The Me Llamo Art Podcast
The Me Llamo Art Podcast
Ep005 - Minting with Purpose with Michael Sidofsky
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Minting with Purpose with Michael Sidofsky
For someone who’s been in the NFT space for such a short amount of time, Michael Sidofsky (AKA Mindzeye) has assimilated seamlessly and found an astounding level of success. He joins us today to share his career journey, as well as his photographic process from location scouting to capturing and editing an image. He generously shares insight into his time-blended images and his philosophies around continuous escalation and repurposing past work. He opens up about the freedom NFTs have afforded him as an artist, and shares his views on rejection and criticism and his mindset when it comes to creativity and productivity.
Tune in to find out how the editing process acts as a form of meditation for him, how he overcomes FOMO, and why it’s essential to take a step back and mint with purpose!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Introducing photographer Michael Sidofsky (AKA Mindzeye).
- Michael’s photographic process from location scouting to capturing and editing an image.
- Insight into his experimental approach and distinct aesthetic.
- The story behind Michael’s time-blended image, “Gotham”.
- His process of repurposing past work and his goal to continue escalating.
- His approach to teaching his workflow and inspiring unique adaptations of his style.
- What he attributes to his successful career in photography.
- His philosophy on criticism and rejection.
- What inspired him to explore landscape photography.
- Where in the UK he wants to shoot and why.
- How he discovered and assimilated into the web3 space.
- The space afforded by the current bear market.
- How NFTs have benefited Michael as a photographer.
- His interests outside of photography.
- How photography permeates his thoughts, even in his downtime.
- The meditative state he enters while editing.
- What he finds exciting about Transient Labs’ dynamic NFTs.
- Michael shares his mindset when it comes to creativity and productivity.
- His biggest takeaway from his experience in the NFT space.
- Advice for avoiding/overcoming FOMO and minting with purpose.
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
EPISODE 06
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:03] JB: Welcome back to the Me Llamo Art Podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Banks. Today, we'll be talking with the man, the myth, the legend, the photographer, Michael Sidofsky. Or as many of you probably know him, Mindzeye. Michael is one of the most unique and recognizable styles in modern-day photography, and I'm excited to find out all about his process. Let's go.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:23] JB: Hey, Michael. Thanks for joining us today. It's great to have you on the show. A real pleasure to talk to someone like yourself and yeah, finally get you on the show. We had a bit of a to-and-fro in time zones and all sorts, but I'm glad we finally made it happen. How are things treating you? How's life treating you? How are you doing?
[0:00:37] MS: Thanks for having me, Jordan. Yeah, things have been great. Just enjoying the holidays and wrapping up the year, I guess. Doing some shooting whenever I can here in Toronto. The snow started to fall, so I'm getting out quite a bit.
[0:00:50] JB: It's quite unusual for the snow is coming out in the city, and the way you shoot the darkness and the different conditions to what would be maybe always typical of what a photographer would be looking for, which is quite cool to see. This is your highlight time, is it when it's snowing and wintery and dark and –
[0:01:07] MS: Yeah. I mean, there's a really nice atmosphere that it provides, and a feeling you get. A little bit of nostalgia, I think, because we all read these storybooks, when we were young about Christmas, or the holidays and there's always snow and I feel like, that's stuck with me. Now, I'm trying to create images that bring back that feeling.
[0:01:27] JB: That's amazing. I love that. That's where I wanted to actually kick off. Your style is so recognizable. I followed you on Instagram for a long time, I think, or knowing about your work through other people and you've got this very unique style. Obviously, being a photographer myself, I know how an image starts out and I know how it comes out, or the process. But your process seems to start so much earlier and last so much longer than I'd can't say, all photographers, but mine was alike. Can you talk us through your process of how you start from an image and then actually going through the process to get the image and then edit it and how you're going to do it and where this all starts? Does that make sense what I'm asking?
[0:02:05] MS: Yeah. Well, it obviously starts in the field, the right composition, the right subject, atmosphere, lighting. Everything has to come together. There are a lot of distractions, especially in the city. One thing I'm looking for when I'm shooting is to just minimize anything that will take away from what would be a good subject. Getting that right first, allows me to edit my photos in a certain way. It's a very loose process. First, yeah, starting with the shot, hoping you get, or I get the right thing, the right image. There are a lot of fails there. Probably 95% fail rate. I'll go out and shoot hundreds and hundreds of photos. Let's say, a snowstorm, for example, I'll be out for 12 hours and I might not get anything I like.
[0:02:59] JB: In that snowstorm, for example, would you be – it seems like you're – to the outside world, or to me, should I say, it seems like the locations you're shooting, or maybe you either scouted them, or pre-planned them. You seem to have a goal in. Or is it not really like that? Could just, comes across that way to me?
[0:03:14] MS: It's a mix. I'm always recording. Like, okay, so for Toronto, for example, I live here and I'm here most of the year. Anytime I'm driving around, or walking around, I'm taking mental notes like, “Okay, I never really noticed that building.” Then okay, the sun sets over here, so the light will be coming in across from the left, to the right. I'll just make mental notes, or I've even jotted them down in my phone. Then I'll just revisit them, like that spot, and see if it was a good idea or not.
I have a lot of compositions that are on a list, like a shot list that's just running forever. It might be five years until I actually get something there or not. It's always random. Then in between those shots, I'm out and I'm wandering around and things will catch my eye in the moment. Sometimes those end up being the better shots. I can have it all planned out and then get nothing from any of those plans, but I'll get some real beautiful shots just in between.
[0:04:19] JB: You do a lot in snow and quite adverse conditions at nighttime and things like that. Obviously, that's a conscious decision to go out in a snowstorm or to shoot at night. I mean, is that your vision for the photo? Or is it just that you wanted it to be quieter in the cities when you were shooting those locations? Because you've got that real mood, that atmospheric sense of place that you bring to an image that really pops it out to life.
[0:04:42] MS: Well, I really enjoy shooting at night. I feel like I have more freedom when it comes to color grading, as opposed to a photo shot at noon, where you have blue shadows and you have warm light, right? That natural color contrast is always there. At night, you have artificial lights from storefronts and street lamps and they're all random. Anybody can make a sign and it could be green, or red. It's like, if I'm walking and I see the senator, for example. I'm not sure if you know that photo of mine. It's got a beautiful red sign. That red just permeates out of the frame. Then that surrounded by a cooler blue background, creates that unnatural color contrast that I wouldn't find in the day.
[0:05:31] JB: You're kind of almost, it sounds like you're creating a studio. A studio photographer might add in some of these gels and things like that. You're just relying on natural gels as it were, like this studio has already been set up for you and it just happens to all work.
[0:05:45] MS: Yeah. I mean, in post, I can obviously change colors around. Shift them. If it was a very pink sign, but I thought maybe red would be a little better, I have freedom to do that. More freedom at night than in the day. I like natural colors in my photos. The shade of blue in a blue sky, it's like, I can't really make that too teal, or too purple. Or else, it just looks like, I don't know. To me, for my work, I just feel like it's not the look I want to go for. Then I'm stuck within a certain range of complimentary colors to work with.
[0:06:21] JB: When you're shooting, so you've got all that and you're obviously thinking when you're shooting, maybe if this is a bit too red, I might turn that. Is that process going through how you're going to edit it? Because your style of editing is quite recognizable, I'd say. You can generally be like, “That's a Michael, or that's a Mindzeye.”
[0:06:37] MS: Yeah. I mean, I typically lean towards certain colors, certain hues. I experiment. I play around with different color palettes I wouldn't usually use in the past. It really depends on well, how I'm feeling that day. I really like to play around a lot in post and just experiment. Sometimes I like the results, even though they're different from my previous work. Then other times oh, maybe not on this picture. I'll just go to something a little more familiar that would fit the rest of my body of work.
[0:07:11] JB: Yeah. When you're doing shots, I think, is it called Gotham the shot where you did? I think it's a composite. Am I talking about the correct shot? That's absolutely incredible. Is it called that?
[0:07:21] MS: Well, it's a time-blended image.
[0:07:22] JB: Oh, it's a time – Okay. I wanted to find out more about that image, like the process behind that, because that was just absolutely mind-blowing. I was just interested if you saw it coming, or it’s just something that arranged, again, it just happened to a nice coincidence and it just was like, wow, this really works.
[0:07:39] MS: Well, that piece was a work in progress. I shot that in, I think it was 2018. I was on a rooftop in New York City. That was the feature composition. I had my tripod set there. I just fired shots from the late afternoon, all the way into night. I changed my angles and all this and what we do as photographers, just played around. Back then, I was going for single compositions and single shots, so I had previously worked on the night image, or day image. Then over time, I started playing around with time blends. This year I went through that catalog and I was thinking like, “Oh, wait. What if I put these moments of time together?” Then I've learned a lot about dodging and burning and how to incorporate that into my style. I put together a totally new piece of work from years ago, using all the techniques I've developed since then. I've been sitting on that forever.
[0:08:46] JB: I'm glad you went back.
[0:08:48] MS: I don’t know. I had to develop the skills to make that piece possible.
[0:08:53] JB: I'm glad you went back. I'm glad you did go back and revisit it like that. I mean, all your work is so amazing, but that really just struck me as like, wow, like this. I wouldn't have thought you couldn't take it to another level and then you bring out a piece like that. You're saying, you've been sat on that. That's quite an interesting process that you still had the image, I guess. But you weren't necessarily in the right place to do it in 2018. You needed that two, three, whatever, four, almost five years to just improve yourself. I think as well, it's very easy for people to think, see someone like you and probably think, it just comes really easy to them all. There's nothing left to learn. It's just like, this is what you do.
Obviously, that is, as you've just said, not the case. I mean, I'm assuming you still got a lot you can learn, or think you have anywhere, I believe, you have in the next five years are going to continue to elevate and learn and progress.
[0:09:38] MS: Yeah. I mean, I save all my raw files, all of them, even if they're misfocused, or –
[0:09:44] JB: I'm the same. Exactly the same. I don't ditch anything. I keep it all. You never know when you might need something in stories these days. It's so cheap, I find that.
[0:09:52] MS: Right. Like I said, I have a 95% fail rate with every click of the shutter. I save all those, because right now it's a fail, but five years from now, I might find something buried in there and then realize like, “Oh, I was onto something when I was shooting this.” It takes a while to be able to recognize it.
[0:10:13] JB: Yeah, totally. I hear that. I often sit – the pandemic was quite a good time to go through. I think a lot of photographers went through their raw files and went through their back catalogs and were like, “I've got a bit of time to – maybe there's something I missed, or it’s just – I still didn't see it was good at the time,” and go through it.
[0:10:30] MS: One thing I always look forward to are these breakthrough moments. I'll be playing around in Photoshop. Maybe it's an edit that's going nowhere, but then I'll just hit on something like, “Oh, what if I selected this out and then added light behind it? Let's see if how that would look.” Then, it'll just be this little section of a photo. Then that could change my entire workflow moving forward on every image. Then I'll be like, it's like a Eureka moment, I guess, where you discover something that changed everything.
Then, I'll start running through my archives and seeing what I could update. Even images I've edited in the past, I'll go back and redo them in this new way. It just takes time. Those could probably come maybe once every few months, or a year, or a couple years where you get those breakthrough moments, but then they just change everything. I always just try to work constantly, even if I'm not super inspired on that day because you never know when you're going to get that aha moment. Then that's just going to help you, moving forward.
[0:11:34] JB: Yeah. Totally. I mean, that's really funny. I don't think I've ever – I mean, I talk about photography a lot with people, not just on this podcast, but everywhere. You're the first person that I've heard actually say that Eureka moment to me and describe it because that's very much how I felt these moments. When I started out photography, I remember it being like, doing it for a year, or 18 months, or whatever it was and you're like, “God, why am I not getting any better?” Then suddenly, something just clicked maybe two years in. Then it was a long time, I think, just gradually getting better and better. It was like, I don't know, there are five years something. Just really, you're going up these notches. You’re like, God, it all just sinks in. To hear someone else say that, it's like, that's exactly how I – For me, you're saying every month. I mean, I wish I could have one every month. Mine are definitely in the years.
[0:12:17] MS: Yeah. I feel like, when you first start out, it's just one after another, because you're just learning everything. Then they come a little slower. I think you mentioned mastering the craft, or being at the top of your game. I don't ever want to feel like that. I want to feel like there's always another aha moment around the corner. Then I'll just go back and redo everything, my whole portfolio of work, and then bring it up to whatever. It will be 2023 standards. That's just always going to keep escalating, I guess.
[0:12:50] JB: I think that's how you probably get to the point where you say, you become considered a master of your art, like I was saying because you're actually constantly pushing it. It means that you are always improving and you're having these goals and you're always not reinventing, but just changing little things. It does make you highly skilled at what you do. I think that's – I mean, it would be silly to just rest on your laurels, wouldn't it? Because someone is going to catch up with you, or it’s just going to get dated, or whatever. It's always good to move on and just keep evolving as an artist, I think.
[0:13:16] MS: I mean, that doesn't really ever cross my mind, like other people learning what I know. That almost might push me even further. If I have a recognizable look, and then all of a sudden, everybody is creating that exact same look in the exact same way, I mean, I wouldn't be upset about it. First of all, I’m honored that people would want to copy that look.
[0:13:38] JB: Yeah, totally.
[0:13:40] MS: Or have their images look that way. It would make me want to change and be unique again. It would push me to keep raising the bar, to stay, I guess, a step ahead.
[0:13:49] JB: Yeah, staying relevant sort of, isn't it? I think it's a good variety. I mean, I didn't want to make it seem as if it sounded competition. I wasn't suggesting you keep teaching, because I know, or I think I know that you actually teach courses on how you edit and how you process things. You're actually teaching people how to, I guess, emulate, or utilize, or copy, whatever term you want to use, your skills. Hopefully, you're teaching them to bring it into their own style and adapt the methods that you use and continue learning and evolving to the same way you are now.
[0:14:15] MS: Yeah. I do teach my workflow, start to finish in multiple styles, like daytime photos, landscape photos, overcast landscape photos, sunset photos, everything. Everything I shoot, I have a workflow that's catered to that. I teach all of that. I try not to teach people in a way that it creates a carbon copy. I like to show them the tools and tell them that this is how this can be used. You can do this and this and this with it, but then show them all the different colorizing options and different ways you can implement it, so that they can just adapt it to create their own look, as opposed to just instructions on how to create my look.
I've seen my students take the workflow and just apply it in a totally different way than I would, but they're making their own work, which is great. That's what I wanted people to take with classes.
[0:15:09] JB: The perfect outcome, isn't it? Someone learns from you and then just creates their own style and just you give them a knowledge base to then actually extend their skills and push their own boundaries and find out what they can do. I guess, a lot of it as well is that confidence, isn't it, just to do it and know that you are on the right path and it's not just gone too far, or you're not crazy for thinking it.
[0:15:26] MS: Right. I mean, I know what it's like to create an image and feel really good about it. I want everyone else to have that same feeling.
[0:15:34] JB: You've had a pretty successful – Obviously, we're now in web3, we're talking about NFTs. Obviously, Me Llamo Art is web3 based. But obviously, NFTs still, even for you, are fairly new. You've had a pretty successful career beforehand. How did it start out for you? How do you connect with brands? How do you get these jobs? What was a big break? Is there one moment that you're just like, “Yeah, this just worked out how to make this a career,” I guess?
[0:15:59] MS: I had no intention of – Well, actually, I didn't know what to expect. I was actually a real estate photographer. Those were my first jobs. The work that you see for me, that was all fun, but I was shooting for real estate agents, interiors and exteriors of properties. That's how I was making money as a photographer. Then Instagram was a big help for getting my work out to the masses and then in front of brands. I would say like, 2016, I believe it was Sony who reached out to me to work on a campaign.
[0:16:33] JB: Just Sony just reached out to you, just like you're all casual about that. Everyone listening's probably like, “Oh.”
[0:16:38] MS: You’re like an Experia cellphone. It was like an Instagram ad deal.
[0:16:42] JB: Still man, that's super cool. Sony and just reaching out to you, not even having a pitch to them. That's awesome.
[0:16:49] MS: Yeah, I was shocked. I'm like, “Okay.” Then I just gave it my best and it was successful. Then from there, I started getting offers, and then to work on more campaigns. Then I learned the art of pitching and making contacts and using the contacts from Sony and from the next couple of jobs that came in to gain more contacts at different companies. Then I would start pitching my work. I ended up in the travel tourism loop from there. Then I joined the Travel Media Association of Canada. There are always travel events with tourism board representatives there in Toronto and other parts of Canada. I made a lot of contacts there and showed them all my work and started getting jobs.
The way that the industry works is it’s like a snowball effect. Once you have a few jobs under your belt, you can show the work to other brands. Then you just end up getting more and more jobs. Then before you know it, you're not a real estate photographer anymore.
[0:17:55] JB: You're doing the dream job. I love that, man. Because, I think, as well, I'm a big believer in it's a lot about, you've got to be a good photographer. But again, making contacts about who you know and actually utilizing those skills and personality and keeping in touch with people, whether it's just checking in on email, or whether it's WhatsApp messages, or a Christmas present, or card, or whatever. These people all move around. I think that's really important what you hit on that, I think. Obviously, I think a lot of artists struggle with this making the contacts and putting themselves out there and doing this thing.
Again, I think it's easy to look at people who have made a successful career and think that they're just getting the snowball effect now, but they missed a bit before where it was the grind and the rejection and the, “Oh, my God. That pitch was embarrassing.” Or, the ignored emails. I mean, maybe you're lucky enough not to get them. I mean, I think we all still get those emails or those pitches that just fall on deaf ears.
[0:18:47] MS: Well, I've been rejected more times than I can count. Once you get over that, and that just becomes part of it, then it's fine. I'm okay with getting rejected by 10 brands, as long as the 11th one wants to work with me.
[0:19:02] JB: Yeah, totally. It was really hard for me to deal with the rejection when I was starting out. Now, I'm so used to it. It's just like, “God, if I let this bother me, I'd just be upset all the time.” Because like you say, more of them fail than come off, probably. Then like you say, it's just keep at it, keep going, keep pitching, keep emailing, keep going to networking events, whatever it is, and something eventually sticks, especially if you've got the skills to back it up.
[0:19:25] MS: Right. I mean, you have to compartmentalize a little bit as a photographer. Not everyone's going to like your work. You might love it, and you expect everyone to have that same eye as you, but it's just not the case. Even sharing my work was hard at first. I'm like, oh, is anyone going to like this? At first, they didn't, because that wasn't very good. I did it anyways. I just learned to not care. Then eventually, I found enough people that actually enjoy my work. Then, there's always going to be those other people, but you just can't care about it.
[0:20:04] JB: No. Easier said than done, I think. I think that is a key is maybe, you can just learn to get over it, or forget about it, or not let it bother you than it is. Hopefully, it won't come out later on in some sort of rage, or something like that that we've bottled this all up for 20-year careers, or whatever it is, and suddenly, we've got those pent-up anger.
[0:20:19] MS: I mean, and it's going to get worse, too. I feel like, feel bigger and more well-known people become the more criticism they'll face. You can't. Yeah, exactly. Can't just blow up on people like, “Oh, this is overly edited. Oh, I don't like this composition.” I'm not just going to jump all over them. You just leave it. I couldn't care.
[0:20:42] JB: If you've got a hater, you're not going to convince them to suddenly love you by proving your point, I think. They just want to be like that, don’t they? With some people, it’s like —
[0:20:49] MS: Right. As an artist, you want to trigger an emotional response in the viewer. Even the negatives are emotional.
[0:20:57] JB: That's a great way of looking at it, actually. You've got to trigger a response and I'm getting a response. By then, even being – not liking it, or criticizing, or whatever, they're actually getting – you're doing your job. You looked at it. You took it in, you did everything I wanted.
[0:21:10] MS: Right. I mean, they could have scrolled by, but yeah, they took the time to –
[0:21:14] JB: They hated it enough to stop.
[0:21:17] MS: Yeah. It had an impact on them. Yeah.
[0:21:19] JB: That's good enough. I think they probably, the reality is as well if someone actually stops and looks at it, they probably, something inside them actually likes it. I always think of people who've got the time to write a hate comment, or something nasty, it's like, you're probably actually a bit jealous. I don't know if that's just me telling myself.
[0:21:35] MS: I mean, you're probably right. I mean, definitely stop them in their tracks and a little bit of time out of their day.
[0:21:44] JB: I like that. I love that. I love that. I would say as well, I mean, I don't want to speak out of turn here. I am talking for myself, because I might not be – I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, or this is out of speaking out of turn like I say, but I would say that I see you more synonymous. When I think of you, I think of cityscapes. I definitely think of night, often. Those dark Venice streets, those solitary. I love them. I also know that you do a fair amount of landscape photography out in nature. I mean, obviously, probably not as much, because you live in a city. Is that something that you'd like to do more of? Is it something you do just because you want to get out in nature? Or is it all part of your process? Or would you like to do more if you could potentially as well, like if the opportunities arise?
[0:22:23] MS: Well, when I first started, I was shooting in Toronto and New York, and Chicago. Just cities, streets, and cityscapes. Then I started just appreciating beautiful landscape photography that I was seeing. I wanted to try it out. I just booked some trips, studied a little bit. Studied composition and lighting for landscape photography. Just really got myself into it. Then I took a couple trips. I went to California, Utah, Arizona, just to get out there and see what I could do. I enjoyed it. I still enjoy it. I go through phases of the work I want to create next. Sometimes it's all landscape photography. Then other times, it's like, “You know what? I want to visit this city and this city.” I just get back into that.
Again, I had this small European villages thing going on a couple years ago, where I just didn't want to go to any big cities at all. I also didn't want to do landscapes. I just want to visit little hamlets in Germany and Switzerland. I don't know. Just my pace just keeps evolving and changing.
[0:23:32] JB: That's cool.
[0:23:33] MS: Yeah. Right now, I wouldn't mind doing more of that again. I'm interested in going over to Scotland and Belgium and England, but not London.
[0:23:42] JB: I imagine somewhere like, I don't know if you've looked at London, but there's places in Wiltshire and little villages like that around Oxfordshire and like that's in York up north. I could see some stuff in York up north, or these things. I mean, I was going to ask when you come into the UK, have you shot anything in the UK before? If you have, I don't think I've seen it.
[0:24:01] MS: I've been to London. I was there last year. It was for a gallery event. I shot quite a bit. I met up with Peter Lee. I don't think I've shared any photos from that trip yet.
[0:24:12] JB: I would love you to shoot London, with your style. I mean, I know, like you say, maybe not on your list there, but Edinburgh, you would love, I think, as well, for your style. I could see in Edinburgh, you can produce some – I mean, I would love to see what you do with London. If you ever want to go, if you come over to the UK, make sure to look me up and we'll go out and shoot. Scotland as well, I'd love to get the chance to shoot with you.
[0:24:33] MS: York and Edinburgh are on the list. Those are places I definitely want to visit. I was thinking, I want to do it this coming year. I was thinking, it could be in the spring, or I might wait until fall. In my mind, I see fog.
[0:24:49] JB: You've got to wait for all spring. You'd have to come quite early. Be the end of winter. But fog in autumn, or this year, it was so late, our autumn. I mean, it really almost didn't hit till the frost to mid-December, I don't think. But yeah, normally from mid-October, you can get some pretty nice fog and I think a bit of a change of color around the cities as well adds to it. Yeah. Well, anytime you do, make sure to look me up. I'll definitely come and show you around and learn off you. That'd be awesome.
[0:25:14] MS: For sure. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I do enjoy landscape photography.
[0:25:19] JB: Would Scotland be landscape?
[0:25:20] MS: It's a good challenge, I think.
[0:25:23] JB: Would you be thinking for Scotland for landscape? Obviously, Edinburgh. Or the night, the sky, and the North Coast 500?
[0:25:30] MS: It depends. I want to go after more small little towns than the landscapes. It's just where my mind is right now.
[0:25:39] JB: I think you'd love – I could just picture so much. Even if it's not the really quaint ones, we've got some – I could imagine, you could do some really quite gritty stuff, like you've done in, I believe, New York and maybe around Toronto, where it's not always this quaint style stuff. I think, you could utilize some of – I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I know there's these little villages you go through and little towns, that there's no reason to go there, but they have got the elements that I could see that you could really work with and enjoy and get something quite special and it'd be quite interesting to see.
Yeah, we get off-topic a bit there. I think I could talk about England and you working over here for a while. But I want to move on to talk about web3 and how you found it. I mean, you've been in this community for a while now. You seem to have a little bit of knowledge. I don't want to make you too big-headed, but you seem to know what's going on and have found this technology, or this space quite early on and seem to have understood it. Is that true, or has it just been a bit of luck?
[0:26:30] MS: Well, I wasn't into crypto before I got into NFTs. I had to learn that at the same time. When was that? It was probably February 21 when I discovered that, “Hey, maybe I could sell my work in that space.” Then I started seeing, it was like, people had a huge sale. But it wasn't just that. It was seeing other photographers who entered the space just prior to me talking about their auctions and their drops. I saw it on Instagram. Just a few people. It started to gain more momentum. I was seeing it more often. I just decided to check it out and investigate. Then I had a few other friends of mine that were really curious at that exact time. We figured it out together. There was a lot to learn.
[0:27:21] JB: You've seemed to have done a pretty good job. I thought you were going to say, you've been into crypto for a while. Then you found NFTs quite early on, like maybe in 2019, or something like that. I was not expecting that answer. You seem you know what you're doing. I'm not saying you don't know what you're doing, but it seems like you've known for a lot longer what you're doing than you maybe have, by the sounds of it.
[0:27:42] MS: Yeah. I mean, I have this – It's just the way I am. When I'm interested in something, I go all in on it. I did that with photography. I've done that with other ventures in the past. NFTs, there's so much to know, right? It's not just like, how to mint one and sell it. It's how to set up a wallet, purchase crypto in your region, how to move it around, transfer it. Just understanding what they are in the first place and blockchain. Then just how to operate as an artist in this space as well, ethically, good practices. Then how to be secure and safe, not get scammed on your first day. Or even now, it's something you always have to be concerned about.
[0:28:30] JB: Totally.
[0:28:32] MS: Yeah, there was so much to learn. I just tried to learn as much as I could.
[0:28:35] JB: You went down the rabbit hole, basically.
[0:28:38] MS: Exactly. Yeah.
[0:28:40] JB: Were you quite – technology-wise, is it something that's come quite easy to you? Or are you not really that way? Is it quite alien to you?
[0:28:47] MS: I mean, I’m no developer. I don't know how to write code or anything. It didn't come super easy, but I have made some friends that are very smart and can explain things to me like I'm five.
[0:29:01] JB: Don't make that so good to hear, because that's basically what I do. My tactic is like, right, I couldn't take in a bit of information, but I need a group of people around me that can spell out to me like I'm a small child. This is what you need to do and this is step. To them, it seems so obvious. You can always tell they get a bit frustrated and I'm still like, I need that information just told to me really basically.
[0:29:22] MS: Yeah. I don't know where I would be without my friends in this space, because there's so much, and we're always asking each other questions every single day about everything.
[0:29:33] JB: It's great as well, as that people like the questions. You start off with I did. I was like, God, people are going to get annoyed with me constantly asking them questions. Then you soon realize, people actually – some of it's a valid question, not really stupid. You're just being lazy. Like, something you could have found out yourself more easy. It's actually, you're trying to learn. People are really receptive and yeah, ask me anything anytime. Don't get back too straight away. I will get back to it. It allows that ability to take in information so quickly. There's no it's spelled out to you and put there in front of you. I mean, I'm learning at such a rate.
Obviously, by all accounts, so are you by what you've just said. I mean, I thought you were going to tell me like I said, like a couple of years or so, or a couple of years before I arrived. It's only a few months. I feel a little bit inadequate now.
[0:30:17] MS: I mean, it's a space that requires you to know a lot and fast. If I were joining this space today, as opposed to winter 21, I think it would be a lot harder, because of everything that's happened since then and all the advancements. The empty space in Feb 21 for photographers was dead. We would just go on to Clubhouse and one at a time, talk about our work that we had listed. There are no collectors in those Clubhouse rooms. There's no one buying anything. We're just talking to each other. We would do that. We did that for a few months. Photography was just not selling. It was a very small community at that time. Everyone who was in the space at that time is now pretty much good friends with each other.
Yeah. I mean, at that time, I learned a lot about blockchain. Because there were so many people asking the same questions at the same time in these Clubhouse rooms that we all had to figure it out together.
[0:31:19] JB: I guess, once you've done as well, once you've got the input, the basis, everything that happens now, you’re kind of adding on to your information, or your knowledge bases, aren't you? Like the smart contracts and editions, or whatever it might be, and different tokenization methods, was it 11.55 an ER? [Inaudible 0:31:34]. But yeah, I couldn't imagine coming in now. I guess, that's what we're here for. We're building these podcasts, these platforms with Me Llamo Art, whatever with, and all of us as well, we’ve got different Discord groups. We're building the future of what they'll probably teach in, whether it's art history classes in college.
I could see people coming back to podcasts and blog posts and some of the mints of people have done and whether good or bad examples of how they were done and executed and smart contracts as being in 20 years, being in art history classes all over the world, or universities.
[0:32:06] MS: Yeah. That interests me a lot. I think there's so much to look forward to. It does feel early. I know people throw that around all the time, especially now in this bear market, where all that hype has died and so many people have left the space. It feels like it’s reset again. I like that slowness, or this slowness.
[0:32:31] JB: I'm the same. It was so crazy for a while there, wasn't it? Just like, now, it's to have a bit of downtime. I think you can actually play catch up with yourself and start to actually build things and concentrate on maybe creating a bit. You feel like you can leave the space a little bit. You don't need to be maybe tied to Twitter as much as you were, or be in Spaces all the time. It's like, you can go out and create and do your thing and be an artist, I guess.
[0:32:52] MS: Yeah. That's another thing that NFTs have done for me. I'm fortunate to have sold somewhere. The money from those sales allowed me to take a few less jobs to make ends meet, which allows me to slow my work down and create. It's funny, pieces instead of content. My climb as a photographer, or as an artist is much more enjoyable now. I feel like I'm in less of a rat race, hustling for work and social media credit. I don't know.
[0:33:26] JB: I know. I totally understand that. I mean, I don't do the social media thing, like I don’t know, Instagram. It’s always hustle, hustle hustle, hustle, trying to get the next commission, next hotel, next notorious board, next magazine. It was often as well – it wasn't really always work I wanted to do. It was great work and I shouldn't complain about traveling the world and getting to take pictures, because it was a damn good job and it still is.
The NFT has given me the chance to – my dream has always been, I think, similar to what you just said, it's giving you that time to be an artist and just create for you, what you exactly want to do for the reasons you want to do it, when you want to do it, which is just, I think that's what where we all got started in art, probably on photography, or whatever, is to just create pieces, things that we love. I don't think many people start thinking, “Right. I'm going to pick this camera up and this is going to become a job.” I think it always seems to start with – I always pictured it probably the end of my career when I was finally retired, I could now go out and take photos for myself. The NFT space has given me exactly the freedom you mentioned there.
I mean, I still have to work, but I can do slightly less jobs, or put prices up for things that I have to do less work and actually then, still survive off NFTs and stuff. Or a little bit anyways and create the stuff that I really want to create for myself. I think that was what really got me hooked on NFTs as well. When I realized that, I was like, “Wow, this is putting so much power back in the artist's hands and the creative's hands, which is fantastic.”
[0:34:43] MS: Yeah, I mean, there was one point for, well, most of my career actually, I was trying to post something brand new on Instagram every single day. Some of my edits would take, at that time, two, three, four hours. Every single day, I was trying to create a piece that was better than the last. It's got such a short lifespan. You'll post it, it’ll go through a one to two-day cycle being visible on people's feeds. Then it would just disappear. Then I have to do it all over again. Some of those pieces were exhausting to create. Then they're just forgotten in a day or two. Then you have to do it all over again. It was just a constant grind to get content out. I’m not a big fan of that work.
[0:35:30] JB: That's not really how art should be either, is it? Just having to create for the –almost comes to the point where you're just creating just for the sake of it almost. You're not really even enjoying it anymore. It's just pumping it out there. Just stuff.
[0:35:41] MS: Right. I mean, it pushed me to make better work and to be more efficient with my time, but on a really accelerated timeline. Now I'm really enjoying taking a week or two on one piece. I'll still take just as long, or even longer to edit, but I don't have this timeline anymore, where it's got to be out by noon tomorrow. I can be like, when it's ready, I can share it.
[0:36:07] JB: When it's ready, it's ready. It comes out. Yeah, that's the dream, isn't it? That's the way to do it. I want to move on to talk a little bit about you, not photography, not web3, but Michael the person. Do you have any other interests or hobbies? You play sport, or anything else you do outside of art? No pressure. I just do art and photography. That's it. I think you're like me.
[0:36:28] MS: Just photography. I mean, I like to cook. I feel like cooking is an art form as well and something that I'll never master it. Because if I do, I'll be a Michelin-star chef, or something, which is not going to happen. It's something you can always improve at. Then you get to just enjoy it. I'm always challenging myself to make something different.
[0:36:47] JB: That’s cool. I can't cook at all. I do really like watching cooking programs. I don't even eat steak, but I love watching people cook steak with the passion they cook it with. I'm like, I don't even want to eat this. I see what you're saying about the art and the creation side of it there as well. It is really a skill and it's a creative skill. It's not just as simple as cooking that we thought of. Not anymore, anyway. On that, what's your favorite dish? What would you – to eat and to cook, I guess? Or are they the same?
[0:37:14] MS: Geesh. Okay. Well, to eat, I would say, my favorite thing to eat is lobster. Every time a lobster –
[0:37:23] JB: You've got classy taste. You’re a hot, expensive date.
[0:37:26] MS: I mean, it's maybe once a year thing, but it's just so good. I've cooked it before. It's fairly easy. I wouldn't say that's my favorite thing to cook, because all you do is just boil it in some salt water. Yeah, I've been challenging myself, I guess, with trying to make all the classic Italian pastas, like the ancient Roman dishes.
[0:37:49] JB: Nice.
[0:37:50] MS: Yeah.
[0:37:50] JB: Well, if I’m in Toronto, you have to invite me over for dinner. I like pasta.
[0:37:55] MS: Yeah, we’ll do it.
[0:37:55] JB: Keep practicing and I'll come over to Toronto one day and we'll have some dinner. I'll invite myself around.
[0:38:00] MS: Okay. Yeah. You're always welcome. I love hosting and show off what I can do.
[0:38:08] JB: Yeah. Show off your culinary skills. What do you do to relax and decompress? The world is stressful enough and obviously, NFT space is quite a stressful place sometimes, where you need to just get away from social media. Is there anything? Do you meditate, just go for a walk?
[0:38:22] MS: I mean, my head is just always filled with photography. I don't know. I don't really take any time off from it. I guess, I like to watch movies and TV shows and stuff like that. Even when I'm watching, I'm thinking about the framing in the movie, or the color grading, or the lighting. It's almost subconscious research.
[0:38:47] JB: Yeah. I think a lot of artists really struggle to shut down and actually not think like that and see the world – You just see the world in that way, don't you? It's almost impossible not to see. It's almost more stressful, I find, to try and not see it that way in.
[0:39:00] MS: Yeah, I don't know. It's not something I feel like I need to unplug from, because I enjoy it so much.
[0:39:07] JB: Yeah, I hear that totally.
[0:39:09] MS: Yeah. It definitely doesn't feel like work, where I need to take a vacation or something.
[0:39:16] JB: Yeah. All my vacations tend to be in, and you always have a camera with you anyway, don't you? Go on vacation. I wonder if I would travel with that, if I wasn't a photographer, whether I'd actually just stay at home now and just be like, I've done the traveling side of things. Even though I was just in Mauritius recently and I didn't have to do much work, but I still couldn't help myself but drag myself out of bed for sunrises and go get the drone up over certain waterfalls and things like that. My wife's like, “You're crazy. You don't need to do this.” She's like, “Just relax.” I was like, “This is relaxing to me.” Just lying on a sunbed is not my form of relaxation. I get anxious that I'm missing the shot, or it's this lovely light and I'm not out shooting.
[0:39:52] MS: Yeah. I really love those moments. It's a beautiful golden hour in the morning. Wherever you are, it's just empty. You're just walking around looking for compositions, finding them, playing with them. It's a really quiet, personal moment. I find that very relaxed. Even though it might look like I'm working. I'm really at peace there.
[0:40:13] JB: That is a relaxing time being like that, when it's just especially, I find it weirdly enough in cities, it's almost more relaxing, I find than it is when I'm in nature, because you're moving around, you feel like you've got the city to yourself. It's quite almost eerie in a way, but in a nice way.
[0:40:29] MS: You brought up meditation. I feel like, when I edit, that's a form of meditation. Because I can get myself into, I guess you can call it the flow state, and just work on one image, just painting with light and making selections. It's a very slow hands-on process. When I'm in that state, I don't know what's going on around me. People could be yelling my name, and I just don't hear them.
[0:40:56] JB: That's so cool.
[0:40:58] MS: That's me meditating. I've tried to meditate. I just can't do it. I don't know.
[0:41:03] JB: It's not for me either. I can't seem to do it. I mean, I probably should. I think it would help me a lot, but I can't seem to close down like that.
[0:41:10] MS: Yeah, exactly. I can't stop thinking. [Inaudible 0:41:15].
[0:41:16] JB: That's awesome, man. I'll just move on and talk a little bit about tech and, I guess, and the market. Is there anything that you've seen in the space recently that somebody's come out with? I mean, it doesn't have to be tech. Whether it's just the way they've – not your own drop as well, so that was quite original what you did, I think. Something that you're just like, “Wow, that is just super cool.” Even if it's just a small little thing, or anything really that just caught your eye.
[0:41:40] MS: I really like the NFTs that Transient Labs have been working on. You know Ben Strauss, right?
[0:41:46] JB: Yeah.
[0:41:47] MS: Yeah. I don't know. It's like, he was one of my first friends in the NFT space. At that time, these types of dynamic NFTs didn't exist. Watching him go through this creative process and coming up with these ideas and then actually implementing them, I'm really impressed by that. It doesn't seem to stop. There's always another great idea for using the tech in a piece of art. I find those very exciting. They make me think about my own work in a different way and how I could implement some of that into one of my pieces.
[0:42:24] JB: Have you worked with Transient Labs? Have you released anything with them, or not?
[0:42:27] MS: I haven’t. No. It gets me thinking though, enough.
[0:42:31] JB: That's what I love about what they're doing as well. People just generally in the tech. I mean, you're not the first person to mention, when I've asked about the tech that I mean, Transient Labs, and what Ben and the team are doing is obviously incredible. Definitely, I hear what you're saying about making you think about your own work. It's something I'd love to work out a way of working with them and do something. I think, I've said on podcast before, but it's definitely, it's helping me making me think about how – I haven't got the ideas now and I know it will just come eventually. It's giving me the extra creativity of how I can use technology and how I could potentially use technology and collab with someone. Yeah, I'm a big fan of that, with Transient Labs.
I mean, I did not expect when I joined this space as well to see something like that. I was just thinking, it was going to be art and I did not – this changing in the way. It goes from day to night. I think, the timing ones they did and stuff like that, that change at the time of day. I mean, that was just blowing my mind. I was like, “Oh, my God. How does this even come up with this?” Then once you come up with it, how the hell do you implement this? This is just next level. I'm so confused, but I love it.
[0:43:29] MS: Right. I mean, I saw they just put one out. It reacts to the price of Ethereum. The art piece changes, whether the chart is going up or down at any moment. There are so many things you can do that I had never even thought of before.
[0:43:44] JB: I think I saw one which changed. I don't think it was them. I might be wrong. It was Robert De Niro's face, I seem to think.
[0:43:53] MS: Yeah, that was them too.
[0:43:55] JB: That when it changed expression with the price of Ethereum, from happy to pretty angry. Yeah, that was them as well. I couldn't remember. Yeah. That was super cool.
[0:44:04] MS: Yeah. When I joined this space, these ideas didn't exist, right? I mean, maybe they did, but I didn't know about them. To see all that take shape, it's inspiring. It makes you think outside the box. I don't know. It excites me. I have no idea where the space is going to be in 10 years, but if that's any indicator it should be pretty cool.
[0:44:24] JB: Yeah. I was going to say, if we're doing this already, imagine what in 10 years it's going to be like. We're probably going to look back on this podcast and be like, “Wow, that's dated badly.” Yeah. This has totally gone so wild and we're blown away by what Transient Labs is doing now. Everyone would be like, “Oh, that was so basic,” compared to what they're doing in 10 years’ time. It'll be insane.
[0:44:41] MS: Right.
[0:44:42] JB: Before we wrap things up, have you got one piece of advice that you'd give to, whether it's someone joining the space today, or whether it's an artist that's maybe already in the space or one thing that you just think, “God, that really made a difference for me”, like working this out, or learning that?
[0:44:56] MS: I guess, I could just tell you a little bit about my own mindset here. It's just to never slow down with your work and never get too comfortable. Let's say, you got yourself, I don't know, a thousand sales in a week. That's no sign that you should just get comfortable and expect that to always happen. It's always going to be peaks and valleys. You're hot and then you're not and then you're hot again and then you're not. It'll always go like that for most people. Just keep working, working on your art, specifically. Then just be part of the community and make as many friends as possible. There are always going to be questions to ask, like we were talking about earlier. You're going to need help at some point. You just can't do it alone here.
I think that's the biggest takeaway for me from the space is the community itself. I was like a lone wolf prior to NFTs. I had a few friends that I've met on Instagram in the photography world, but it wasn't like this.
[0:45:58] JB: No, you summed up quite good with lone wolf. I always wanted a community like this. I thought it'd be great to have this sort of community. I didn't even expect it to be this supporting, to be honest. I'd accepted half of this if it had come about. It was definitely quite a lonely career. You were on your own. You didn't really mix it. I even found it to be quite secretive. People didn't want to share information in web2. It was always like, every man for himself. I'm looking after myself. You can do one and there was no recommendations, or help, or advice. Now we've found the space where you can just, like you say, we're all learning and you can just ask people. It's quite something.
[0:46:31] MS: Yeah. I guess, yeah, my advice would be keep working on your craft, keep pushing. Dedicate at least a good amount of time on working on new pieces every day, or every week. Show up for your friends. Support them. Don't FOMO. It's another thing that can get you –
[0:46:48] JB: Have you got any tips to not FOMO, though? You'd be have like the keys to the castle if you've got that.
[0:46:53] MS: Well, if you could create a game plan for yourself and just lay it out like, I don't know, here's one piece I want to sell. I would love to sell this within three months, or something. That's the plan. This one-of-one, I'm going to try to sell it in three months at any price. That might stop you from making a collection that you might not have wanted to put out, just because others are doing it. Also, when it comes to buying PFPs and stuff like that, what's very dangerous, you can click on a phishing link and get your wallet drained, just because you were FOMO-ing into a mint that you think everyone was getting.
Just slow everything down, make a plan, be careful. Don't be too impulsive when it comes to big decisions. Really, just evaluate everything you're going to do. If I was going to release a new set of editions, I would want to think about why I'm doing it and the reasoning behind it and really, make it intentional. Mint with purpose, I guess, as opposed to, “Oh, okay. Everyone's selling. I have to get this out, because I have to sell, too.” It's got to make sense for you and your strategy.
[0:48:02] JB: I couldn't agree more with that. That's totally how I've approached this space and just purely out of – I think I've made enough mistakes in my prior experience as a photographer that I'd managed to take it slow and I managed to get the right people around me who gave me the advice that you've just given everyone and I couldn't agree more, like doing things with a reason, with a purpose, rather than just reacting to seeing people selling out, whatever it is and just trying to copy it, or just when doing something when you're not ready is, yeah, I don't think it's the key to success really.
I mean, sometimes you might, but I think definitely thinking about things like you said, and planning it is a really important thing. Not just in NFTs, or web3, but I think in anything you're going to do money-wise, or business-wise.
[0:48:42] MS: I mean, in this space, I've made some mistakes. I've minted things impulsively, just because I thought it was the right idea, because I guess, other people were doing it. Then in hindsight, I should have thought a little harder about that and just evaluated that decision at the time. Then also, I bought a lot of really bad NFTs that are now worth nothing, because it was – I FOMO’d into it, thinking –
[0:49:08] JB: It's a rite of passage as well, though, isn't it? I feel like a little bit, to at least hopefully not get burnt too badly, but FOMO into a PFP project, when you're starting out and hopefully, you just – it doesn't cost you too much. It's only a few hundred dollars or something. I think it feels like a bit of a rite of passage to go through that. You learn actually, “Yeah, I need to control this FOMO and the way my brain's reacting to seeing these things and the algorithms and whatever it might be is.”
[0:49:33] MS: Right. Exactly. Just anything you do in this space, just think about it first and make sure it makes sense. Also, just have a plan for yourself. It's like, something realistic. It doesn't mean you can't do whatever you want. You can. But just don't be too impulsive.
[0:49:51] JB: Have the plan to be that you do whatever you want, whenever you want, as long as you know you're doing it, I guess.
[0:49:56] MS: Yeah. I mean, sometimes I make a plan and it just doesn't work out, and you have to pivot. That's fair. But at least, I'm not FOMO’ing into everything and being reckless.
[0:50:09] JB: Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think that's a solid piece of advice. I think it's a pretty good way to round things up as well to end on. Before we do close it out, have you got any shoutouts to anyone? I know you mentioned some friends out. I'm sure you probably don't want to shout out some people. I don't want to shout out, I forget someone, or whatever it might be.
[0:50:27] MS: I mean, yeah. I definitely don't want to forget anybody. I have a lot of friends in this space.
[0:50:31] JB: Shout out to everyone then.
[0:50:32] MS: Yeah. Shout out to everyone. I mean, if anyone's listening to this, go through the people I follow on Twitter and pay attention to the people I retweet and you'll find some really great art there.
[0:50:45] JB: That's a good shout-out. That's a good way to do it. Well, Michael, mate, it's been fantastic to talk to you. I was really looking forward, from a personal note, just to understand, especially your process in the way you create your art that fascinated me as a fan of your work. Obviously, I know you personally. We've been lucky enough to meet, but we didn't get a chance to talk about that. Just to have this time to – and I hope everyone as well listening to this really appreciates you sharing your knowledge with them. I'm sure that no doubt they do, because yeah, I think that's priceless and everything you've talked about. It's been absolutely great. Yeah, thank you very much for joining us.
[0:51:14] MS: Oh, anytime. Thanks for having me.
[0:51:16] JB: No, my pleasure. Anytime. We’ll have to run this back through the next round and try and do some more, maybe get some group discussions going and things like that as we move this podcast forward, it'd be great to get a whole conversation or thing going with you included and things with different artists. I think there's a lot of conversation about what you're talking about. A lot of what you're mentioning really rings true with me. I think a lot of people in this space will feel the same. Yeah.
[0:51:39] MS: Sure thing.
[0:51:40] JB: Fantastic. Well, yeah. Until next time, it's been great to talk to you and take care of yourself.
[0:51:45] MS: You too, Jordan.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:51:47] JB: Thanks for tuning in. As always, a special thanks to my guest, Michael Sidofsky for joining us today and sharing his process and thoughts on NFTs and art. Me Llamo Art is a web3 non-profit supporting creatives. To find out more, or to listen to future podcasts, please visit us at mellamoart.com, or you can follow us on all the usual social channels @mellamoart. Thanks again. And until next time, take care of yourselves.
[END]
