In the collectible market , photography has traveled an extremely difficult journey . First , it is considered too easy to be copied , requiring additional confidence measures to guarantee its scarcity of value ; second , its inherent combination with machines and technology makes it perceived as lacking in subjective creativity , which has been used in Been shut out of the art gates for a long time .
A collage in JPEG format , " Every Day : The First 5,000 Days , " which finally sold for $69.34 million in a digital-only online auction at Christie's in March , made a pseudonym American digital artists for Beeple are among the " three most valuable living artists , " behind only Jeff Koons and David Hockney .
This event has become the best symbol of the collectible market's march of the digital realm , and the New York Times statement is the most piercing : " This is by far the strongest indication that non-fungible tokens (NFTs ) have been involved in the art market signs " .
A sky-high figure has become the loudest volume announcing the arrival of the NFT era . NFT (Non-fungible Token ) literally translates as " non-fungible token " . NFT (Non-fungible Token ) literally translates as " non-fungible token " . As a branch of cryptocurrency , it uses the same blockchain technology as Bitcoin , Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies , that is , it makes the data secure , permanent and can not be changed , revoked and deleted .
We only need to go online and look at the major lots on the NFT auction platform to know : Photography understands their previous situation too much . Whether it's a GIF , a video , or a digital image created with computer software , they can be copied and downloaded by anyone on the Internet without restrictions . And what NFT solves is a concept that has been discussed for a long time in the photography collection market : replication .
Let's leave it aside and see how the early photographers struggled with copying . Edward Weston consciously printed only a small amount of green pepper No . 30 . Those are not only very valuable , but most of them have been divided and collected by major museums , but the price printed by his son Cole Weston is relatively low . In recent years , it often appears in various auctions , with the average price of each piece ranging from 3000 to 20000 dollars .
In the internet age, the problem of reproduction in photography has become even more of a headache. But the emergence of NFT allows scarcity or a sense of value to be generated in the moment when copying and pasting is as common as breathing. This scarcity is not achieved by preventing people from copying, screenshotting, and downloading online, but by using a technology that makes the data immutable, permanent, and open-sourced to attribute ownership of the work. In Beeple's words, "Anyone can take a picture of the Mona Lisa, but that doesn't mean you own the Mona Lisa". Take another example, the countless chairs in New York's Central Park, anyone can sit and rest, but just by looking at the bronze engraving on the back of the chair, people know who it belongs to.
Just as contemporary artists in various fields have adopted photography as a medium of expression, whether film or digital, with the evolution of camera technology, photography has become more and more flexible and adaptable: even if one foot is still stepping into the traditional art world , but its other foot has already stepped into the digital art world of the Internet.
Photography has the natural advantage of stepping into the NFT field in the digital world. As long as the works are "on-chain" on the NFT platform, photographers can expand new opportunities. Putting an image on the chain is the process of creating or minting it on the blockchain as an NFT token. In the past, when trading physical photography, galleries and auction houses had to present the work’s signature, edition number, and a certificate of collection.
In the digital space, these tasks will be undertaken by NFT. What photographers need to do is to fill in the number of editions, selling price or starting price of the work in the process of putting the work on the chain. NFT's smart contract will ensure that the subsequent transactions are carried out according to this.
Moreover, the more important guarantee provided by NFT is that photographers can benefit from the future sales of their works, as long as they fill in the royalty percentage of each resale.For example, we can link to the NFT of Beeple's work, we know that every time his work is traded, his crypto wallet will automatically receive a 10% royalty.
This is especially beneficial for commercial photographers in the future.Using NFT's smart contracts, they will automatically receive corresponding royalties whenever there is a resale of pictures.Of course, this is even more good news for photographer Yunyun who has not signed a gallery yet, because the essence of blockchain is to build trust in a decentralized environment, so anyone can use this open system Contact or buy their NFTs.
One important point, NFTs allow artists to create limited editions of digital works while still retaining copyright. For photographers, selling an NFT just sells the digital ownership of their work, and they still have the copyright to continue to use their work, including sales in brick-and-mortar galleries and other uses on the Internet. Furthermore, NFTs do not grant exclusive access to digital assets, which means that anyone online can continue to browse, copy and download works that have been sold.
A trend is in front of us: NFTs with natural collectible properties and easy trading are rapidly coming to us. While there aren’t many stories of successful photographers selling NFTs right now, we need to choose the right direction in the face of change. As a photographer, have you taken out your mobile hard drive to browse and give yourself a chance to make a fortune?