What is the appropriate syntax for adding images in markdown?
I currently have it as  where the description is the image description and image url points to a google drive link with the appropriate sharing settings. HTML image links work however Markdown points to an empty frame.
Have you put the code into column with a Rich Text component? If it doesn’t work try to upload your image into hosting service and get the link, maybe google drive link doesn’t work.
Yes it’s in a rich text - the rest of the markdown works perfectly. The image as well is sharing fine, it works great with the image component. It’s just markdown interpreting the image that seems to be an issue.