Fetch a random Unsplash photo constrained by search term, collection, topic, or orientation for placeholder/header imagery
domain: unsplash.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Send a GET request to /photos/random with Client-ID authorization
Optionally filter using collections or topics (comma-separated public IDs) to narrow the randomization pool
Alternatively filter using query, plus optional username and orientation (landscape, portrait, squarish) parameters
Set the count parameter (default 1, max 30) if multiple random photos are needed in one call
Handle the response shape difference: without count the response is a single photo object, but supplying count (even count=1) always returns an array
Known gotchas
The collections/topics filters cannot be combined with query/username filters in the same request
Omitting count returns a single object while supplying it returns an array, which will break naive response parsing if not handled explicitly
content_filter defaults to 'low'; set it to 'high' for stricter safe-content filtering on endpoints that support it, but note some unsuitable content can still slip through
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