Recent data from Artprice suggests that the NFT photography market grew in 2021 to $200 million which is quite comparable to the size of the traditional fine art print photography market. In November 2021, Justin Aversano’s Twin Flames #49 sold for $3,781,159, becoming the fifth-most-expensive photograph of all time. Let’s look into the reasons why NFT photography is rapidly becoming an increasingly good investment.
Source: Justin Aversano
First, Millenials and Gen-Zers who are very acquainted with the digital world and spend a lot of their free time online are coming into money due to wealth transfer from Baby Boomers. Fine art photography is at the center of the confluence of technological immersion, wealth transfer, and crypto wealth generation, as the NFT photography market not only transforms but grows significantly.
An NFT collector Freddie, who earned over $25,000 by selling a photo earlier in 2022, believes that as society is becoming more digitized, we will be using our incomes to collect NFT art rather than physical art. The emergence of social media and smartphones has driven photography to become the dominant factor in the visual culture of our time. This has caused the dramatic rise in the traditional photography fine art market.
NFTs are the next big thing, and the influence on photography is huge. While traditional photography is highly reproducible and easily forgeable, NFT photo’s authenticity can be easily verified. Finally, this is a technology that puts the art of photography in the same playing field as traditional art and makes it unique.
As the traditional and crypto art markets converge, the value of NFT photos is poised to migrate toward high-quality artwork with clear provenance, circulation, and artistic merit. More photographers are coming to the NFT world, so collectors are more and more assessing artists on the conceptual, technical, and formal qualities of their work, the photographer’s significance and critical appeal in the contemporary landscape, and the price history of their work. The latter will be much more transparent to collectors. Because this is an emerging market, there will be highs and lows on the way, but early participants will likely be huge beneficiaries.
Here is the list of top 5 photograph focused NFT platforms to visit for an investment:
- Ephimera: a dedicated platform for buying and selling photography and video art NFTs with very high quality of work;
- Mintable: there’s quite a lot of photography here, compared with other marketplaces. ****Unfortunately, the quality is highly variable and the search function is of little use in narrowing things down;
- Known Origin: its search function actually enables you to find photography! ****The photography here often departs from the usual sunsets and landscapes seen elsewhere, with more “arty” images also available;
- Foundation: there’s tons of photography on Foundation, and thankfully it’s much easier to search for than on most other NFT marketplaces;
- Unique One Photo: a rare NFT marketplace dedicated solely to photography.
Sources:
https://decrypt.co/98029/whats-fueling-the-rise-of-nft-photography-collecting
https://decrypt.co/92463/justin-aversano-quantum-art-ethereum-nft-platform-7-5m
https://twitter.com/1centWhale
https://etherscan.io/tx/0x96182a199c91cf1b7bba84a6492d93be64121e879a5cf252a66ea1fb57c6b467
