I want to put together an ebook of 230 edible tropical fruits around the world, but I don't have the pictures to do so. Where do I get the pictures? I am 22 and I can't travel the whole world and photograph plants that I'll never be able to find I don't know what to do regarding google images, most of the images are copyrighted.
Thousands of free-licensed photos on wiki commons; work your way from here. You'll need to observe the conditions of the licenses, but that's not difficult (mostly, it's just saying who the photographer is, citing the source, and repeating the license type).
You have to write 230 requests to the authors for the permission to use the images. Better to start with Flickr, which has a convenient communication tools. Don't know much about other photo depositories. Some images can be used without licensing, though. Check these Wikipedia info pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_resources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_licenses
You don't need to ask permission with the wiki commons pics, they're free to use anyone, any time, without needing permission. All you need to do is follow the requirements of the license (shown on each image page). Here's all that's required: Durian, photo by AmonHeijne, CC-BY-SA license from Wiki Commons:
And, a way to knock off photographs of many species at once, is to visit botanical gardens and conservatories with significant collections of tropical food plants. In the US, I would start with the National Tropical Garden and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
