Luke Foley and the Story
Behind Flight Path

The following is my interview with photographer and adventure guide Luke Foley, whose photo “Flight Path” won first place in our Film Only gallery. More of his work can be viewed on his website: outerbeachsurfer.com.

Liam: How long have you been a photographer?

Foley: Probably 10 years; I kind of fell into it. My background is in outdoor guiding and education. I worked for about 30 years for Eastern Mountain Sports, running their outdoor schools. And I just kind of fell into it from there. I had shown up to one of their big photo shoots, just bringing the gear for them. And I was standing around, looking at the stuff. I was like, “Man, you guys need some help.”

Foley: The photographer said, “Well, if you think you can do a better job on a shoot, I’ll help out.” It was for kayaking, so I got in one of the boats. They said, “All right, you should shoot this, this, this, and this.” It ended up that the photos I was in were the ones they used.

Foley: It was kind of funny because the models that were there actually said to me at one point, like, “Who are you and why are you here?” And I was like, “Whatever.” It just so happened that it ended up being this really big production. I can remember I was working in New York City and walking down; [EMS] had two stores, Soho and West 52nd Street. I’m walking through, and there’s a six-foot picture of me in the window in downtown Soho. I was like, “holy shit.”

Foley: So it kind of led from that to being in the photos to shooting some of the photos. Over the years, it has evolved to where I’ve been shooting for a lot of the outdoor companies. They have used a lot of my work in their ads over the course of time.

Foley: My big thing was shooting from the first-person action point of view: climbing from the view of a climber or paddling from the view of a paddler. Then I started working with a couple of my buddies who were writers. They were writing for some of the outdoor magazines. And they’re like, “Hey, you know, you’re a climber. Do you want to shoot climbing stuff while we’re actually out climbing?”

Foley: At one point, I think four years ago, a magazine approached a couple of my friends. They wanted to do an article on Quincy Quarries, the history of climbing Quincy Quarries, and wanted it shot on film, to get the whole real feel for it.

Foley: I said to one of my friends, “You know what we should do is we should go see if we can find, like, an old camera.” So we went to Savers and literally found this bag for $24.99. And we opened it up, and there was this old (I don’t know how old it was) Canon T50. And this old rangefinder camera that we got for $24.99.

Foley: The rangefinder camera was okay. The quality of the pictures aren’t great, but we used it for a lot of stuff shot through the quarries. We shot through some of the old fixturing that was there, to kind of get some cool perspective shots.

He holds up the 40-year-old Canon T50 film camera.

Foley: Some of the other shots we shot with this. And, I don’t know, I don’t shoot a ton of film, but [I think] it did a great job.

Foley: But these are a lot of fun. I mean, I go back and forth. This one actually hasn’t been used. I basically just bought it for that. And then afterwards, a friend of the family said, “Oh my God, where did you find this antique?” And they actually gave me a Canon AE-1. So that’s what I’ve been using.

Foley: For the shots that they used for the actual photo: there’s a picture of… actually, this guy’s name is Doug Martland, who was the writer. There’s a picture of him with a plane going over the top of him. I brought a picture if you want to see it.

“Flight Path” by Luke Foley, first place in Film Only.

Doug Martland is another instructor and adventure guide (skier, climber, and trail runner). He has written for Field Mag, EMS’s goEast blog, and is a regular contributor to The Whites Room blog.

Foley: So that was the picture that they used. And it ended up that this was for a magazine called Field Magazine. And Climbing Magazine ended up picking up the article, and I think Outside Magazine picked up the article too. So it ended up being like this whole kind of cool thing. So that’s the backstory behind it.

Liam: What did the ground look like that you were standing on while you were taking it?

Foley: From there, I was kind of back in the quarry itself. So the Quincy Quarries was filled in, I think, in 2000 with the fill from the Big Dig. We have been teaching climbing out there for about 20 years. But yeah, so this is called the Ship’s Prow.

He points to the rock face in the framed photo.

Foley: Doug’s on the end of the Ship’s Prow. And there’s a lot more spray paint out there than there is now; it’s constantly changing. It’s a cool spot. Route 3 is right here, and then the city is on the other side.

Foley: I think when I shot this, I shot it from the other side of the quarries on what’s called Night Face. And I had the camera on a tripod, and I actually have a picture of the camera on the tripod. So I took the digital picture of the old camera, which is kind of cool, because I wanted to give it… So when we did the article, I wanted to give it some perspective on old versus new.

Foley: Actually, we’re hoping to get out tonight and shoot some night stuff. What we do is we bring out some really heavy-duty spotlights, and light up the rock in places where it’s really spray-painted. You get this incredible light perspective, and you can see the city lights in the background. So we’re going to try to… We tried to get out last night, but we got rained out.

Liam: When you’re not doing film photography, what’s in your kit?

Foley: I’ve got a Canon 70 and a Sony 6000, I think it is. I like the mirrorless because it’s a lot faster. So for shooting like climbing and paddling, it’s really quick. Especially for surfing, it’s really quick.

Foley: I actually shoot a lot of stuff with GoPros, because we can shoot first-person. We’ll take a climb like this: we’ll attach a GoPro to the rope, and shoot down with the GoPro. You can actually attach a GoPro to the front of a surfboard.

Liam: Was that your first time using film?

Foley: No, I’ve used film before, just not a lot. Like I said, I kind of backed into photography. Since then, I’ve won a bunch of different photo contests. Cape Cod Life Magazine: I’ve had a bunch of stuff in there. I think last year was the photo of the year of a surfing shot that I did.

Photo by Luke Foley.

Liam: When you look at a representation of that activity, you want it to feel real.

Foley: Yeah, so that’s why I was talking to the other people, and I’m like, “Wow, this is really bad.” And the photographer kind of looked over and was like, “Well, you think you can do a better job? Why don’t you get in the boat?” I was like, “All right, no worries.”

Foley: Companies would approach me: “Hey, can you shoot photos of our paddles or our life jackets or climbing gear?” And that’s what I’ve been doing since I left EMS. I’ve worked for a ton of different companies, especially now with social media because they need content right away. So we shoot, I shoot a ton of stuff, a lot of stuff with GoPro.

Foley: I helped run a small business here on the Cape for paddleboarding. So we shoot, do a lot of stuff with that. My big thing for photography is showing people what I see from the first-person perspective, whether it’s climbing, paddling, skiing, snowboarding, snowkiting.

Foley: It’s showing, this is what I’m seeing when I’m out there, whether I’m shooting something of myself in a wave, or trying to get a larger perspective on what’s going on… kind of inspire people to kind of get into the outdoors. Especially, my big thing is shooting locally too. One of the things when I sell myself to companies is that I’m shooting from a perspective of, like, I live in the Boston metro area and the Cape. This is where a lot of your clients, the people buying your products, are from. So they can see your product being used in an environment where they live.