Bill Foley is in the business of memento mori. That is to say, his photos are artistic, symbolic reminders of our shared mortality. Over his nearly 40-year career as a professional photographer, his subject matter has epitomized diversity. As an Indiana University student, he cut his teeth on Bob Knight’s undefeated NCAA champs basketball team in 1976. Kent Benson lived on the same floor of Foley’s McNutt residence hall. Later that year he landed a summer internship with the Cincinnati Enquirer and photographed one of the greatest baseball teams of all time, the 1976 Reds. At the same time, Foley worked as a photographer at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Kentucky Derby.
Bill Foley’s early career in photojournalism included the greatest spectacle in racing, the world’s greatest horse race, the greatest college hoops team of all time, and the greatest baseball team to ever take the diamond. He left IU in 1977 and within a year he had jumped from the sports fields of the United States to the geo-political fields of the Middle East — a journey that would lead to the Pulitzer Prize.
This past Wednesday, I attended a special press preview of the exhibit titled “Art Meets News: The Work of Photojournalist Bill Foley” at the Indiana State Museum. I could not help but notice that the exhibit literally placed Foley in the shadow of the World’s Largest NCAA Bracket on the side of the J.W. Marriott Hotel. Coincidently, the Kentucky Wildcats were marching towards the first undefeated NCAA season since Foley’s 1976 IU team. At the time I am writing this, UK’s outcome remains undecided.
Foley left the cream and crimson halls of old IU and bought a $99 one-way ticket to Amsterdam to embark on a personal tour of Europe. In London, he met German photojournalist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Horst Faas, who was then the Associated Press (AP) photo chief for the Middle East and Europe. Faas sent Foley on assignment to Egypt to cover the presidency of Anwar Sadat. Little did Foley realize that this assignment would place him on the front lines of history. By September 4, 1978, Foley was in Cairo, a mighty long way from Dunn’s Woods in Bloomington. By December he was photographing Sadat with the Shah of Iran. Bill Foley was in the Big Leagues now.
On October 6, 1981, Foley attended a victory parade in Cairo commemorating the eighth anniversary of Egypt’s crossing of the Suez Canal. As Egyptian Air Force Mirage jets flew overhead, Foley captured what became the final portrait of the Egyptian President, taken only minutes before he was killed. Known as “The Last Smile,” the photo depicts a smiling Sadat beaming as he looks to the heavens. Sadat was protected by four layers of security and eight bodyguards. As an added layer of protection, Egyptian troops marching in the parade carried unloaded weapons. After Sadat was hit and fell to the ground, people threw chairs around him to shield him from the hail of bullets. The attack lasted about two minutes. Bill Foley’s photo will last forever.
For the next two decades, wherever the fighting was the thickest, Bill Foley was there. For his coverage of the Sabra and Shatilla Massacre in Beirut in 1982, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography. The three-day massacre resulted in the murder of between 1,000 and 3,500 civilians, depending on the source. Foley was the first photographer on the scene and he described the scene as “eerily quiet.” The Christian militiamen, who had been guarding its gates, had departed. Foley said, “Nothing was moving. In a place where I had made many friends, and hundreds of photographs, it was many things, but never silent. Usually, kids were yelling and playing, women were talking, dogs were barking, cars horns were honking … but, on this morning, all was quiet. I was surrounded by piles of what, at first glance, looked like garbage, but as my brain started to work, I realized it was piles of corpses. The smell of decay was everywhere, as many of those killed had been dead for over 24 hours, in the September heat.” When asked how he was able to carry on in that atmosphere of death and decay, Foley plaintively responded, “Print it, wire it. To make a photograph that means something you have to be there in the moment.”
On October 23, 1983, after the bombing of the U.S.M.C barracks in Beirut, Foley took a photo that was chosen by LIFE magazine as one of the world’s best photographs. The photo captures the Iwo Jima-like image of a dazed and wounded Marine, covered in dust and rubble, on a stretcher being lifted by eleven fellow Marines out of the bomb crater. Google it and you will be amazed.
Mr. Foley has worked on assignment in 47 countries and over 100 cities, transcending his Hoosier roots by living in Cairo, Egypt, Beirut, Lebanon, and New York City while on the AP staff (1978-1984) and on contract with TIME Magazine (1984-1990). For TIME, Foley covered the Palestinian intifada, Operation Desert Shield, the Iran-Iraq War, and Nelson Mandela’s first visit to New York City. During his career, Foley has been jailed, beaten and held at gunpoint on many occasions. Between those times of tumult and turmoil, Foley recalls leading a fairly normal life. “I ate good meals, made good friends and watched the USS New Jersey shell the mountains of Lebanon from my balcony,” said Foley.
One of Bill’s photos in the exhibit pictures an unshaven, cigarette-smoking Lebanese soldier gazing out the window of a bombed out house with a racy European magazine held open in his lap. The two-page spread depicts a scantily clad woman advertising undergarments. Foley explains, “Nothing is funnier than real life. You can’t make this stuff up.”
Opening last weekend and running through July 19th, the ISM’s exhibit includes over 100 vintage photographs, artifacts and personal relics from Foley’s career. ISM Curators Katherine Gould and Mark Ruschman spent a year and a half carefully culling through the work of Bill Foley. It didn’t take the seasoned duo long to realize that not only were they looking at history, they were looking at art. Ms. Gould recalls being amazed that not only did Foley take the photos, he also wrote the captions. Mr. Ruschman is quick to add that Foley’s captions were so well written and accurate that they were seldom changed by his editors — a badge of honor among photojournalists.
The exhibit opens, rightly so, to Foley’s Middle East odyssey, then moves on to his subsequent work for news and charity organizations across the globe and concludes with Foley’s work in Hollywood. Just as Foley began his career shooting sports heroes, he concluded by shooting stars of stage and screen. Many of Bill’s Tinseltown images were taken early in the careers of actors who have since become screen icons. From 1992 to 2002, Foley was the official photographer for more than 27 feature films and television shows.
Along with that Pulitzer Prize, for his efforts to free Hezbollah hostage, friend and Beirut AP colleague Terry Anderson, Foley received one of the first International Press Freedom Awards in 1991. Bill currently works as an Assistant Professor of Photography at Marian University in Indianapolis. Foley’s work has been published in many major newspapers and magazines around the world as well as books on the subject of photojournalism.
Foley’s work has been shown in major museums and galleries in New York, Cairo, Beirut and numerous cities in Europe. His works are also held in numerous private collections, judged by some as the truest indicator of commercial talent. Now you have the rare opportunity to judge for yourself at the Indiana State Museum (650 W. Washington St). Hours are 10 to 5 Monday-Saturday and 11 to 5 on Sunday. For more information, call the museum at 317-232-1637 or visit indianamuseum.org.
The final exhibit area, called “Tools of the Trade” by Mr. Foley, is my personal favorite as it retraces Foley’s step-by-step process of creating photographs. This process was sometime undertaken in a sterile lab, but most often accomplished in the field. A self-described packrat, this section showcases the now-forgotten tools and equipment needed to shoot, process and transmit images across the globe in the days of analog before the internet was born. Foley has included his varied press passes, cameras, and equipment along with pieces of deadly metal shrapnel from guns aimed at him. “I picked every piece up from the ground at my feet,” Foley explains, “Thank Heaven for small favors.”
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest book is “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
