Reference Photos

[DarkOwnt]

Hello All:

I'm having a hard time finding really good untouched (i.e. natural) reference photos of nature, landscapes, trees, skies etc. Google's Images search reveals that the "ecosphere" of modern online digital photography is bloated with high contrast, over saturated, over processed digital art... (its hard to even call it photography anymore), which has dispensed with the wonder and nuanced beauty of the natural world and replaced it with fictional fantasy-scapes.... but alas I remain interested in nature as it is in all its glory and wonder and beauty. [Methinks the pop-photographers of today have done her up too much as a "makeup artist hack" might transform a naturally gorgeous and graceful beauty into a tart/whore (please excuse the French if the "w" word offends...).]

I'm looking for websites for enthusiasts of nature and natural photography of nature and reality as it is found.

If anyone has any sites to recommend for inspiration, exercises, and reference photos I would really like to hear about them!

Sincerely,
DO

[Rondo]

have a look inhere?:)

https://www.pinterest.com/cherrycrumble/untouched-nature/

[HannahRage]

The stock images section of DeviantART may help (and unlike Pinterest, doesn't have any copyright issues!) http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/resources/stockart/

[HannahRage]

The stock images section of DeviantART may help (and unlike Pinterest, doesn't have any copyright issues!) http://www.deviantart.com/browse/all/resources/stockart/

[Rondo]

had no idea about these issues;( and ye Deviantart is a good choice;)

[HannahRage]

had no idea about these issues;( and ye Deviantart is a good choice;)

Sadly, Pinterest is by default a 'grab image from anywhere without sourcing or permission' site. If there's a picture on Pinterest, the odds are very, very high that it's credited wrong, and/or not even supposed to be there. The creator almost definitely doesn't know about it. Plus! It directly competes in image searches with the original picture and freely gives people the right to repost 'anything on Pinterest' anywhere they like.

So it's just something to be aware of when you're using it for art, when copyright may actually matter.

*gets off soapbox* (I really dislike Pinterest!)

[Rondo]

thank you for this info and as i have printxxx in my links? i shall deleted pronto.

[Enug]

Here are some I use -

http://www.photos4artists.co.uk/

http://www.wetcanvas.com/ for members.

http://paintmyphoto.ning.com/ only real media artists can post but I emailed the owner of the site and he suggests contacting the photographers direct for permission to use their photos for digital work.

http://www.morguefile.com/

http://www.google.com/advanced_search if you scroll to the bottom you can filtre by usage rights.

http://pdphoto.org/index.php

http://animalphotos.info/a/