48q.png" alt="" class="img-fluid">
For Con Thien, therefore, we need to add 48Q to the beginning. That will then give use the full MGRS coordinate: <code class="m_inline-code">48Q YD 113703</code>
We can now enter it into the <a title="MGRS / USNG to Latitude and Longitude calculator" href="https://legallandconverter.com/p50.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">MGRS / USNG to Latitude and Longitude calculator</a>.
<img src="https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/codyburleson.com/images/2021/06/mgrs-calculator.png" alt="" class="img-fluid">
After pressing the Calc button, we get a page like this...
<img src="https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/codyburleson.com/images/2021/06/mgrs-calc-results.png" alt="" class="img-fluid">
Here, we have links to maps, and all sorts of other useful data!
So, using this technique, we could lookup the MGRS coordinates for all three remaining points of Leatherneck Square:
<ul>
<li>Gio Lihn: <code class="m_inline-code">48Q YD 214738</code></li>
<li>Dong Ha: <code class="m_inline-code">48Q YD 245599</code></li>
<li>Cam Lo: <code class="m_inline-code">48Q YD 130593</code></li>
</ul>
<h2>Create Your Own Online Map</h2>
Did you know that you can create your own Google Map online to share? Go to <a title="Google My Maps" href="https://www.google.com/maps/about/mymaps/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Google My Maps</a>, enter the LAT/LONG given by the calculation, and Google will drop a pin! You can change the color, icon, and description of the pin and even add photos. Then you can name, save, and share the map! For example, here&#39;s a map I created that features Leatherneck Square as described in this article:
<a title="Cody Burleson&#39;s Vietnam War Locations Map" href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=117DzzAgZQrJydzIEL8FMQok5SUwJ7ylJ&amp;usp=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Cody Burleson&#39;s Vietnam War Locations Map</a>
Checkout this community curated map on Google My Maps called <a title="Vietnam WAR - FOR THE ONES WHO FOUGHT IT" href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1lHBPjHDrisWl5oGxwfoFkX9LdVc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Vietnam WAR - FOR THE ONES WHO FOUGHT IT</a>

How to pinpoint locations on a map using coordinates found in declassified after-action reports and command chronologies.

Finding the Vietnam War on Google Maps

<img class="img-fluid" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/1050/1*o6bPmQIVG4Q5R2YaSK-NHQ.jpeg"/> 
Photo by <a href="https://www.pexels.com/@aleksandr-nadyojin-2954845?utm_content=attributionCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pexels" target="_blank">Aleksandr Nadyojin</a> from <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/silver-tabby-cat-on-brown-wooden-log-4492142/?utm_content=attributionCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pexels" target="_blank">Pexels</a>

Think back as far as you can — all the way back to your very first memory. I bet it’s somewhat unusual, at least for a child.
According to science, our brains don’t keep what’s mundane. It keeps the stuff that’s peculiar and surprising. We tend to forget all the normal days and we remember what’s out of the ordinary.
So, I guess my life had been pretty mundane until the day Momma came out of the bedroom with a thirty-five caliber revolver in her hand.
The memory is <a id="rmm" class="jop-noMdConv"></a><a id="rmm" class="jop-noMdConv"></a><a id="rmm" class="jop-noMdConv"></a><a id="rmm" class="jop-noMdConv"></a><a id="rmm" class="jop-noMdConv"></a>in black and white, and a bit fuzzy. Kind of like the Saturday morning cartoons my sister and I were watching on a piece-of-shit TV. You know, the kind with a cathode ray tube and a UHF dial. Rabbit ear antenna with a flag of tin foil hanging off the bent side.
My legs are so small that my untied sneakers barely reach the edge of the couch cushion. I have to crawl over to plant them on the white linoleum floor. This must be the me with the bleach-blonde hair. The one that wore a plastic cap gun on his hip in the old photo. No shirt. Barely out of diapers.
“Momma,” my bigger sister exclaims. “What are you doing?”
Momma turns the cylinder on the revolver — checking the brass in each chamber.
“Nothing,” she says. “Stay inside.”
And then she walks out into the back yard. The screen door slams behind her. My sister looks at me quizzically — her eyes wide and blinking like Wile E. Coyote after an ACME TNT blast.
She jumps off the couch and darts after Momma into the back yard. I can hear the Road Runner BEEP BEEP as I crawl over the edge of the couch to follow.
Just outside in the dirt and the shade in the corner where the concrete of the back porch meets the house lies our momma cat. There’s a sticky wet mess of material hanging out of her tail end. It reminds me of the liver we used for catching catfish — the same stuff Momma batters like chicken and fries with onions. All slimy and bloody.
“What is that?” my sister asks.
“That’s her placenta,” Momma says. “It’s the sack that her babies were inside of. Inside of her tummy.”
“She’s eating it,” my sister says. “Is she alright?”
“I think so,” Momma says. “But the babies are premature. They won’t survive.”
I’d been so preoccupied by the momma-cat licking and chewing on the mess beneath her tail that I hadn’t yet noticed the tiny little creatures squirming around in it. They didn’t look like the kittens I’d hoped for. No furry hair. Not even wet hair. No hair at all. Big skin-coated bulbs on their tiny little heads where their eyes were forming.
“Momma,” my sister whispers, eyeing the pistol in her hand. “What are you going to do?”
“They’re dying,” she says. “I’ve got to put them out of their misery.”
“Are you going to shoot ’em, Momma?”
She looked at both of us and we could see the sorrow in her eyes. Then she just stared out a across the yard for a while. And then down at the pistol in her hand.
“Kids,” she said firmly. “Go back inside.”
***
I’d like to say that I sat on the couch and listened to that gun fire. Hands pressed against my ears — my tiny little shoulders jumping with each thundering crack. That would be a nice dramatic touch to the story, but it wouldn’t be true.
Truth is, I don’t remember hearing her shooting that gun and I can’t be sure she ever did. Perhaps she drowned those kittens. Maybe she buried them alive. But knowing Momma, she probably just sat there and shared the cruel silence with momma-cat as nature took its course.

A Memory of Mom, a .35 Pistol, and Litter of Kittens

Topic: Unclassified