Very clean, attractive design. This might almost be worth an "Ask HN" but where does a guy starting a lean blog presence find useful attractive (free? cheap?)

Very clean, attractive design. This might almost be worth an "Ask HN" but where does a guy starting a lean blog presence find useful attractive (free? cheap?) images that are topical? You seem to have done really well on that: are they from the manufacturer? In either case: how do you determine (without long legal chase for just one image-use) willingness of original owner to have their product images used?