Art
International photo agency turns famous photos into NFTs
Magnum Photos offers the opportunity to become a legal owner of some of its historic photos with its new collection.
The world-renowned agency created by independent photographers, Magnum Photos, announced in the middle of this month that for the first time in its 75-year history it will launch its NFT collection today, June 28, 2022. The collection represents the agency’s first steps into the field of photography and signals a new horizon toward digital art while maintaining its essence.
Launched to celebrate Magnum’s 75th anniversary, it will consist of three selections of 75 images from the agency’s historic and growing archives. The first selection was established by Alejandro Cartagena, co-founder of Obscura, a community of artists, collectors and makers with a mission to empower people in the Web3 ecosystem, in which eight photographers were asked to produce exclusive NFT photographs.
This collection will be unveiled in the NFT marketplace Foundation, where for the first time in the history of the Web3 community, quality photos from the Magnum agency and several of the most acclaimed photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries, including artists such as Patrick Zachmann, Stuart Franklin, Olivia Arthur and Alec Soth, among others, who stand out for their particular use of artistic elements, will be available for the first time in the history of the Web3 community.
It is well known that the world of photography has been constantly changing and Magnum photographers have lived through seven decades of change, adapting to modern media to improve their work. The last few years have been no exception, with constant changes in the way we consume images and news, and the leap of more and more companies to a new digital asset such as NFTs.
Converting photos to NFTs creates authenticity of value on the Internet, allowing people to produce and sell their work online as they would in the real world. For buyers, these digital tokens provide the opportunity to own an original Internet artwork or photograph, rather than buying or downloading a copy. These artworks increase or decrease in value over time and present the opportunity to build online collections.
About Magnum Photos
In 1947, following the aftermath of the Second World War, four pioneering photographers founded a now legendary alliance. Combining an extraordinary range of individual styles into one powerful collaboration, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger and David Seymour started, over a celebratory bottle of champagne, the most important artists’ cooperative ever created: The Magnum Photos agency. Magnum represents some of the world’s most renowned photographers, maintaining its founding ideals and idiosyncratic mix of journalist, artist, and storyteller.
