I’m also tired of seeing the same pictures being reused over and over. I particularly hate the one with a blonde woman in glasses holding a finger up to her lips in a silence gesture, which I’ve seen on at least 4 articles here in the last year.

Between Pexels, Unsplash, Flickr, and Creative Commons, there are plenty of other ones. Or as you suggested, people can also get creative and just take their own pics on a phone. It’s not hard to do with smart phone cameras being as good as they are.