Proposal: Nouns cc0 Space Image bank for artists

Nouns cc0 Space Image Bank

TLDR:

Space is one of the core themes in cryptoart and the NFT universe. Nouns DAO is even sending a Noun to space! This proposal is to ask Nouns to fund a repository of cc0 space images available for all artists to use in their work. Total amount requested: 12 Eth.

About me:

My passion for space and astronomy started at a very early age and I started shooting astrophotography about 7 years ago when I first paired a camera to the eyepiece of my telescope. After doing this as a hobby for several years, two years ago I decided to quit my job in TV and film production to become a full time astrophotographer. In early 2021 I minted my first NFT and throughout this past year I’ve released two collections and over 20 1/1 NFTs. During this past year, my work has been featured across several media outlets such as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day and the European Space Agency’s social media profiles, as well as a number of astronomy websites and magazines, and I’ve even had the amazing honor of having one of my pictures used as a stamp of the Argentine Postal Service.

Goal:

As a way to give visibility to the Nouns DAO, a cc0 image bank will be set up that will serve as a repository for artists working on space-themed art. Space is a huge theme in cryptoart and NFTs. These images will be free to be used as subjects, backdrops and to be repurposed as artists see fit without the need to attribute authorship, giving artists complete control. Some of the most well known and successful artists use space imagery in their work, here’s just a few examples from top selling artists.

“Dunescape XXIV” by jstn

“Space Pool” by MiraRuido

“Follow Me” by Frank Moth

“Space Head” by xmuratakyol

Visibilty for Nouns:

Besides strengthening ties and gaining visibility within the artist community, space images are regularly featured on specialized and mainstream media, which could increase visibility to the Nouns community outside the art/NFT circles, by being featured by space agencies and more traditional media outlets reaching the general public. Here are a few examples of my images in mainstream media.

Newsweek online edition

Nasa Moon account feature on Twitter

European Space Agency

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (exposure to 1.45 million followers on Twitter - 870k on Instagram)

Deutsche Welle featured article on astrophotography

Postage stamp by the Argentine Postal Service featuring my December 2020 Total Solar Eclipse photograph

All of the above are examples where the Nouns DAO could get exposure through this image bank.
In time, the repository can grow and add other categories of images for non space-related art.

About the images:

As technology has pushed forward during the past years, the ability to image deep space objects like distant galaxies or nebulae has stopped being the exclusive realm of observatories and space telescopes, and amateur astronomers worldwide now have access to hardware that allows them to photograph these stunning objects. Taking hours and sometimes several nights to shoot with long exposures, these hi-res images combine complex processing skills with specialized equipment, resulting in unique artworks that capture the beauty that lies in outer space.

Example images:

NOTE: These are example images from my current body of work, all of the images for the image bank would be shot specifically for this project as stated in this proposal.

Carina Nebula
Located 7.500 light years away, the Carina Nebula is a region of ionized gas and space dust almost 500 light years across.

Lambda Centauri
IC 2944 or Lambda Centauri is an emission nebula located in the constellation of the Centaur.

Sun
Active regions 2993 and 2994 in the solar chromosphere imaged through a Hydrogen Alpha filter.

Moon
30 panel mosaic of the Moon.

Deepscape the core of the Milky Way rises over the archaeological site of Yacoraite in the Andes. Image selected as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day on May 8th 2021.

Milky way Mosaic

Deliverables and timeline

A website with the Nouns DAO branding with a set of 30 space images available for free download under a cc0 licence. The website could also be illustrated with and used to host the images of the 3D printed Noun sent to the ISS (proposal 28).

Deep space images take anywhere from a couple of nights to entire weeks and require careful planning to obtain, so this is a slow rollout project. Tens of hours of exposures as well as extensive processing time are needed in order to capture these objects, and most objects only appear in the night sky during limited periods of time during the year so the collection would be slowly built throughout an entire year. Some of the images will be shot from my rooftop observatory but others require traveling to dark sky sites. The images will be a balanced mix of deep space objects shot on telescopes, solar system bodies (Sun, Moon and planets), widefield images (star fields, milky way shots, star trail images) and landscape astrophotography, to offer a wider variety of objects and backdrops for artists.

Launch of the website would be scheduled six months after proposal is approved with an initial amount of 15 images at launch, and another 15 images would be added after a second six month period (this second update could be scheduled at shorter, more frequent intervals with a smaller amount of images).

Budget

Project management and execution, consisting of planning and acquiring the images throughout a one year period - 5 Eth

Equipment upgrades (purchases to upgrade equipment already owned) - 3 eth

Expenses for dark sky sites travel - 2 eth

Website development and maintenance (according to scope of this proposal) - 2 eth

Total: 12 Eth

Thank you for reading! Space is the Place!

3 Likes

So the final output is 30 images hosted on a website? How long would the website be maintained? Would additional images be hosted beyond the first 30?

1 Like

Hi! Yes, the final output for this proposal would be 30 images and the website. The amount of images proposed is based on an estimate of how many quality astrophoto pieces can be achieved within a reasonable timeframe so as to have a good variety of work to offer up as cc0. As far as what happens after that, the idea is that hopefully the repository could grow through new proposals adding new images, maybe not only space related but adding other categories and artists who work on those categories (landscape photography, 3d, experimental, etc), but that would be outside the scope of this proposal.

Website control could be handed over to the DAO after the first year, once the final batch of images are uploaded, or maybe submitted to a vote for a renewal period to add more work through a new proposal.

Of course any other suggestions for different approaches are welcome!

Been an observer of CosmosAstroArt from afar - he has really entrenched himself in NFT photography and was excited to see him push a proposal to NounsDAO

Im curious, how do publications get images in current day? Do they reach out to photographers or are there other platforms that already offer cc0 images? Would somebody have to manage communications with publications to make sure images are used? And who would receive the “credit” for the image, the photographer or the DAO?

There are a few space themed Nouns - may be cool to integrate them in some way!

Thanks so much for the support Yekim! It’s a bit of both, sometimes a journalist will reach out due to a specific event or story they’re working on and they’ve seen my work so they’ll ask for permission to share it, and on other cases I submit my work to different places (such as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day). In all cases when the images get published it is common practice that they are are credited, so for the images in this bank I believe both photographer and the DAO should be credited, so something along the lines of “Franco Meconi - Nouns DAO” would be used. This of course would apply to media and similar appearences, I believe it is not really feasible nor practical to ask artists to credit the images if they use and repurpose them in their work, which is also where the magic of cc0 kicks in!

Space themed Nouns could definitely be integrated into the website desing, as well as any images generated through the amazing proposal 28 of sending a Noun to the ISS! I also believe that this project could work as a pilot test for a larger cc0 image repository which includes not only space images but it can expand into other categories through future proposals to the DAO, which is why I think that control of the website should go back to the DAO after the one year period of building. However if this is not common practice (for the DAO to take ownership of projects) a renewal proposal would be submitted in order to try and secure more funding support to keep the project going after a year.