Lucas Murnaghan Water Photography

Name: Lucas Murnaghan Water Photography
Address: Toronto, ON, CA
Telephone: +14167228757
Price range: $$$

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Lucas Murnaghan Water Photography

1975–2021
MD, Fine Art Water Photographer
Estate managed by Antonio Lennert He has now traveled to four continents, shooting in major breaks around the globe.

Lucas Murnaghan is a Toronto-based photographer focusing on images that involve water and its surroundings. His early work focused primarily on surf and adventure photography, and he has always preferred to immerse himself in his environment leading to shooting from within the water. Surf brand sponsorships brought opportunities to shoot in-water photographic coverage for major international compe

titions, including the Rip Curl Pro Tofino and WSL Soup Bowl Pro. He has published his work in numerous publications and has staged two gallery shows. His love of photography has further evolved into fine art and editorial work in the underwater realm, and he has worked with several brands, subjects, and locations to create evocative and ethereal images. An accomplished triathlete and free diver himself, he works without additional SCUBA equipment, allowing him a deeper connection to his subject. This personal and organic approach allows for greater versatility in his shoots and a heightened level of intimacy to the finished product. Murnaghan brings a fresh eye to a challenging medium and takes his audience with him, below the surface, to see things from a novel perspective.

09/06/2026

There is a kind of blindness reserved only for the self. He holds his own hands in front of his own eyes and still cannot read them, the water bending light just enough to keep a shape from resolving into fact. Recognition, it turns out, has little to do with proximity. A man can spend a lifetime an arm's length from himself, waiting for something like acceptance to bring him into focus

08/30/2026

Devon Ryan, Georgian Bay.

Lucas was drawn to the moments no one was posing for, a beat between suits, or before someone realized the camera was already running. Something honest tends to surface right there.

08/23/2026

Before Beneath the Surface had a name, there was a hotel pool in San Diego.

Lucas was there on a surf trip, staying at the Lafayette. He had been shooting surf for years by then. Underwater portraits were still something new he was only starting to play with.

Kevin and Isaac were staying at the same hotel. They came by to see what was happening at the pool, got in the water, and ended up playing with Lucas in the water for the rest of the afternoon. Neither of them had done anything like it before.

This is one of the first images Lucas made that day, an early step toward the work that would become Beneath the Surface.

08/16/2026

Colin Love holds a cinder block against his chest at the bottom of a pool. He isn't fighting it; he's embracing that weight as an integral part of his existence while gazing straight into the camera. Lucas called the image No Ordinary Love.

The title holds more than one meaning. It could be about loving someone in a way that isn't simple or light, where the depth of that love carries real weight. It could also be about a harder kind of love: carrying something heavy for long enough that you finally set it down and learn to love yourself as you actually are.

Either way, Colin isn't buried under that weight. He's holding it tightly, owning it, still, steady, looking straight at us, entirely in possession of his own truth.

08/08/2026

Cody Oehm's arms are held out and bent at the elbow, legs together, the same stabilizing stance a skydiver holds mid-fall. Nothing in his body is straining against the water. He's simply letting himself fall, and holding his form while he does it.

Lucas made this image freediving in the Bruce Peninsula, working underwater on his own breath alongside Cody rather than shooting from above. He built most of his titles around the emotion an image already carried rather than spelling it out, and this one, called Free Yourself, holds both control and surrender in the same frame.

Editions of this piece live in collections in California, Colorado, and Paris, and Toronto.

Free Yourself is available as editioned art. Message us for details.

08/02/2026

Jacob Reinhard sat down on the steps of a Fort Lauderdale pool and, for a moment, stopped paying attention to the camera.

Lucas called the image The Truth Lies Within. Nothing about it was staged to look this way. Jacob is simply sitting with himself, chin against his hand, and Lucas was there to see it happen.

He once said that perhaps by losing our way in the water, we can find ourselves again. That idea runs through most of his work, but it's rarely as visible as it is in this one image, a man who has stopped performing and settled into his own thoughts.

The photograph is part of the same body of work as Beneath the Surface, the book that first brought seventy of these moments together in one place.

One copy of the second edition remains. When it sells, this edition is complete.

www.lucasmurnaghan.com/book/p/beneath-the-surface-photo-book-2nd-edition

07/26/2026

Some photographs arrive quietly. This is one of them.

Lucas made this image of Derek Macaulay. Derek has said that he's often felt out of place, a misfit, an outsider, and that being submerged in a quiet world with Lucas let him sink away from his anxieties and his messy thoughts.

Lucas had an instinct for that kind of moment, the one after the pose drops and something more honest comes through. He was patient enough to wait for it every time, and that patience runs through the full body of work now held in the Lucas Murnaghan archive.

For collectors and art enthusiasts who want to stay close to that archive as it grows, the Collectors Club is where that happens.

lucasmurnaghan.com/collectors-club

07/19/2026

'Free Your Mind' was made on a stretch of the Bruce Peninsula that Lucas returned to summer after summer. The cove could only be reached by paddling, boards and camera gear balanced across the water, no shortcut in or out.

These expeditions were planned with real care. Lucas and I scouted the site ahead of time and worked out the day around the water and the light. Before anyone got in, we spent time with the subject on breathing and staying calm, so there was trust built before the camera ever came out. George Kopas, a friend from Toronto, was the subject that day. 'Carved From the Same Stone' was made on that same stretch of coastline, the same morning, once Lucas found the light he was after.

An edition of 'Free Your Mind' was later donated to SNAP, a fundraising auction in Toronto supporting the AIDS Committee of Toronto. It sold for $4,200 CAD, with proceeds going directly to the organization's work in the city.

This edition remains part of the archive.
Print availability and enquiries at [email protected]

www.lucasmurnaghan.com

07/12/2026

Wherever You May Go. Trey Golden, Twin Falls, Washington.

Lucas worked without SCUBA on every shoot. Before anyone entered the water, he would work with his subjects on land, using breathwork and stillness to prepare, until they were ready. There was always a moment underwater when everything settled. That was when he made his best images. This is one of them.

Trey Golden is a visual artist based in Seattle. This piece was part of SNAP 2023, a live auction benefiting people living with HIV and AIDS in Toronto, where it sold for CAD$4,000.

Print availability and enquiries at [email protected]

www.lucasmurnaghan.com

Address

Toronto, ON

Telephone

+14167228757

Website

http://www.lucasmurnaghan.com/

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