A couple of weeks ago, a blue and white suitcase arrived at my doorstep. I had a idea about what might be inside, having stumbled upon a trove of photos I had snapped over the last few months and stored in an Instagram folder. I wasn’t sure what was inside – more likely it was a color printer if I had taken some photos in greyscale. No one had asked to come over, so I assumed it belonged to one of my friends.

Turns out it was an adorable suitcase with mismatched straps, ribbed inside and out, and a slightly weathered outer shell. Inside were 18 or 20 snazzy color photos of my friends from high school or college, happy, excited, warm, and flaunting high-fashion fashion looks.

The photos came complete with captions – a heart and a smile – and I loved them all. It was beautiful and a great reminder of what high school and college were like.

But that wasn’t all. When I looked inside the cardboard box of boxes, I found 29 other photos. Many were of more or less the same people, but I noticed that there were only about five that were exclusively men, not even unrelated to one another. One was my very very close friend and his roommate, a ringer; another was a co-worker I never even met – oh right! I asked.

“He just happened to pop in.”

I also opened several additional boxes of photos, all labeled in different fonts. Tackling one by one, I sifted through the images with a knife and saw little secrets: There was a few of my brothers and dad, and what looked like many of my relatives all dressed up and ready to spend a time in high school. I tried to convince myself there was something else going on, but the first eight photos were just my father and me. Yes, the touching honeymoon at the start was my favorite, too.

One had a white trash-looking doll; several others were covered in other people’s bridal gowns, wedding photos, or bridesmaids’ dresses with strangely cartoon-like poses, until suddenly they turned into naked woman in sauna, a brothel with naked guys, and a horse statue. I felt so creepy at first, like I was looking at other people’s backsides, but that feeling soon went away when I got to the end and realized this all belonged to me.

Here are a few more places you may find free and/or inexpensive images that you are actually going to use:

Tinder – Their app has an auto-upload feature, so swipe through a whole bunch of photos of groups of people you might like without having to worry about submitting them yourself.

Facebook – This is always a good one, even though it’s currently not available in Mexico. You will not find any photos of squirrels, dogs, people with missing limbs, or of random navels. It’s mostly just people you know and a handful of photos of the same single-dimensional objects. The only rule is that the majority of the image must be of some kind of person – action, color, etc. – that you will like. To take advantage of the tool and upload a photo that doesn’t capture the object, click “edit,” then click “add new image.”

Pinterest – Not only is it a place to put up boards for your shopping/cooking/Halloween and love ideas, but Pinterest has a good visual search tool. For example, searching for “tequila” results in many photos of people holding tequila bottles.

Instagram – Don’t forget to share your photos on Instagram, too. It’s the quickest way to find your photos, and besides, everyone on Instagram will know you. And everybody likes seeing pictures of people with basically the same stuff and beige pants.

Facebook – I like to mention Facebook as a “publicly viewable website,” not because it’s really public, but because it’s never going to be as good as the private Instagram or Tumblr or Pinterest I’ve created.

Have you found any other great places to find free and affordable images online? Let me know! And if you want to share any photos of your own, be sure to tag me in them!

Featured image by Cptarrno / Shutterstock.com