load_images.py

import os
import glob
import zipfile
from tqdm import tqdm
from sentence_transformers import util

# Download 25k images from Unsplash 
img_folder = 'photos/'
if not os.path.exists(img_folder) or len(os.listdir(img_folder)) == 0:
    os.makedirs(img_folder, exist_ok=True)
    
    photo_filename = 'unsplash-25k-photos.zip'
    if not os.path.exists(photo_filename):   #Download dataset if does not exist
        util.http_get('http://sbert.net/datasets/'+photo_filename, photo_filename)
        
    #Extract all images
    with zipfile.ZipFile(photo_filename, 'r') as zf:
        for member in tqdm(zf.infolist(), desc='Extracting'):
            zf.extract(member, img_folder)

# Load image paths
img_names = list(glob.glob('photos/*.jpg'))