Photos are a great way to enhance almost any website, and photos of people are especially compelling because everyone relates to them. Even if the "person" in your photo is a doll or obscured, people recognize human shapes and relate to them more positively than inanimate objects (although cookies are yummy).
But if you're going to fill your website with photos of people you need to do it well. First, you should follow the instructions given by Jacci (Desktop Publishing Guide at About.com) in her article How to Use Pictures of People. Be sure to learn the techinques for taking great web page photos. And if your people photos are portraits, study Liz's article Top 5 Tips for Better Portraits.
If you aren't going to take your own photos, you can use clip art of people (photos work better than cartoons, but cartoon people are still engaging). And there are many other places you can find free and inexpensive photos for your websites. My readers have shared some great places, too. Remember, just because an image is posted on the web does not mean it is okay to copy. Web images are copyrighted just like any other piece of content.
Image credits:
Boy: Image courtesy Getty Images By: Alistair Berg
Doll: Image courtesy: thera from StockXchng #620344
Obscured face: Image courtesy Gail Hoffman
Cookies: Image courtesy Digital Vision / Getty Images
All images copyright the above owners.