API for retrieving photos from a location

Question

Hello everyone!
We currently have 1000 locations in the directory, but we don't currently have photos for the vast majority of them.

I was thinking about how to implement this and it occurred to me to call the Google API and get them from there to upload to S3 later. But I think this is copyright infringement.

Any idea on how to do it? Locations range from coffee shops to museums to parks.

Appreciate it :)

Scott Robinson · Accepted Answer

One idea would be to use Google's Programmable Search API to find images and filter on a permissive license, just like you would through their UI. This way you can find some that allow commercial use.

For some of the more popular locations, you could also try Wikipedia's API to grab their images (but Google Images would likely include these already).

Then I'd start checking other sites like Unsplash, Flickr, etc.

Alberto Gallego · Answer

Thank you Scott :)

Matthew Hall · Answer

I've tried doing this in the past with the Unsplash API and it didn't work too well. Was just focused on major cities and it ends up returning lots of the same photos.

Google has their Place Photos API that may be a good fit! Just requires attribution

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places/web-service/photos

Alberto Gallego · Answer

Thanks Matthew, I think I will use Google Places Photos API + attribution :)

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API for retrieving photos from a location

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