New Crop Varieties for Extreme Weather, Geneva Greenhouses, New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, New York 2013

Due to the growing impact of climate change, farmers must increasingly cope with drought, heat waves and frost. But the current agricultural crops are not resistant to these extreme weather conditions. This photograph by the American photographer Lucas Foglia shows a greenhouse in which scientists experiment with growing new and hardier variants. Foglia has chosen to photograph the greenhouse from the outside. All the viewer sees are the shadows cast by some of the plants, surrounded by a soft orange glow that forms a sharp contrast with the cool blue of the sky outside. This use of colour, shadow and perspective reinforces the sense of uncertainty that now besets the future of agriculture. The series Human Nature, to which this image belongs, is a series of interlocking stories about our relationship to the wilderness.