Meet Intrepid
Intrepid’s journey as an artist spans more than two decades, across continents, mediums, and now blockchains. From slide film and magazine assignments to Bitcoin inscriptions, his work has always been rooted in exploration, authenticity, and permanence.
Intrepid began his photography career more than 25 years ago, shooting foreign assignments on slide film. He later transitioned to digital and Web2 in the early 2000s, registering intrepidphotos.com and adopting the Intrepid pseudonym in 2001. By 2017, he was already blogging on-chain, becoming an early innovator in Web3. He has been published by houses such as National Geographic and Lonely Planet and exhibited in galleries around the world, from Sydney to New York to Milan. Entering the NFT space at the start of 2021, he has since built a network of over 500 on-chain collectors, with more than 150 digitised one of ones and numerous digital editions and curated releases collected to date. For Intrepid, bitcoin ordinals represent something distinct. He sees bitcoin ordinals being on BTC itself as the ultimate in immutable art.
Intrepid is drawn to remote locations and rare natural phenomena. Over the past 25 years, he has wandered through more than fifty countries with a camera in hand. Life in RVs, cabins, and sailing boats has taught him many ways to call somewhere home. His approach is to immerse himself in wild places and attempt to capture the feeling of them in a way that hopefully conveys that emotion through to the viewer.
Immutability
Intrepid sees BTC inscriptions as the most immutable form of digital art. For most blockchains, provenance comes from linking the minting wallet and then the collector’s wallet to the token itself. In contrast, for BTC you actually have to own the building blocks to own the art. He compares this to graffiti on the side of a building, where whoever owns the bricks owns the art. BTC, for him, is the mother chain of this whole on-chain civilisational movement, and having inscriptions is like having graffiti on the Colosseum. It will be studied by generations to come.
One of Intrepid’s most significant releases on Bitcoin ordinals is RareEarth, a trio of his best and most unique images, inscribed as a legacy onto the bitcoin ledger forever. The first inscription in RareEarth is Crystal Mountains, a fresh take on the Salt Mountains in Bonaire. He captured this after sailing back there, when rain had smoothed the surface of the salt on the typically desert island. This piece was collected by gpebbles for 0.039 BTC. The second inscription is Red Borax River, an image taken of the salt lakes in the high altitude Bolivian Altiplano. It is available for sale for 0.039 BTC. The white areas are islands of Borax salts (sodium borate) while a river of red flows around them. The lake sits high in the Bolivian Andes at ~4278m/14035ft. The third work, Devils Thumb, was collected by Hexum for 0.069 BTC. Few peaks inspire the same mix of fear and respect as the Devil's Thumb in Alaska. The northwest face remains unclimbed after five decades of attempts by scores of climbers including some of the world’s top mountaineers. Red Borax River and Crystal Mountains are also available as BTC Prints.
Origins in Film
As Intrepid explains, he started his photographic career on slide film, when provenance was inherent. He could shoot an assignment, walk into the agency office, and hand over the slides, and they knew, with complete certainty, that the work was his. By the mid-2000s, that era was fading. Provenance had been eroded by the proliferation of the internet. He could take a photo, publish it online, and have it stolen a thousand times over, with no reliable way to prove it was actually his. With provenance lost, value shifted from artists to platforms, and many of the traditional industries built around that system, such as magazines, began to disappear. Despite photography and short-form video being the most consumed media on the internet, without provenance there was no way to retain that value for the creator. As a result, a whole generation of creators shifted into content production and influencer-driven work. On-chain digital provenance, first through NFTs and later through BTC inscriptions, has finally brought back the ability to define the original provenance of a piece. If he mints something that is subsequently stolen and shared, that only further adds to the notoriety of the work and strengthens its provenance. This has freed photographers from the demoralising grind of the influencer economy and allowed them to focus on their art again.
Fleeting Moments
Reflecting on his journey, Intrepid points to two lessons that stand out: be kind to others, and embrace an abundance mindset. This is not a zero-sum game. The success of others is likely to enhance your chances of success, not detract from them.
Photography captures a fleeting moment in time in an ever-changing world, so there are never two photos that are technically the same. In terms of influence and style, the National Geographic photographers of the 1970s had a big influence on the type of work Intrepid made. His father had a wall full of their work when he was a child, and he used to spend hours poring through them, dreaming of going on assignment to faraway places. When he began his journey, he shot Kodachrome 64 to try to emulate that look, and his preference for exploration and faraway places came from there too. Over the past 25 years, his style has evolved through digital photography into something altogether unique.
Self-Reliance and Minimalism
Intrepid’s art is inherently entwined with his adventures and the lifestyle that surrounds them. Living in remote places, such as on a sailboat for four years, requires a certain degree of self-reliance and minimalism. That mindset has permeated into other areas of his life as well.
His aspirations around BTC ordinals relate simply to preserving his art for future generations on the most immutable platform there is.
For artists interested in integrating cryptocurrencies into their work, Intrepid offers this guidance: patience and humility. Any craft takes a long time to master. You can’t expect to be at the top level of anything in life after just a couple of years at it. Learn from the greats, work on your own craft, build your own style, and let that mature with time. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Don’t be afraid to put your art out there for critique.
Explore Intrepid's art on Gamma
