Free Sky Pictures: 109 Sky and Cloud Backgrounds

Here are 109 free sky pictures from the BigFoto library: sunsets and sunrises, blue skies with white clouds, high cirrus and contrails, storm clouds, and a few rare shots of lightning, rainbows and the moon.

How to download: click a photo to see it large, then use Download. The originals are about 1200 × 800 pixels: right for blog posts, slides, social media, school projects and video call backgrounds.

Sunsets and sunrises

Red and orange skies at the end and the start of the day: the sun touching the horizon, glowing cloud layers and its reflection on a lake.

Blue evening sky with scattered clouds at sunset

Blue sky with white clouds

Fair-weather cumulus clouds on a deep blue sky. The classic sky background for slides, websites and video calls.

High clouds and contrails

Thin cirrus streaks, ripples of high cloud and aircraft contrails. Light and calm, good behind text.

Layers of white cloud over the countryside

Storm clouds and dramatic skies

Dark cloud banks, towering thunderclouds and rain moving in over the landscape.

Lightning, rainbows and the moon

The rarer shots: lightning over a lake, a full rainbow after the rain and the moon rising in the evening sky.

Why the sky looks the way it does

The blue of the sky comes from sunlight being scattered by the air: blue light scatters much more than red, so on a clear day the sky is a blue gradient, darkest overhead and lightest near the horizon.

At sunset and sunrise the light travels a long way through the atmosphere, most of the blue is scattered away and the reds and oranges remain. Dust, smoke and moisture in the air can make the colours stronger, which is why evening skies after a warm, hazy day are often the most dramatic.

Photographing the sky: UV filters

Ultraviolet filters, sometimes called sky filters, reduce the UV light found especially at high altitudes, where the atmosphere absorbs less of it. Too much UV can give a blue cast or a loss of detail over long distances. UV haze is not the same as haze from smog or other particles, which also absorb visible light and are not removed by a UV filter. Many photographers keep a UV filter on the lens anyway, as protection against dust, moisture, scratches and fingerprints.

More free photo collections

Questions about these sky photos

Can I use these sunset and sky pictures for free?

Yes, for personal and commercial projects. All we ask is a link back to BigFoto.com; the box at the top of the page has a credit link you can copy.

Which photos work best as a sky background?

Behind text, the high clouds and the plain blue skies with a few white clouds work best, because they are light and even. For a dramatic slide or a website header, use a sunset or a storm sky.