I went scavenging at Pixabay.com for images to use on this blog this month, October, and quickly became bored with orange pumpkins, cutout silhouettes of cats, and depictions of ugly crone witches.
So I found some images that are not unique or totally original, but that have a truth of season in them.
Foggy field. With orange, but not smothering. I cropped.
A bench in golden light. It captures the lonely, sadness that visits so many people in the fall.
Cat eyes. Black cats get such a bad rap.
A room that just calls out for a seance.
Another dark foggy path through wooded land.
Too much orange sky but adding an alpha channel, and cutting most of the sky, makes the church silhouette all the more ominous. 
Now please do not get me wrong, I loved making spooky Halloween cakes for my daughter’s class parties when she was little. And expected was good for seasonal Girl Scout crafts when I was a leader.
One of the plus sides of being done nesting, I do not like the word empty or the phrase empty nester, is that I can observe the seasons as I like. Art and photography for my blog is a great way to do it. And with high quality public domain images readily available at Pixabay.com I, and other bloggers, do not need to spend tons on images for sites that do not make much if any income, and neither do we have to settle for tacky or low resolution clip art to stay within the law. I am also uploading some images to the site for others to use. And the folks that run the site actually have found a few of my photos of high enough quality to accept for use on the site. I love cooperative, sharing economies.
I love the photos you picked! Friends don’t let friends use bad clip art!
LOL Kim. No friends do lot let friends use bad clip art.
Beautiful photos! I, too, love Pixabay. I visit and download a photo from there almost every single day. It’s my fave spot for my “good morning” photos for my blog’s Facebook page. And my go-to spot when my personal photos aren’t exactly right for a post.
Happy to see you spreading the word!
I take pics constantly, but there are so many times when I just don’t have the right image!
I never thought about eliminating the word empty in nesting! Love that concept….so true- nothing empty about it!
I was successful in raising my kid and she is out on her own. This is now my time and there is nothing empty about my nest, home, life, schedule. Glad you agree with my assertion.
I also hate the phrase empty nester…it feels like the nest was never full. And it was. Love your pictures, thank you for sharing them in such a beautiful way
I knew I wasn’t alone in my feelings about the “empty” nest! thanks!
These are good images without the spookiness crazy of October. That said I am looking for a witch’s cake mold. Any ideas from your scouting days?
I know about witch’s hat cakes, but not the whole witch.
I loved the photo in the woods!
Misty woods just seem so Tolkein-esque… love them.
Love the photos you choose! I like the feeling the photos give me, more than a symbol of the season.
I just get lost in the photo hunting process. So many great ways to find legit blog images these days.
Great photos and the mood they set. Halloween is great by the photos you included say so much more
Images can be so evocative and that is what I usually go for. I am so glad there are sites like this.
Great photos! I have to check out Pixabay because I’m so freaked out about using photos I didn’t take. I now take ridiculous photos just to make sure they’re mine!
I tend to find graphic designers on sites that I really like and use their stuff after I find out they really do produce tons of stuff and load unused items for old project for advertising.
I’m so glad to know about pixabay. I’m still new to adding graphics to my blog. So your post was a welcome help.
I used to use another service but got burned a few times so now I am really careful about images. I’m glad this helped!
I believe that photos should set a tone and that tone can be whatever you want and need it to be. Funny but I always seem to want my fall and my spring photos to be representative of my mood and to capture that change, growth, cyclical thing…. You may use any of my photos anytime you like if any fit your mood!
Yes, mood is conveyed so much more easily with pics than words! 1000 to 1 I’ve heard. 🙂 And thank you for the generous offer! I may take you up on it.
These are beautiful images. Thanks for the tip. I have not heard of this photo source before because I take my own pictures. I’ll have to share this info with others.
I too like to use my own images, but I’m just not that great of a photographer! Do share as it is a great source.