Making NFTs
Or: How I Learned to Love Gas Fees and Question My Life Choices
Let’s start with this: I had no idea what I was doing.
Like most good ideas, this one started out sounding easy.
I’ll mint my photography as NFTs — simple, right?
Spoiler: it wasn’t.
Step 1:
Choosing the Right Platform
There are more NFT platforms out there than I’ve had cups of tea this week, and I drink a lot of tea. Foundation, Rarible, Zora, Objkt, Manifold… and of course, OpenSea — which is where I eventually landed. Why? Because it seemed to have the right balance of visibility, ease, and not needing a PhD in Solidity to upload a photo.
Was it perfect? No.
Did it work? Mostly.
Step 2:
Getting Crypto (aka Learning the Language of Ethereum)
To mint an NFT, you need ETH (Ethereum).
To get ETH, you need a wallet.
To get a wallet, you need patience, browser extensions, a slightly paranoid backup system, and a prayer.
Metamask is what I used. It’s fine — once you get past the fear of accidentally deleting your seed phrase and losing everything forever.
Then you buy ETH… and realise there’s a fee to buy it, a fee to move it, and a fee to spend it. This is the moment you realise crypto is not just digital money, it’s digital money with more mood swings than me.
Step 3:
Minting the Work
Minting, in theory, means taking your digital file and making it live forever on the blockchain. Sounds beautiful. In practice?
Resize the image.
Name the file.
Add metadata.
Write a description.
Set royalties.
Choose the collection.
Triple-check the wallet.
Pay the gas fee (which changes every 3 seconds).
It’s like launching a product and doing your own tax return at the same time.
Step 4:
The Hidden Costs
Ah yes — the unexpected joy of gas fees.
Some days you mint for a few pounds. Other days? It feels like booking a last-minute flight to the moon.
There’s also the hidden cost of time: choosing titles, rewording descriptions, battling OpenSea’s interface when it decides your gallery preview just won’t show.
Not to mention the mild panic of wondering whether anyone will actually see your work once it’s up.
Step 5:
The Moment of Reflection
Despite the faff, the costs, and the slight feeling of swimming through blockchain soup… I got there.
Drive by McAleese is now minted. A full collection of 1/1 photography. street, chrome, stillness, and memory.
Each one lives on the blockchain now. Permanently. And that’s something.
Final Thought
Would I recommend it?
Yes. But not because it’s easy.
Because it forces you to think about the value of your work.
Because it brings permanence, provenance, and maybe even discovery.
And because, like any good professional hobby, it teaches you something about yourself while mildly testing your will to live.
📷 Explore the collection:
opensea.io/collection/drive-by-mcaleese
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