Feeding the world
Luca Locatelli speaks to Nigel Atherton about his story on Holland’s agri-tech industry that was highly commended at World Press Photo
luca locatelli on his photo story on Holland’s agri-tech industry
What was the inspiration for the project?
Science, technology and the environment is my specialism, and this was one of a series of stories we were doing about sustainable innovations. We were trying to discover the most brilliant examples of technology designed to solve our planet’s most pressing issues, like climate change.
The Netherlands is actually the second biggest exporter of food in the world after the USA, and it’s about 75 times smaller in area. In the last 30 years they have developed their agricultural technology to produce 10 times more useful crops in the same space, using 95% less water. They don’t use pesticides or GM crops – it’s all about cross feeding. They are the leader in farming technology, and have the biggest university in the world for agriculture. About 60% of the students are from abroad, so the innovations are being studied and adopted around the world.
You’ve done a great job of taking something that’s not especially photogenic and creating striking pictures.
Yes, I love technology, and I strongly believe we are too intelligent to destroy the planet. But technology is not easy to photograph; you have to work hard to find the best photo opportunities. So I’m really glad that people recognise these pictures as powerful and photogenic, because they are, in essence, complicated images.
Do you have a team of people helping you to find these great photographic opportunities?
Yes I have a team that works with me, but there’s also the
National Geographic team, and we joined forces for this project – especially in this case as we needed to gain access to these companies and take up a lot of their time. There needed to be a lot of pre-production, to open the doors. National
Geographic has huge respect all over the world so that was really helpful. Luckily the Dutch government itself helped us and arranged lots of opportunities for us. Everyone was very cooperative. These companies are leading the world in the field of agritechnology and do appreciate
people spreading the word about their work.
Your images are incredibly detailed. Are you using medium format?
Yes. I like to use the best available technology for my work. My main camera is the Fujifilm GFX 50S, which I love. I also use a DJI Inspire drone for aerial work. I would like to use my GFX with a drone, but the results from the Inspire are currently better.
A lot of the pictures seem to be taken with wideangle lenses.
Yeah, I make use of the wideangle quite a lot. I like the GF23mm f/4 if I need a really wide wideangle, because it’s equivalent to an 18mm lens on 35mm full frame. Normally though, the 45mm f/2.8 is the one that is always on the camera. But I also really like the 32-64mm zoom, which has given me great flexibility and actually produces great image quality.
Some of your subjects are on a huge scale. Do you need to use a lot of additional lighting?
Not in this case. I am not shy to illuminate and spend a lot of time trying to get good lighting, and I’m always carrying around a set of Photon Beard lights. In this project I mostly used natural light – of which there was actually a massive amount in most of these places. Only on one or two occasions did I have to use flash.
Do you have a favourite picture from the food-production shoot?
I think my favourite is the house surrounded by greenhouses [see below left], because that is the house of the modern farmer. Eventually, in say 2050, all farmhouses will look like this. Which is, in a way, very sad, as I actually own a traditional farmhouse in Tuscany. But here we are talking about producing a lot more food, with less impact on the planet. And that’s the only solution we have at the moment.
Are you optimistic that technology is the solution to our global problems?
To be honest, I don’t consider myself as optimistic. It’s not like I believe we can completely change the mindsets of people. We have the potential to solve our problems through technology, but we are far from doing so. It’s going to take a lot of work. But I can see great examples of change, so we can change the world if we all want to. But with these recent conservative political changes around the world, I can’t be optimistic. I’m really more of a dreamer – I hope that at some point we’ll use our intelligence and competence to still make a lot of money for the global economy but do so in a more sustainable way. The World Press Photo recognition has really helped towards spreading this story, so we are very happy.