339 Million Views and Counting:
How One Photographer Turned a Full Hard Drive Into a Global Portfolio
Salt Lake City adventure photographer Alex Moliski uploaded a backlog of unused images to Pexels in March 2024. Less than a year later, his work has been viewed over 339 million times. His photos and clips are now being used in university courses, agency projects, and international campaigns, all from images that were previously sitting on old hard drives and SD cards.
If you're a working photographer with years of unseen work filed away, that number should make you pause.
For context, Pexels is one of the world's largest free visual libraries. Designers, agencies, brands, and marketers use it when they need imagery for websites, presentations, campaigns, and products. Over 530 million downloads a year. For photographers, it's not a replacement for your paid client pipeline. Think of it more like a global shop window for the work that's otherwise gathering dust.
"I realised the images weren't doing much good sitting on my computer," Alex says. "Maybe someone out there could actually use them."
How Pexels powers impact beyond views
View counts are abstract until someone reaches out. For Alex, the turning point is an email from a teacher in Vietnam who uses one of his landscape photos in a class presentation.
"All the time spent hiking to locations, waiting for the right light, editing, and uploading suddenly feels completely worth it."
More recently, a professor who teaches video editing tells Alex they use one of his clips as an example in their course. That's not a social media vanity metric. That's work being used in professional education, the kind of credibility you can't manufacture.
When your images show up in classrooms, in agency decks, in international projects, that becomes part of your professional story. It's portfolio reach that no amount of Instagram hashtags can replicate.
Giving photographers a global platform to showcase their work
Alex wasn't giving away commissioned work. He was clearing a backlog. Years of adventure photography from deep backcountry trips: hiking, camping, and backpacking into locations that take real commitment to reach. His hiking pack doubles as his camera bag, and the "accessories" are the things that get him there: a tent, a sleeping bag, and a tripod.
"If you want sharp images in the mountains, especially around sunrise, sunset, or at night, a tripod is non-negotiable."
He has tried the usual routes before Pexels. Instagram, print sales. But a handful of likes and zero print orders aren't exactly motivating. The images have value. They just don't have anywhere to go.
Joining Pexels' program of top contributors boosts motivation
Pexels Heroes is the platform's top contributor recognition program, awarded to photographers whose work consistently resonates with the global community. Alex is now a consistent presence on the US leaderboard.
"It was the first time I really felt like my work was resonating with people beyond my own circle."
He says it feels less like a milestone now and more like motivation to keep improving, keep exploring, and keep sharing the strongest work he can produce.
If you're sitting on a full hard drive, give an open platform like Pexels a go
Any working photographer knows this one: you're in a stunning location, the light is perfect, and you have to decide whether to capture it or simply be in it. Alex references a scene from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty where an adventure photographer lowers the camera instead of taking the shot. That moment stuck with him.
"Striking the balance between capturing the moment and actually living it is something I'm still learning. And something our world doesn't outright reward."
There's an irony in it too. You can spend years obsessing over capturing the perfect moment, only for those images to sit unseen on a hard drive. The question isn't just whether to take the shot. It's whether you're going to let anyone see it.
His editing soundtrack matches the pace of the outdoor work: piano versions of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, a rotation of The Decemberists, The Mountain Goats, Colter Wall, and Watchhouse. Quiet, atmospheric, and the kind of playlist that makes you sit up straighter and take your time with a grade.
That "maybe I'll sell these someday" can keep your work locked up for years. And in the meantime, there's a community of millions of people who could be using it, in classrooms, in campaigns, in projects that go out into the world with your name attached.
"The feeling of giving back and knowing that someone somewhere might use one of my photos has been far more meaningful than the idea of trying to sell it."
That doesn't mean you stop charging for your professional work. It means you give the work that's already made, the outtakes, the personal projects, the images from trips that never found a home, a chance to reach people and build your name in places you wouldn't otherwise be.
The best way to get a feel for Pexels is to have a look around. See the kind of photography that's on the platform. See if your work fits. Then do the thing Alex did. Let go of "someday" and share one.