Declining the rewards is the minimum I’d say, but it generally doesn’t happen. Many probably don’t know how to do it, or even that it can be done.
I used pixabay myself in the past, and I think rare use of it is ok, but I am very reluctant to do it now. I have a post on Thursday for which I needed a beautiful woman image, but I don’t want to use pixabay, no worries, I contacted one of my good friends on Hive who sent me an image to use, one of herself, that she took herself, and that’s what I’m using - with credit clearly written of course. I’d rather do that than go to pixabay.
I know for a while they were starting a repository of free use photos here on Hive. I am not sure what ever happened with that though. My dad used to go to model shoots when he was younger. I think he ended up stopping because my mom didn't like it too much :). I've thought about getting some of his photos to use on various posts. He has a pretty extensive catalog of all kinds of photos.
I heard about that photo repository, not sure it went anywhere. I went straight to the source on WhatsApp though.
Those photos you have might make for a good post or two.
Yeah, I will have to talk to him about it again sometime.