QP Learns Photography
I’ve always been captivated by photography, and I’m not sure where it started — being a brat kid combing through Nat Geos hoping to catch a forbidden breast but falling in love with the images along the way, or just the first time I saw the Windows XP background, maybe? Whatever the reason was, a well-shot landscape or portrait or wildlife or astrophotography or street photography or….whatever…. would always grab me and give me all kinds of indescribable feelings.
Even though I filmed punk shows* as a teen in the early-aughts and had that love of photography, I never felt the pull to pursue it further:
- It seemed gatekept in terms of how expensive gear is — especially to a teen
- My personality is pretty laid-back, and the idea of being in someone’s space or of being somewhere I shouldn’t be skeeved me out
- I’m just straight-up a little lazy.
All those reasons added up to keep me away from something I was super interested in.
*if you’ve ever happened across a 2001–2003 punk show filmed in Ottawa, that was probably me
But then work became more of an Important Thing To Do, and a failed marriage happened, and other hobbies came and went, and over time I’d basically forgotten I ever loved photography as much as I had. Thinking about it now it feels dumb to have let that slip away, but it’s all good, because then NFTs came into my life.
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Jumping into NFTs at first was a lesson in patience — learning how to use MetaMask, learning how to deal with some obnoxious people in discords, getting rugged a couple times, etc.— but over time in the space, even from a limited budget to start, I was able to find success to the point where I (with the help of my friend) bought a Doodle. From that point on NFTs became easier, whether it was from having more doors opened with one of the premier PFPs or just from being a smarter trader through experience, but regardless, it worked for a while.
Fortunately or unfortunately, my full-time job isn’t the most taxing, which meant I started doing NFTs basically as a full-time hobby, which completely wore me down after a little over a year and a half. So much of the PFP space is toxic, and awful, and full of bots and rug artists, and after spending as long in it as I did, I understand why “normies” talk down about NFTs. It’s not “WAGMI”, it’s Player vs. Player, and for every big win, there’s a big loss on the other side, and it’s ultra-depressing to think about (especially when you add the daily toxicity in.) I needed out.
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What triggered this for me was making the smallest of purchases, on the We Do A Little podcast NFT. For those who don’t know, it’s the podcast DeezeFi and Andy from Tessera host, and their pod guests are mostly artists along with other incredibly sharp minds in the space. I figured I’d spend the 0.04 or whatever it cost to mint their NFT, and even if I never listened to an episode, I’d get to see sharp minds chat shit in discord and I’d get to mint grail editions their guests create.
From there I started spending time lurking the discord, seeing people share the art they bought, and it was like being struck by lightning seeing people invigorated by the space and not worn down at all. I slammed some eddies and scrolled SuperRare and Foundation for what felt like two hours but was probably closer to six, and fell in love with everything. With a finite amount of ETH, I had to be mindful of what I could buy, so at first I focused on editions of art that I loved — profit be damned, it’s just cool to get art you love.
If you’re in the same boat, some alpha of sorts: twitter search “manifold.xyz” and sort by latest and scroll until you find something you like. It happens very quickly.
One of the things that jumped out at me in my edition search was how much incredible photography was available, for such accessible prices — both in editions and in some cases, 1/1s. It brought me right back to how I used to feel as a kid, and scrolling through twitter once I found a photo I liked was a goldmine —because the photography community is so supportive of each other, once you find one artist’s twitter their timeline will introduce you to 20 other artists, and the scrolling wormhole could honestly never stop. My bookmark folder is now full of the most beautiful images I could imagine, and I know that tomorrow when I click on twitter I’ll be amazed anew.
To NFT photographers: Having artists DM me to thank me for buying their work or to just ask how my day is even if I haven’t collected a piece…it’s just the feather in the cap. It’s so pure and wholesome, and exactly what I was looking for away from toxic degenerate garbage, so thank you to *every* one of you even if you never read this. I wish I had enough ETH to buy everyone’s work, but until then I’ll keep perusing and liking and RTing and hoping you launch an edition, and I’ll keep adding to my endless shopping list. It’s an unbelievably good feeling to be even a little adjacent to this community, and something I already treasure and am so thankful for even after just a few weeks.
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So that leads me up to today. You might be asking “why did you write so much about yourself, when this Medium is supposed to be about a project?” and you would be right to do so. Nobody reads the backstory on a recipe, so I wouldn’t blame anyone for skipping to the bottom here. If you did read it all, thank you! I don’t normally talk about myself in any detail past “kinda weird divorced guy who gets high and plays video games and likes NFTs” so it’s been very cleansing to write this.
The project that I’m launching — and to be clear this is not a project I’m aiming to make any ETH from, as you’ll see — is that I’m going to try and teach myself amateur photography, every day, for a year. All the beautiful work I’ve seen and purchased and pined over has made me finally decide to try and take better photos, and my goal is by day 365 to have one (1) photo worth selling on Foundation.
How this will work is every day I’ll take my one photo, and I’ll mint it for free on manifold to myself so it’s recorded on the blockchain forever, and I’ll try to improve one thing about what I’m doing, every day. I won’t be reaching out to anyone for feedback (because people should be paid for teaching + feedback,) but I’ll be using every resource available to me to try and learn — for example, did you know there’s a rule of thirds?? I bet 100% of you did, but I sure didn’t until today. I just like pretty things.
My reasons for doing this project are pretty basic
- The idea of recording this all on the blockchain is so appealing to me. A forever ledger of someone trying to find themselves every day? Weirdly very cool. The ability to have that provenance forever is what I love so much about blockchain tech, and one of the reasons why I love NFT photography.
- I love photography and wish I was 1/10000th as good at it as the people whose work I love
- Between divorce (to be fair it was a while ago at this point, but it screwed me up for two full years) and the pandemic and then not really needing to leave the house to work anymore, I’ve been in a massive rut and committing to leave the house every day for this project should hopefully reset my mental and put me back in a happier place. Regardless of whether I do this for one person or more than that, just doing it should get me back on the right path
So starting 12/10/22, that’s what I’m doing. Photos will mint in batches of seven, every Sunday except for the first photo (day 0) and the last photo (day 365) which I think deserve special places. Feel free to watch along with me (or don’t, that’s also ok!).
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For clearer understanding, none of these photos will ever be for *sale* except for the first one + the last one, for three reasons:
1) the last thing I want is for the artists who’ve thrown their lives at capturing incredible moments + scenes to feel like their work could ever be valued the same monetarily as some schlub’s photo. I recognize the grind of marketing yourself is not easy especially in a crowded space, and would absolutely do not want to diminish anyone’s life’s work with my little passion project.
2) I currently feel sort of like an interloper, having only been involved in staring at photography twitter + buying things for a VERY short amount of time. There are whole-ass communities and vibes and friendships built and established, and I don’t want to appear to shoehorn myself into anything (especially as someone who isn’t a photographer).
3) I don’t want anyone to think that I’m buying photography to boost myself in any way — the reason I went on about my life in this as much as I did is to try and make sure that doesn’t happen. The pieces I’ve purchased so far are jaw-dropping and I will be proud to get them on my walls at some point soon, and I’ve bought them exclusively because I love the work + the artist + also think that in 10 years those pieces will be incredibly valuable. I look forward to buying more over time :)
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TLDR:
⁃ photos rule. NFT photo community is the best community in the world and this has become clear in the ~3 weeks I’ve been around it.
⁃ teaching myself photography to cure depression/rekindle a passion, all recorded on the blockchain. Will mint 7 photos/wk, none for sale — except for the first photo and the last photo (both listed for .01 reserve on 12/10/23)
⁃ photos exclusively taken on iPhone until/unless I splurge on a drone and/or “real” camera
⁃ the reason to post this publicly is for accountability, and having friends share in this (hopeful?) joyous thing I want to do. I could easily just do this quietly, but it’s not as much fun and it’d be that much easier to let it slip.
⁃ my trepidation around making this project a Thing is that I don’t want to diminish anyone in the space. If you have ANY issue with ANY of this please reach out via twitter!
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Follow along on twitter @quickparty_ if you’re so inclined. xoxo