I usually take August off. Running online businesses means you never really step away from your work; there’s always an email to answer, a notification to check, a comment to reply to or an Instagram feed to scroll. But this year the pandemic lockdown seems to have merged all the months into one incredibly long month spent at home and August has come and gone without a break. Is it actually August? It feels like last October and next April all rolled into one.
So I have spent this August launching two new things and being sucked into an incredibly unhealthy debate online.
Thing one: The Edge Online Gallery
This is a thing of joy. For a long, long time I’ve been wanting to do something where I can feature and promote the work of other photographers. I think artists become less the more time they we spend in our own bubble – we need to constantly experience other people’s worldviews and creative output in order to grow and find our own way.
I always thought my thing would be a podcast. That’s what photographers do; they interview other photographers in long-form audio. But using audio to promote photography doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. And the world really doesn’t need another photography podcast. (If you want a good photography podcast try Margaret Soraya’s Quiet Landscapes or Matt Payne’s f-Stop, Collaborate and Listen.) I have been trying to work out what the visual equivalent of a podcast is and this is what I’ve come up with: an online gallery with regularly changing visiting photographers. The first two photographers I approached agreed immediately and our first exhibition will be ready at the end of September.
If you want to be notified when the gallery launches (it will be free to view) join my once-a-month email newsletter here. You’ll get one email at the end of each month; nothing more, nothing less (this is a different email to the AYWMC monthly email):
Thing two: Emma Davies Photo School
I have a particular way of teaching photography online that appeals greatly to a particular type of person. I teach step-by-step and my lessons are very practical (even for the ideas people claim you can’t teach like composition and mindful photography). I don’t go in for airy-fairy concepts and vague instructions. But I don’t do a lot of hand-holding either. If you want to do the work I will give everything you need.
I have noticed that people often download online classes and then never open them. With a Master’s degree in education I know that you are more likely to actually do a class if you are doing it alongside someone else. So the community discussion part of my online classes has been critical to their success.
The pandemic brought many hardships but it also brought the spotlight to online community building. Circle.so launched in August 2020 and has grown exponentially ever since. It is a community platform that has the immediacy of Facebook groups, the design of Squarespace and the logic of Slack. It just does everything right; both for the community owner and for community members.
I have spent this year migrating my courses from where they started on the Thinkific platform (with no integral community space) to their new home in the all-in-one course platform and community platform hosted by Circle. Click here to visit the brand new site EmmaDaviesPhotoSchool.com.
For the time being you still need to sign up via Thinkific but once Circle has rolled out it’s options to pay in multiple currencies it will be a one-click sign up experience. If you’re reading this in September join in with Composition: Beyond the Basics which has a recommended start date of 13 September.
The rant: NFTs
Photoland on Twitter and Instagram has had a bee in its bonnet recently about NFTs. Those who love them are defending them to the death. Those who hate them are not going down quietly. It’s a niche corner of the industry and here’s a quick summary in case you’ve missed what it’s all about.
The background
Non fungible tokens are a cryptocurrency-backed thing that photographers use to make money. I say “thing” because it’s not easy to describe what they actually are (and I used to be a capital markets lawyer in the City and describing stuff like this was literally my job). And I say “make money” instead of “sell photographs” because the buyer doesn’t actually get a photograph. The buyer gets ownership of the digital file behind the photograph. But the photographer keeps the copyright and can continue to display and control the licensing of the photograph.
What does the buyer get if they don’t get a photograph? It seems to me they get the hope that the price of the NFT will keep rising because the photographer will keep tweeting about how everyone is missing out unless they BUY NOW. They can then sell their NFT in a rising market like the proverbial hot potato.
In an attempt to demonstrate how NFTs aren’t really about the photography, they are mostly about getting in on a bubble before it bursts, large-format photographer Ben Horne is offering his original 8x10 transparencies in the same vein and for prices similar to some NFTs. Photographers never sell their negatives. This is a startling offer. They remain unsold not because his photography is inferior but because there is no secondary market. It’s all about the money.
Technically NFTs are part of a cryptocurrency’s blockchain. They are unique; “non-fungible” means you can’t exchange one for another like you can with a pound coin. You can use any pound coin to pay for your pint of milk; they are “fungible” or completely interchangeable. NFTs cannot be swapped around like that; they are “non-fungible”. It is this feature that makes them attractive to photographers selling unique digital files (or “photographs” as we used to call them).
In my opinion the NFT platforms have more in common with a securities exchange than with a photography marketplace; the constantly rising prices mean people buy in the hope of selling later (or immediately) at a higher price. (This does have something in common with collectors of limited edition traditional photography in that some people buy traditional prints purely because they think the photographer will become more popular and a cheaper early edition will rise in price dramatically as the edition sells out.)
There is also a lot of exclusivity involved; the main photography NFT marketplace (Foundation) is invitation-only and the only legitimate way to get an account is to be invited by a member who has sold an NFT. Amongst a certain set of photographers being able to say you are minting NFTs on Foundation is a sign you have made it; much like getting a Clubhouse or (back in the day) a Pinterest invitation.
The rant
So far so 21st century. But: the carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies is ridiculous. It has been calculated that one NFT sale is currently the equivalent of 44 short-haul flights. Read more here. And this is my rant: you cannot, in my opinion, claim to be a photographer that loves the environment on the one hand and mint NFTs on the other. And yet many landscape photographers are doing exactly that. I’m not going to name and shame but some much-loved photographers in this industry who have previously championed the “leave no trace” ethos and built a following around their environmental credentials have now sold out at the first hint of missing out on a $250,000 sale.
Do the NFT thing if you want to but you immediately lose your environmental credentials. Greenwashing won’t help. You can say you donate 10% of your proceeds to carbon offset or environmental charities but that’s like saying it’s OK for you to litter on this beach because you picked up litter on this other beach.
This may change in the future. Some NFT exchanges are trying to be carbon neutral by powering their servers from renewable energy. Others are talking about switching to a lower energy “proof of stake” model. If you want to mint NFTs then research these options. We’re in a climate emergency and I don’t think it’s acceptable any more just to claim you don’t know what your carbon footprint is.