The Dark Pinup NFT Collection

A review

Jesús R. Cedeño

Jun 9, 2021

Lars Kommienezuspadt is a US-born artist who dreams of a career in comic books. While he didn’t really care much for photography as an art form at first, he started taking portraits and other photos while accompanying a friend who filmed documentaries. Since those films were shot with a simple camera and no artificial lighting rigs, that’s how he would shoot too. Fast forward some years and Lars was doing portrait and pinup photography using only diegetic lighting. That means that the light in his pictures is all coming from a window or from a lamp or light bulb in the scene itself. No flashes, strobes, light rings or any other source of light.

The result is pinup photography not quite any other you’ve seen before. It’s darker, more brooding and with a more cinematic ambiance. Lars Kommienezuspadt is considered the founder of Dark Pinup photography. He published his first book, aptly called “Dark Pinup” in 2018 (available from Working Class Publishing).

Now Lars is joining other artists by venturing into NFTs. His Dark Pinup NFT collection was launched on WAX just a few weeks ago. Each piece is stunning, featuring beautiful models photographed with his signature dark style and diegetic lighting. It’s a style that is sure to be picked up by other photographers soon and original pieces that are verifiably created and digitally signed by the style’s creator could become quite valuable.

Dark Pinup was the first NFT collection launched using FACINGS technology. FACINGS has allowed Dark Pinup to bring a few new things to the NFT table. For one, the pack opening system is fully pre-mint, this on one part, means the odds of finding rare or very rare items in the packs are absolutely precise. Additionally, this opening system makes sure the mint number of your cards is randomized when the pack is opened. NFT packs can be opened in bulk and each pack opened turns into a wrapper. FACINGS also includes a lot of interesting information in each token. Every artist’s name (photographer, illustrator, videographer, etc), collection name, variant, mint number and a lot of other interesting data is stored in each token.

FACINGS is adding more excitement to the collection with their Ember Burn event. During the month of June, owners of Dark Pinup cards will have the option of burning them. Those who do so will be rewarded with points that can later be redeemed for Ember Packs sent directly to their account. Each Ember pack contains cards that are designed to be rare and highly sought after once the burn event ends.

FACINGS @FACINGSofficial

🕯1,567 Ember Packs have been earned so far by the passionate collectors of #Darkpinup! There's special rewards for those who participate and finish in the leaderboard top 10. Only 1,686 packs left in stock. Darkpinup.com #NFT @WAX_io

For more information about the Collection, visit darkpinup.com or browse the collection on AtomicAssets.

What is an NFT?

NFT stands for Non-Fungible Tokens. These tokens are built and run on blockchains, just like the more traditional cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ether. But there’s one key difference. One Ether is really no different from another one. But NFTs are designed to be unique. They don’t really work like coins, but instead as digital pieces of art. An NFT can be almost anything: a photograph, a drawing, a video clip or any kind of electronic media. But each NFT is signed by its creator and the blockchain holds the records of each token’s creator and owner. Thanks to the blockchain’s security, these artworks can’t be forged, copied or stolen. And because they’re not stored on any particular server, they are protected from crashes or other technical problems and will always be available. Finally, just like any other piece of art, NFTs can be sold or auctioned.

NFTs are quickly taking the crypto world by storm and have even started spilling over to the real world, with NFT museums popping up in several locations. In fact, the creation of the world’s largest NFT museum was just announced in New York City just a few days ago. This museum will be located just a few blocks away from the MOMA.