Queens-born Dominican photographer Aimos, known widely in the creative community as “your favorite photographer’s favorite photographer”, has partnered with digital asset marketplace Blockparty to release “Now Crediting: Aimos,” a collection of his concert photography of the late musical artist and generational icon XXXTentacion. The NFT collection will be auctioned on Tuesday, May 25.
“Now Crediting: Aimos” features an image of XXXTentacion that holds the record for the second most-liked post in Instagram history, as well as the most commented-on photo of all time, with over 9.5 million comments.
Aimos never received credit for the photo he captured of XXXTentacion, which heightened and triggered a pre-existing struggle with anxiety in the years following his experience. Now, he has chosen to speak out about his experience and use his story to raise awareness surrounding mental health in the creative community, as it is a battle many artists face.
“NFTs are a very exciting new medium for photographers,” said Aimos. “We now can create additional resources for young photographers and for those who aren’t as well-informed, and moving forward, we’re creating a system to give artists more opportunities. The end goal would be for photographers to be able to handle their business and to not be afraid of the threat of copyright or credit. NFTs solve this issue, and I’m thrilled to start this off by releasing my work on Blockparty.”
In partnership with Street Dreams, Aimos is now at the forefront of a new campaign to properly credit photographers, allowing creatives to reclaim their power with the help of tokens and blockchain technology. This movement, dubbed #NowCrediting, aims to create a more digitally empathetic ecosystem for creatives and to encourage the world to properly credit artists. #NowCrediting will be launching side by side with the XXXTentacion NFT drop.
A portion of sales from this auction will go to support #HalfTheStory, a 501(C) nonprofit and global community empowering the next generation’s relationship with social media, through advocacy, education, and providing access to resources for youth; as well as the National Domestic Violence Hotline, a 24-hour confidential service for survivors, victims and those affected by domestic violence, intimate partner violence, and relationship abuse.
