The Future of Photography-Based NFTs

Today, the woman in the famous 'Disaster Girl' meme has sold an NFT of the original viral photo for $473,000. Yes, you read that right, almost half a million dollars for a single online photo that anyone can copy, paste, or share. However, interestingly this is not the only photo that has fetched such a colossal amount at auction. Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5000 Days”, a simple composition of 5000 images sold for a staggering $69 million, a new world record for NFT sales.

Every day it seems like another piece of crazy digital art sells for an extortionate fee. At this point you are probably thinking why? Why would someone pay so much money for a simple photo, GIF or video? Well, welcome to the world of NFTs, otherwise known as "non-fungible tokens". NFTs allow you to create something that can’t be replicated and gives the buyer full ownership of an item. Think of it as a digital fingerprint or signature which certificates the authenticity of your item. In a nutshell, NFTs are virtual assets that are ‘minted’ on a blockchain and can be anything from art, music, games, to sports trading cards and collectibles. 

The reason that this technology has caused so much excitement is that NFTs effectively enable people to sell their art to consumers while guaranteeing its originality, scarcity, and authenticity. In the past, forgery and counterfeit art has been a huge problem in the industry and at the same time, there were not many ways for digital artists to monetise their work either. NFTs essentially address this issue for both digital and physical art in some cases. Adding to this, NFTs also have a feature that artists can enable which pays them a commission every time the same item is sold, meaning that if the artist's work massively appreciates in value, the artist will profit even more from it. Perhaps even more interestingly, while new and emerging artists are flooding into the market, so are consumers. Many people view NFTs as a ‘get rich quick scheme’ which has caused consumer interest and retail investment in the digital art industry to explode; artists who easily had their work stolen, exploited  and copied before are now suddenly earning twice the salary of a Goldman Sachs Analyst in under 5 minutes…

The huge influx of both money and attention has peaked the interests of other artists, musicians, and celebrities who are brainstorming innovative new ways to capitalise on this trend. While many people are prepared to pay for just a limited-edition release, unlockable content and premium VIP access offers linked to NFTs are becoming increasingly popular. This has caused the demand for NFTs on platforms like Rarible, Opensea and Nifty Gateway to soar in recent months. The pure outstripped demand for these assets and backing from established artists has meant that digital versions of obscure squiggly lines have sold for thousands of dollars, sometimes making creators millions within minutes. And following this, sales on the secondary market are making them even more money! So, if all these memes and digital art are selling for a fortune, why is no one seemingly interested in traditional photography related NFTs?

While there are of course many photos that have sold as NFTs including Kate Woodman’s digital image "Always Coca Cola" which sold for 11.888 ETH ($32,882), they seemingly do not compare to the overabundance of listed digital artworks. Additionally, most of the publicised photography NFTs sales have been inextricably linked to internet memes like ‘disaster girl’ or “Nyan Cat” (which sold for a staggering $590,000). It is common knowledge that the cryptocurrency community is strongly linked with meme culture, especially looking at the rise of the so-called ‘meme-coins’ like Dogecoin and SafeMoon. NFTs are indefensibly very much a part of the crypto community too as often cryptocurrencies are used to purchase them and the majority of NFTs are ‘minted’ (created) on the Ethereum blockchain. This begs the question, are NFTs just a fad, a trend that is piggybacking on the return of cryptocurrencies or do they actually have place in the future of art and photography? 

Well interestingly, NFTs are now at a turning point. There has been talk of a bubble for quite some time and the initial first wave of interest has come and gone. Average prices are down 70% across the entire market and interest among mainstream audiences is fading. Yet, many people are still investing in them with blind allegiance to celebrities or because they genuinely believe in the long-term potential of the technology. Right now, NFTs have a similar feel to Bitcoin in 2017 – most people lack an understanding of the full potential of this technology and how it might evolve. Take Bitcoin for instance, it was initially viewed as a currency, yet forward-thinking individuals (and governments for that matter) now consider it to be asset or a ‘store of value’ like gold or silver and a hedge against inflation. As a close cousin of Bitcoin, it seems almost predetermined for NFTs to follow this same path. Those who have bought and sold NFTs can see that their potential is not just limited to silly memes or digital collectables for that matter. In theory, anything can be tokenised on the blockchain: houses, cars, stocks, socks, the list can go on and on. If real estate was tokenised for example, there would be no need to pay a lawyer, agent, or anyone else for facilitating the sale of the house as ownership of that asset could be transferred in an instant. 

Aside from tokenising actual physical items on the blockchain, there are several other areas that NFTs could revolutionise. Online gaming is another massive area for NFTs. You may be surprised to read that as of January 2021, there are 2.81 billion gamers worldwide that spend an average of 8 hours each week in virtual worlds. It doesn’t take an expert to recognise the sheer potential and size of this market. You will notice that there are options to buy skins, camouflages, special unlocks and emblems on any popular mobile or console game. NFTs present a novel way to trade in-game assets with other players and even sell them outside of the game itself. In the future, this means that players will even be able to showcase in-game assets on the wall in their living room if they wanted to. With the rise of other new technologies like AR and VR, people are going to be spending an increasing amount of time in virtual worlds. Do you think that they would prefer to have a boring coin collection or an item they can interact and engage with in a dynamic virtual world? I know what I would rather have…

Due to the rapid pace of our evolving interactions, NFTs may have even more significant applications in our future lives. Just decades ago, we sent letters to communicate, then voice messages and now we speak to faces on a small screen. Is it unnatural to assume that the next stage will be to interact with each other in a virtual world? NFTs have been strongly linked to developments in AR and VR with companies like Ecomi finding ways to create licensed digital collectibles that people can interact with in real-world environments. Aside from collectibles, imagine visiting a virtual art gallery in the comfort of your own home. The possibility to view original works by yourself or with friends and having the whole gallery to yourself. There would likely be no waiting times, no travel costs, negligible running costs for the gallery and potentially even new and unparalleled experiences where the user can interact with the art itself. This is one example that shows how combining NFTs with other new and emerging technologies can unlock a whole new world of potential. 

Believe it or not, another area that NFTs could impact our daily lives is work. For instance, with the dawn of COVID people have felt isolated working from home, and many hide behind the mask of an 2D circle on video conferencing software. AR and VR may present new ways to increase employee engagement through placing people into a 3D world where they can interact with one another. Early studies have had extremely positive results and it is easy to see this becoming a reality over the next decade. If this is the case, people will be spending more time than ever in virtual worlds and this will naturally mean that they consume and purchase more digital assets. Prestigious companies wanting to maintain their reputation of having high end buildings and luxury office spaces could splurge thousands on securing NFTs of utopian virtual landscapes to host their meetings in. The same could projected for home life too. If AR and VR does begin to facilitate an increasing number of human interactions, who’s to say you wouldn’t want to hang up some NFTs on the wall of your virtual kitchen to show off to friends too?

These are all just a few examples of how NFTs could change our lives. Over the coming years as the market matures and key players solidify their market share, we are likely to see new and innovative applications of the technology in almost every industry. So, if this is the case then surely NFTs will play some part in the future of photography too, right? Well it is more complex than that. Photographs are already being made into NFTs as we speak, the issue is that this area seems to attract relatively less attention than other digital art. I spoke with Nick Crarer, an established travel photographer based in New Zealand who proclaims that “NFT platforms just aren't set up to promote photographers or their work yet. The views on my auction have been driven 100% via Instagram”. He also contested that “while some digital artists are clearly talented, there are thousands of opportunists who are making vast profits off basic shapes and squiggles while photographers spend thousands on camera equipment, different lenses, month-long courses, and even complex software”. 

It is not hard to see how frustrating this trend can be from the perspective of photographers like Nick. However, the sole purpose of an NFT is to provide the owner of the asset with clear and indisputable ownership of that item and to guarantee its authenticity. Logically, authenticity is a bigger problem in art where creators try to sell limited editions of their work. This practice is much less common in photography, where photos are often made into unlimited prints or sold as stock photos. Therefore, naturally photographers are at a bit of a disadvantage. This is obviously a touchy area as many would argue that photography is art, but the fact still stands that for whatever reason, you are more likely to sell ‘digital art’ than standard traditional photos on platforms like Nifty Gateway or Rarible.

Does that mean that NFTs are just for artists then? No! Absolutely not – it just means that photographers must be innovative and think outside the box. To capitalise on this trend, you should ask yourself one simple question, how I can add value for purchasers? Fundamentally as it stands, whether it is digital art or not, there are two reasons people buy NFTs in today’s market: as an investor, someone who believes the value will go up and as a fan, someone who genuinely likes the item, wants to support the content creators or thinks it will be a cool flex to friends. It is important to note that this seems to mirror consumer rationale for buying pieces of physical art.

In most cases, investors are interested in digital art due to its recent historical returns while fans are interested in purchasing an item because they like it, for the prestige of owning it or for the unlockable bonus content that comes with the item. Therefore, photographers should focus on adding value for the buyer in any way possible. That way, investors get value out of the purchase through the potential appreciation in value and fans will be delighted with the benefits of ownership. Therefore, for photographers to be successful in the NFT market, they must consider what they can offer these two different types of consumers. For investors, you need to show them that the value of this photo and its linked unlockable content will go up. For fans, you need to give them something that they can’t get without buying that NFT. So to add value for both of these types of purchaser, photographers should look including exclusive unlockable content, selling the rights of your photos (NFTs don’t give the buyer commercial rights), creating limited edition releases with a scarce quantity available, offering VIP access to events and so on. As the hype around single raw NFTs dies out, the new generation of successful releases will have some combination of these suggestions. 

CP Collectives are proud to announce that we have partnered with Opensea to release an exclusive range of NFTs with premium unlockable content - a first for the travel photography community. There will be 3 tiers of NFTs with different unlockable content ranging from unreleased bonus presets and Canon Photo account takeovers to a trip for 2 in The Maldives… If you are interested in find out more, you can check out the launch here: https://opensea.io/accounts/CPCollectives.

So do not sleep on what is a golden opportunity for photographers in the current NFT landscape. The industry is still in its infancy and although it will inevitably move away from just digital art and collectibles, there are a plethora of different opportunities in this space for photographers. The ones who find creative ways to and add value for investors and fans will be the ones that win in this new digital gold rush.