S5 E56: An Update On My NFT Photography Journey

Get the show’s transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] YD: Welcome to the Travel Media Lab podcast. I’m your host, Yulia Densiyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer, entrepreneur, community builder and firm believer that every one of us can go after the stories we've always wanted to tell with the right support, encouragement and structure. I’m on a mission to help women's storytellers everywhere break into and thrive in the travel media space.

If you're ready to ditch your fears to the side, grow your knowledge and confidence, and publish your travel stories, you're in the right place. Let's go.

[EPISODE]

[00:00:37] YD: Today on the podcast, I'm sharing with you an update on my journey into the metaverse and the world of NFTs. I've been in the space for about two months now, and I've learned a lot in this time. I thought I'd give you an update on how this journey is going for me. Now, I already promised you in the first NFT episode that this podcast is not going to turn into a podcast on NFTs. As I was reflecting on what I've learned in the space in the past couple of months, I realized that a lot of my learnings relate back to the time when I was first starting out as a travel photographer and writer.

In that sense, my hope is that with today's episode, it will be relevant to your own journey in the travel media space as well. All right. Let's begin today's episode on the update of my journey into the NFT space.

The first thing I want to discuss today is what I've learned about the ecosystem of the NFT photography and art universe. First of all, there are two major players in the space. There are more people that are participating in the space indirectly, but for the most part, there are two major players in the space. There are the collectors, people who collect the art, the photography, and there are the artists, people who supply the art and the photography.

Who are these people? Who are the collectors? Let's start with the collectors. For the most part, what I'm seeing so far is that there are two big groups of collectors out there. There are people who have been collecting art in the real life, which I will call for ease of discussion, web 2 right now. These people learned about web 3, the metaverse, and they brought in their interest of collecting art and supporting artists with them into the space. The second big group of collectors that I'm seeing is people who made money with crypto a couple of years ago, several years ago when Bitcoin was starting out, Bitcoin in ease. These people are sitting on quite big amounts of coin. These people are investing now their coin into NFTs in order to make a profit on their investment.

Sometimes it's not as clear cut, those two groups. Sometimes those two groups blend. People can have different motivations. These are two big ones. Maybe that's a better way to describe, but it's motivations of people, right? The first motivation is to support artists, photographers that they've already been doing in the web 2 world. The second motivation is to turn a profit on their investment by seeking out artists whose work is perhaps undervalued right now, or who are just in the beginning of their NFT journey with the idea that as these artists advance in the space, that their work will be worth more as well. That's collectors.

Then on the artist side, of course, this runs the gamut of people like me, who are two-months-old in the space, who are excited about the possibility of it and what it means for artists, it's photographers, it's visual artists, it's 3D artists. Just all kinds of different people who are creating things and putting them up for others to buy.

Now, this marketplace, the NFT marketplace, it follows the laws of economics supply and demand. Right now, what I'm seeing is that there is a lot more supply than there is demand. Meaning, that there is a lot more artists creating work and putting work out there than there are collectors who are able to purchase every single individual piece of work that gets out there. That is, of course, not good for us artists. Because it means that the marketplace is very crowded. There is more art than the market can support and it’s becoming hard. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's becoming quite hard to stand out, and we'll talk about this on today's episode.

There are a lot of incredible artists in the space. A lot, you guys. The amount of talent in the space is incredible. It makes sense, actually, because the people who are entering the space right now are people who are, to use a financial term, bullish on themselves. They're bullish on their work. They're bullish on themselves. They think that they have something special to offer to enter this space at the moment. Because NFT space is still not a mainstream. It's getting there and we're going to talk about it in a minute. It's still very early it. The people who are in it right now are the early, early adopters, who are bullish on themselves and their art.

That means that we are seeing just an incredible amount of talent. I see that every day, and is both a bit crazy, because it means that it's harder for me to stand out, but it also means, it's also inspiring, actually. I haven't looked at as much incredible art and photography in the last maybe several years as I've looked at in the past few months. That's really inspiring for me as an artist. Now, what I mentioned earlier about how this marketplace right now, in this marketplace, there is a lot more supply than demand, I'm hearing that it was very different last year.

If you are in the space in 2021, you had a good year in the NFT space. Right now, the situation has changed, because this is a very fast-moving space and things are changing very fast. 

Because of what I just described of the dynamics of the marketplace at the moment, what that means is that as artists who are entering the space, we actually have to collect other people's art, and we have to support other artists as well in order to make it work and to make the whole ecosystem sustainable. This was a big realization that I had several weeks ago when I realized that this is where we're going to get more of those collectors, or add more groups to the collector pool. Because again, right now, there's more artists than there are collectors. A lot of the artists are starting to collect pieces of other artists who work as well in order to make the whole ecosystem work. 

What it also means is that artists who are collecting work don't have as much available coin as do some of those bigger collectors that I talked about earlier that got rich on Bitcoin and Ethereum several years ago, which means that they are not able to support artists who have higher prices in the space, which also means that a lot of the people are lowering their prices, so that more of the artist-collectors can buy their work.

If you're someone who is considering joining the space right now, you have to realize that you probably need to start collecting NFTs, in addition to creating NFTs for sale. That's a really important thing for you to decide, I think, if that's something that you're ready to do or not. 

I've actually already collected two NFTs. I collected my second NFTs yesterday, actually. I haven't had a sale of my own work yet. Why am I doing this? I'm doing this, because it's an important part of participating in this community, because it signals to the NFT community that A, I'm serious about this space. And B, that I want to support the community in the long-term, which actually brings me to the next topic I want to discuss, which is my understanding and my learnings on what it takes to succeed in the NFT space right now, at the beginning of 2022.

[00:08:56] One of the biggest realizations I had recently is that, no matter who you were in the web 2 world, in the real life, let's say, you are going to have to start from scratch in the metaverse, in the web 3 world. I thought perhaps naively, that I would come in to this space as this established travel photographer and writer with all of these accolades and all of these things under my belt, and that it would just be enough for me to come in, create my NFTs, list them for sale on any of the available marketplaces, and the magic of the web 3 world would just do the rest. Okay. I was very, very, very wrong. I was very wrong.

I learned that I have to earn my spot, my place in the space. What it means is that you actually are going to need to commit a lot of time and a lot of effort to earning your spot in the space. It's not enough just to come in, mint your NFT, put it up for sale and relax and wait for the sale to come in. You're going to have to work for that sale a lot. Some of the people I see in the space who are successful are hosting spaces. These discussions, these audio discussion and on Twitter, they're hosting them, what it looks 24/7. Every single day in their own Twitter, they're hosting discussions, they're networking with people, they're building connections, they're supporting others in the space. They're not even so much promoting, or sharing their own work, but they're just showing up their on Twitter all the time, every single day. These are the people that I see being the most successful right now. 

What it takes to succeed in the space, at the moment, what I see is that there are three things. First, participating in those community discussions by showing up in Twitter spaces. It's not going to be enough to show up, let's say, once a week. Now, you're probably going to have to show your face on Twitter, or show your voice, I guess, on Twitter every single day. It's a huge commitment.

You're going to have to support others in the community by sharing their work, using your own platform on Twitter, by showcasing other people's work. Also, importantly, taking on a leadership role inside the community by either hosting these audio discussions, these spaces on Twitter yourself, or helping in the community in many other ways, like onboarding new people into the NFT space. Holding ask me anything discussions, profiling other people's work. There's many, many different ways in which you can help out the community.

This is actually one of the best ways for collectors to notice you. Because the marketplace is very saturated with artists at the moment, like I was discussing earlier, it is really hard for artists to get noticed by collectors. Sure, there are things like Twitter threads. From time to time, collectors post these threads on Twitter where they say, “Share your work with me and I will select one or two that I will buy.” Every collector so far that I've seen issue threads like that, they get overrun by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of submissions of work. Of course, they're not going to be able – again, because the marketplace is uneven, more supply than the demand, they will not be able to buy every single piece of art that is being shared with them in that Twitter thread. 

Unless artists are doing some combination of the steps above, so participating in Twitter discussions, showing up in spaces regularly, supporting others in the community by sharing their work, and taking some sort of a leadership role, unless you're doing any of these things, the collectors are probably not going to notice you.

One of the biggest reasons why doing these things will help collectors notice you is because some of the people in the space, like we're all in different journeys, or different stages of this journey in the NFT space. Some people have been in it for a couple of months, some people have been in it for six months, for a year. Some people have already built some of those connections. They have sold their works to collectors, collectors trust them.

As a newcomer in the space, when you're starting to get engaged with the community and again, showing up, or even leading your own discussions on Twitter, some of these people are going to come in and notice you and support you and get to know you, get to know your work. Then a lot of times, these OG, let's call them OG people in the space, they are the ones who then tell collectors that they know, “Hey, check out this newcomer's work. I think, you should collect them right now. I think their work is going to go a long way, so it's a good investment for you.” The more people like that you know, the better, the higher chance it is for you to eventually get linked to a collector, or several collectors who will be interested in your work, okay.

The other thing that I wanted to discuss is that this journey has exposed to me my own vulnerability. It's actually quite vulnerable to be an NFT artist right now. In a lot of ways, it feels like, it's the early days for me of becoming a travel journalist. I remember those days when I pitched and pitched and pitched and heard nothing back, and I questioned so much my worth, my work and whether or not I was on the right path. I thought already that I was quite far ahead on this journey of overcoming imposter syndrome and knowing finally, deeply in my bones that, yes, my work is good enough. Yes, I'm worth it. Yes, I'm on the right path.

Entering the NFT space has exposed some of those old fears that I used to have, where in the NFT space right now, I put my work out there and nobody bites and nobody bites and it's hard. It's hard, you guys. It's the same feeling that we get when we pitch those publications and we don't hear back. It's really hard.

What I'm doing right now is I keep reminding myself the same principles upon which this whole podcast and everything that we're doing with the Travel Media Lab is based upon. Showing up consistently, having perseverance and commitment to this path, and surrounding yourself with community of like-minded people that can support you through those darker moments.

The principles are not changing. It's the same principles. They're the same for any endeavor that you want to take on and succeed at. Whether you're trying to break into travel media and start getting published and start getting your work noticed there, or whether you're trying to get noticed in the NFT space and make your first sale there, it's the same principle. I have to keep reminding myself and hopefully, by sharing these thoughts with you, it will be a good reminder for you as well. Whatever journey you're on right now with your creative projects, hopefully this reminder will be useful and timely for you that we have to show up consistently. We have to start from scratch. We have to start somewhere. We have to have commitments to this path and perseverance through all the difficulties, and we have to have a community of people who can support us on the way.

[00:16:44] One of the things that happened to me recently is that I applied to another marketplace, or let's say, a platform that sells NFTs. It's an exclusive platform. Meaning, you have to apply to get selected. OpenSea, which is the largest marketplace of NFTs. You don't have to apply there. You can just create an account and start creating your NFTs. This platform called Sloika, it's exclusive. You have to file an application. I applied and I didn't get in. They just announced that they reviewed all the applications from this month. If you haven't been contacted, then feel free to apply again in the future.

I thought my application was great. I applied with a collection of photography that I thought was extremely strong and great, but I didn't get in. There is no feedback on why they didn't select my work. I thought it was great, and I see them profile and publish similar works to mine every single day on their platform. It was strange that I didn't hear from them. Like I said, I realized that it's a very similar feeling to the one we get when we pitch a publication and never, ever, ever hear back.

Guess what I'm going to do with this whole Sloika situation? I'm actually going to apply to them again in the next round, because they look at applications every single month. Perseverance, you guys. Showing up consistently. I'm going to keep applying to them every single month, until they take my work. Maybe there will be an update in six months where I can tell you that I finally got into Sloika. Let's hope.

This is my update. Two months in in this journey into NFTs. What I've also learned is that it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, you guys. Be ready to commit some serious time and resources to establishing yourself in the web 3 world. To be honest, now that I look back at it, I am just so surprised that I even thought anything otherwise, I'm surprised that I thought again, that I can come in as this established photographer and just hit the ground running. Because the truth is that everywhere we go, if it's a new thing that we're starting, no matter how established we are, unless you are, I don't know, Madonna maybe, or somebody, a celebrity, perhaps. A celebrity will be noticed anywhere they go.

For the rest of us, I think that if we're entering into a new space, we're going to have to start from scratch no matter how established, or how great we already are. That was a huge learning for me in the past couple of months. Even given what I've shared with you about the imbalance of supply and demand at the moment and the amount of effort it requires to get your work seen, here is my verdict. The verdict is in. I am still in the space, and I'm going to be in it. I'm going to stay in it, and I'm going to stay in it for the long run.

Here is why. I truly, truly believe in the long-term potential of the metaverse, of web 3 and of NFTs. Big brands, like Instagram, Instagram just announced at South by Southwest that they're going to enter NFT. Big brands like Instagram, like Coca-Cola, like McDonald's are already entering the space. When big brands are entering, you know that they see potential in it. They are going to onboard a whole lot of people into the space. A year from now, you will hear a lot more conversations around NFTs in the mainstream, everything basically. I mean, NFTs were already a topic of discussion at Super Bowl. Artists, like Madonna – I’m mentioning Madonna twice already on this podcast today. Madonna and Snoop Dogg, for example, are on it as well. 

As this marketplace becomes more and more mainstream, which I have no doubt that it will, the artists that are going to be in here early will benefit the most, will benefit the most, because by that point, we have already established ourselves in the space, right? We are doing the legwork of establishing ourselves right now. By the time the NFT space becomes mainstream, and a lot more people will enter it, we will be benefiting from it. 

I think, it's similar to what happened with Instagram in its early days. If you remember, a lot of the people who were on Instagram early, which by the way, I was not. I entered Instagram a couple of years late to where I should have entered it. The people who were there early and who were establishing themselves very early on, they really benefited from it. They grew their communities extremely. They were those first Instagrammers. They got they got a lot of benefit from it. The people who entered once Instagram became mainstream, they didn't benefit from it as much.

Yes, this is it for me. This is my update. I am very excited about being in the space. By the way, I'm also very excited about sharing my work in a new way. This is something that cannot be forgotten in this discussion. I am genuinely so excited about sharing my work in this very new way. I just launched, for example, a collection on OpenSea, the largest marketplace in the NFT world, that explores the relationship between movement and stillness.

I will link to it in the show notes, so you guys can check out that collection. I put a lot of work and a lot of thoughts and extreme care into curating that collection, creating a cohesive story with that collection. It made me think a lot about my work in general and about what I want to say with my work. As an artist, that is incredibly exciting to me. That's one more reason why I am excited about the NFT space and I will stay in it.

Here is my update and I hope again, it was useful to you. if you are considering entering the NFT space, don't be afraid to reach out to me. Ask me your questions. I am more than happy to help you onboard into the space and to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you so much.

[END OF EPISODE]

[00:23:25] YD: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast today. I hope you enjoyed my update on NFTs. If so, please consider leaving us a review, so that more listeners could find our show. I talk about this every single time and I can't stress how important it is for us to get reviews of the podcast. It really does help us to get in front of more people who might enjoy our show. If you liked something you heard today, or in any other episodes of our show, please consider leaving us your review. It is really one of the best ways you can support our podcast.

Thanks again, and I'll see you next week for a conversation with our very own community member, travel writer, Hannah Foster-Roe.

[END]