National Geographic is collaborating with 16 of its photographers to release an NFT Collection on January 17, 2023. The theme of the images is “GM: Daybreak Around the World.” According to the magazine’s founding year, it plans to release 1,888 collectibles.

It’s hard to think of a brand that comes close to National Geographic in creative photography. To date, people who wanted to collect the stunning images kept the back issues of the magazines. While this certainly works for viewing images, there isn’t a strong sense of ownership as magazines aren’t particularly rare.

So with the relatively small number of NFTs, National Geographic is really enabling digital collectibles. Particularly given the brand’s massive social media following. He has 251 million followers on Instagram alone and 500 million across all social media.

Taking a bird’s eye view of the NFT market, photo NFTs have yet to make a big footprint. The NFT market is dominated by profile pictures like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes, gaming NFTs, and sports collectibles. Art ranks a distant fourth, but photography barely appears. Many of the photo collections that have done well focus on celebrities.

Maybe National Geographic can change that.

“Web3 and NFT have expanded the connections of so many people around the world,” said artist Tara Workman. “From the world renowned to those who have never shared their work publicly, we all coexist in the same ecosystem for the love of art.”

The track name “GM: Daybreak Around the World” is more than just a nod to Crypto Twitter. Two favorite Crypto Twitter greetings are GM (good morning) and WAGMI (We’ll all make it). Sunrise lighting perfectly illuminates landscapes and is the perfect match for the GM moniker.

Despite the low profile of photo NFTs, the Associated Press has embraced turning its photo archive into digital collectibles. It initially partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Binance and created its own marketplace earlier this year. Time is another publication that has embraced web3, starting with three iconic magazine covers.

National Geographic magazine is collaborating with company NFT Snowcrash for the launch.

Details about the collection have yet to be released. The photographers involved are:

• Justin Aversano “Good morning on top of Mount Sinai”
• Jimmy Chin “Cerro Torre at Dawn”
• Delphine Diallo “Uprising”
• Yagazie Emezi “We are light”
• Mia Forrest “Flanksia, on the move”
• Kris Graves “Berry Creek”
• Aaron Huey “Dawn in the Void”
• iolex “7:04:05”
• John Knopf “gm”
• Cristina Mittermeier “Good morning, turtle”
• Renan Ozturk “Sunrise on Everest”
• Cath Simard “Indelible”
• Ben Strauss “In Search of Balance No. 16”
• Tara Workman “Rise and Shine”
• Rubén Wu “The new dawn fades”
• Michael Yamashita “Hallelujah Dawn”