You could also use Alamofire\AlmofireImage for that task: https://github.com/Alamofire/AlamofireImage
The code should look something like that (Based on the first example on link above):
import AlamofireImage
Alamofire.request("http://i.imgur.com/w5rkSIj.jpg").responseImage { response in
if let catPicture = response.result.value {
print("image downloaded: \(image)")
}
}
While it is neat yet safe, you should consider if that worth the Pod overhead. If you are going to use more images and would like to add also filter and transiations I would consider using AlamofireImage