Perhaps the future cannot be predicted, but it can be photographed. Luca Locatelli, two-time winner of the World Press Photo Award in the Environment category (in 2018 and 2020), collaborator of National Geographic, New York Times, Wired and Stern, succeeds in this feat by taking photos that immortalize the thousands and different intersections between science, culture and the environment, while documenting the role that technologies have in building sustainable solutions for the world that awaits us.
In short, Locatelli’s is a continuous search for best practices of the present projected towards the future, which he finds and photographs with a unique point of view and incisiveness to stimulate the debate on the destiny of this planet and, therefore, of humanity itself. . Because we have research and studies available, and we can count on numbers and projections that help us look ahead, but nothing is as powerful as a documentary image that “looks to the present to free the future”, to quote Dutch architect, urban planner and essayist Rem Koolhaas.
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Twice World Press Photo
An example comes from the work with which he won his first World Press Photo Award, titled Hunger Solutions, where it shows the impact on the territory of the high-tech agriculture it has made the Netherlands the second largest food exporter in the world (in value) after the United States: “I do not want to suggest anything, but I am looking for the most mature director who seems to anticipate the most probable development path – Locatelli explained to us – I am not saying that what I am presenting is the definitive solution, but I propose a image accompanied by a strong caption, I explain that the one shown is the best method we have at the moment for example to produce more food, and you, the viewer, react by saying How wonderful! o How disgusting! “.
the same happens with the other project that won the Ambiente al World Press Photo Award nel 2020, titled The End of Trash – Circular Economy Solutions: from the Danish incinerator that produces energy and heat while minimizing emissions, to geothermal wells in Iceland; from the immense depot of airplanes to be dismantled in Arizona to the Prato company that has been a model of innovation and recycling in the textile sector since the 1990s, Locatelli masterfully shows stories of the circular economy.
The cenciaioli who have made school
“I liked the story of the Prato company so much that I made a spin-off – Locatelli told us – They started by disassembling tennis balls to make sweaters, today they are one of the largest textile districts in Europe. And for years they did it almost ashamed, also because they called them cenciaioli, while now they are considered an excellence of the circular economy and recycle 15% of the world‘s wool “. It is a bit of the story of the ugly duckling, but also a fundamental professional experience for Locatelli: “What struck me visually and still intrigues me now is that when I entered that company I did not see applied technologies, but I got to know the man who knew how to divide rags into 7 different shades of pink, I have portrayed normal people who perform normal gestures, such as shaving in a bathroom. It was then that I thought that perhaps the solution is that the future should look a little more like the past ”.
Future and technology, the shots of Luca Locatelli
We interviewed the photographer who won two World Press Photo Awards: in the photogallery, some of his best shots
The professional photographer today
Also awarded with the prestigious Leica Oskar Barnack Award 2020, which he recognizes the value of his “Future Studies” (ie the set of many of the works developed since 2011) as a project capable of visualizing “the search for new ways for our future survival on the planet, and how to deal with the enormous environmental problems we face”, Locatelli represents well even the most modern incarnation of professional photographer.
In a world where every day anyone takes and posts thousands of photos on the Net, creativity and ability execution technique are just two of the elements that distinguish photographers from the mass of those who produce images thanks to increasingly advanced apps based on artificial intelligence. And perhaps not even the most important by now. TO technique e inspiration must be added first of all “a long-term vision in which every work, even the single image, becomes a piece”.
It certainly helps to have access to places and people that others cannot reach (and therefore photograph), but most of all today it is also necessary to be an entrepreneur: “Once there were agencies that supported the photographer, but now the publishing market has changed ”, recalled Locatelli. So it is the photographer who has to find the financing for the projects, also directly addressing companies and private lenders. The important thing is “to maintain integrity regardless of who pays, knowing why and when to say yes or no”.
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And for those who say that photography is dying due to smartphones and social networks network, Locatelli’s answer is that “it has never been so good, because we live in the era of the image and a photo alone can have a previously unimaginable power”. Still on the subject of social media, if it is true that on the one hand they dilute the professional’s work among the contents of many who take photographs without being photographers, “they do me good because they push to rethink the image to convey the same message on different channels, with different languages, opening the mind “.
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