Nick Hannon posted his photographs online while working as a photographer in Los Angeles last summer. Hannon had first invested in IMAGE4.com, a business that gave him the ability to sell digital images on social networking sites. The company declared bankruptcy in August 2010, and he began working for Orbit Imaging in the Netherlands. Orbit Imaging took advantage of the chance to photograph international shipping containers and export the digital images to companies and clients overseas.



Customers in North America at the time got goods from international shipping companies valued around $500 billion. International shipping companies permitted anybody to photograph their containers and offered prints of the images for a reasonable price.