Not sure where else to put this, so here we go.
This is a Pinterest board that I’ve been keeping for years now. I am painfully aware that a lot of these photos do not link back to their sources properly, but (from what I’ve done & worked with) they are usually easy to trace back to somewhere – unless a site went down & never got archived with a web archive. Or it’s something like weibo.
My recommendation is to use reverse-image search not just through tineye/google, but also yandex and baidu. It’s the safest bet that you’ll find the proper source. I’m slowly working to have everything be linked to the source/ have the Photographers name, but it’s all done locally through TagStudio, because I genuinely hate Pinterest’s UI :")))
Still, it’s a side thing that I never stop working on since there’s a lot of things that you can use to build a visual library.
Now, I know the section names can be super confusing, so I’ve listed the explanations below.
Dictionary
- Ani – general animal references. Some bigger groups have shorthand eg. “carni” == carnivore, so that I can easily see the rest of the taxonomy easily. This one is the most unfinished, since I have to be very careful when adding animal photos & where to add them!
- Body – anything to do with humans. These are not always self-explanatory, so:
- Baby – children, obviously
- General – anything not too out of the ordinary; daily activities, no crazy perspectives, just a still image of anything you might see daily
- Pretty – this is reserved NOT for “pretty bodies”, but rather “pretty photos”!!! What would fit here is heavily edited, studio photos, color-corrected photos, etc.
- Elder – elderly folk
- Fat – no thin people allowed : P. Perhaps unsurprisingly (if you know a thing or two about anatomy), I also count “fat” muscular people here. I’m aware it’s not them being fat – rather, it’s the general body shape & not “just” fat study.
- Muscle – visible & especially exaggerated muscle. Sometimes it can be hard to connect the dots between anatomical drawings & real people, so hopefully this helps.
- Disabilities – folks with, well, visible disabilities. I feel like including this is very important, as sometimes people can gunk up something like “how does a person with a cane walk”
- Faces + portraits – self-explanatory. Anything with a focus on the head.
- Face - express – expressions. There’s a lot of children here, because their expressions are always very intense, exaggerated, and genuine! I try to avoid the posed photographs and would rather put in movie stills if anything. We don’t want cheap theatre – but genuine feelings, however subtle they might seem.
- Hairstyles – big focus on hair, duh. Aiming to have a lot of angles & perspectives in this one.
- Armref – big focus on arms and hands only.
- Legref – big focus on legs and feet only.
- Gesture – natural – genuine gesture drawings. If you can’t go out into the city to draw people (like me), this is the closest thing to that, kinda! And that’s the goal of this section
- Gesture – flow – focus on movement, flexibility, “flow” of the figure. Smooth curves of the body are here. Dance/ yoga is the easiest thing to place here.
- Gesture – weapon – a bit more staged! Movement with weapons. This includes things like archery, fencing, or even historical recreations.
- Gesture – sports – self-explanatory. Anything to do with sports that isn’t just the athletes kinda, y’know, standing around.
- Gesture – nat-flow – an offshoot of the “flow” section. This is still focused on the curves of the body, but in a less exaggerated way; basically things that an average person could do that isn’t static standing/ crouching/ sitting.
- Gesture – pin – pinups! Mostly just staged photo reference, like the original pinups of old.
- Gesture – standing – self-explanatory.
- Gesture – laying down – self-explanatory.
- Gesture – sit – self-explanatory.
- Gesture – perspective – body in extreme poses & perspectives. Trying to avoid simple 3/4 portraits or “person standing straight and looking slightly up and at the camera”. Instead, “person looking somewhere outside the photo” or “fisheye perspective” "or “super perspective” are much more fitting here.
- Cth – shorthand for clothes. Focus on outfits and fashion, but very generalized overall. These are , I think, pretty self-explanatory.
- Packaging – well, uh. Packaging of items. Looking for creative designs, basically!
- Prp – all props go here.
- Daily things – any modern, daily objects
- Antique – antiques. I count even casette players or radios here, since to some they do count as antiques now (unfortunately)
- Jewelry – self-explanatory.
- Instruments – self-explanatory
- Stillf – still lifes.
- Compo – more classical still life compositions. One of these ones that they’d put up at school.
- Ae – the “aesthetic” still life compositions. Think Instagrammer taking a photo of a pink cup next to an orange, with a bunch of filters on.
- Jesus – visual disasters
- Weap – weaponry sections.
- Fant – fantasy & not at all functional irl.
- Mod – modern weaponry.
- Fu – futuristic designs.
- Furnit – furniture of all kinds.
- Vehicle – older – non-modern vehicles. Some more odd or weird designs especially!
- Envi – everything environment.
- Sea – seaside. This is not limited to beaches only.
- Dry – anything with a more dry climate, not limited to deserts.
- Mtn – mountains.
- Lake – lakes.
- Forest – forest.
- Plain – plains, even smaller “plains” within forests would count.
- River – riverside, streams.
- Steppe – steppe.
- Humid – more humid environments, like rainforests or tropics.
- House – everything related to homes.
- Garden & surround – gardens, but also terraces and anything found around a house.
- Garden – outside – external gardens, not contained in a building.
- Outside – general – exterior of houses.
- Rooms – general – any and all rooms.
- R – shorthand for “room”
- Living – living room.
- Kitchen – kitchen.
- Bedroom – bedroom.
- Bathroom – bathroom.
I hope you can find it useful, and if you have a Pinterest, I’d gladly add you as a collaborator to help build the board!
EDIT: Hit shift+enter too fast. Whoops.