PRO CASE STUDY

MARCO BOTTIGELLI

How I found scarcity in an overly photographed world thanks to the NFTs

Photography still occupies a small niche in the NFT market space. In situations such as this, you must decide whether to remain a spectator waiting for the interest to increase, or invest your time and resources on being a pioneer of a movement.

Thanks to the excess of free time resulting from the travel restrictions due to the pandemic, I decided to go for the latter. Overall, as a creator, I strongly believe a skill that should never be lacking is curiosity.

Despite a decade of experience as a professional in commercial travel photography, I found pleasure in sitting back and learning something new from scratch.

In the art market one of the main elements for defining the value of a work is scarcity, so the first paradigm I faced was how to make my photographs 'more unique'. I came up with the idea of going through a brand-new avenue; blending some of my favourite photos from recent years into surreal, evocative and intriguing composites, albeit with elements that are recognisable to an attentive audience.

Part of a travel photographer’s job is based on finding the best viewpoint over a landscape or a city based on elements from the real world. In the same way, the freedom of art (or rather cryptoart) has unleashed my imagination in finding new viewpoints over recognisable landscapes, in much the same way I search for a better imaginary viewpoint in the wideness of the Metaverse.

In May of this year my first series ‘Wanderlust’ was born – three works that project the observer through the subject on an iconic and dreamlike journey. Two of the three works met their collector in the first two weeks of their publication. Then, at the beginning of July I published my second series ‘Gondola Fairytales’, a two-piece epic tribute to the explorers, myth and legends from the history of Venice.