Minting New Zealand

Kaleb Johnston is minting New Zealand and offering the world the opportunity to own a slice of what he sees.

Kaleb is one of a number of photographers going beyond the restricted viewership of Instagram that increasingly prefers Tik Tok style videos to beautiful photography, to show his work on NFT digital artwork marketplaces.

While many photographers might be speechless after receiving almost 6,000 likes for a photography post, Kaleb sees further into the future and sees the economic potential of photography as digital art.

At 20 years old, he likely sees it more clearly than photographers who see stock photography as only a slice of their creative income stream.

Kaleb has a different view, seeing his photographic work as digitally saleable in the form of a token. Each token includes the 1/1 photo that Kaleb has captured through his lens.

Before NFT's most photographers had to make do with posting their photos to social media and rely on a visually pleasing portfolio website to attract sales of their work.

...and while a photo of a drag racing car for the Nelson Drag Racing Association might fetch $20 New Zealand dollars, in the NFT marketplaces where Kaleb's work is curated, the price point shifts dramatically.

Photography Is Looking Up

The stars hold plenty of promise for photographers and that's where Kaleb discovered an opportunity from his pixelated place on the world map. Nelson is at the top of the South Island in New Zealand, just up the road from one of the world's best stargazing spots in the world according to the National Geographic.

So Kaleb began embarking on trips that have him staring upwards towards the centre of the universe and minting his discoveries to share with his pixel friendly fans around the world.

For the uninitiated, Kaleb's profile on the invite only Foundation marketplace might look a little confusing. Pricing of work is in ETH... meaning Ethereum. 1 Ethereum is worth around $4,500 NZD at time of writing.

...and those 818 followers? They're fellow artists, art collectors and investors that are likely to do more than simply double tap a like when they see Kaleb's work on their screens.

Stargazing Alone

His photos reveal what is getting increasingly difficult to see for the rest of us.

Our night skies. Astronomers have warned that Elon Musk's plans could pollute New Zealand's nightsky forever...making Kaleb's work potential one of historic significance as SpaceX satellites start to crowd the sky.

Kaleb reveals the supernatural for the northern hemisphere to revel in when they awake to their new day as New Zealand operates a few hours ahead making the timezone shift ideal to share his art.

The NFT Art Community

You can find the NFT art community encouraging each other along on Twitter with collectors looking on for opportunities to pick up work as soon as it drops.

The vibe is one of collaboration not competition.

Supernatural Delight

Supernatural Delight is a series of 50 images that will become available to purchase at Tuesday 10th August at 5pm PST (that's Wednesday 12pm for Kaleb and I who are both based in New Zealand).

The first 16 images will be released at 0.5eth each.

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MintFace surfaces great artists and artworks so you don't have to. We also run the Digital Artist Economy workshop helping artists deserving of digital prominence create their first digital art through the three week programme. Share it with an artist you'd like to see on an NFT marketplace.