Photo: Maddie with invasive water lilies, North Carolina. © Lucas Foglia, courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery, London.
On average, Americans spend 93 per cent of their lives indoors. The lack of exposure to the most basic elements of nature takes its toll, as we drift away from our true selves and adapt to the human-made world. To maintain this unnatural environment known as “progress,” we consume larger quantities of fossil fuels, adding to the greenhouse emissions heating the earth and fostering climate change. The result is a cycle that we need to break in order to save the earth as well as improve our health.
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“The news has a tendency to talk about climate change like a cliff that we’re about to fall off of,” American photographer Lucas Foglia observes. “I think climate change is a bumpy road that if we keep on driving down, we will ruin our ability to go further. At the same time, we are able to slow down and make changes and those changes are important. The average person can change their behaviour and in aggregate we can make a global difference.”
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Foglia grew up on a small farm bordered by a forest, just 30 miles east of New York City – a far enough distance for him to have a distinctive formative experience. In 2006, he began taking pictures of people in nature, exploring how spending time in wild places changes us and allows us to access a deeper, more primal self. He photographed not only human activities but the landscape as well, showing the interplay between men and women with forests, deserts, ice fields, and oceans.
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