Photography is not just pictures, it’s a stance: curiosity, empathy, a worldview, being present.

It’s about our relationship with life, our habitat, each other, our inner selves - and the future.

Recent

  • Conducted an Ethical Tech workshop at the Takoma Park MD Library, on how to switch to more private apps and platforms

  • Co-hosted a live segment about Future Music on Takoma Radio, including a solo in-studio performance

  • Launched See For Yourself, a six-week, in-person photo workshop to support development of photo authorship and personal vision

  • While living in Kenya, led a photo workshop at the Human Needs Project in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, and provided long-term mentorship to the new generation of local documentary photographers telling their stories

Bio

Bill Crandall’s background demonstrates deep experience and innovation across photography, arts education, music, and grassroots arts organizing. All his work is grounded in a commitment to truth-telling, authenticity, and community. What unites his creative approach is an emphasis on personal voice (what he calls ‘authorship’), sense of place, equanimity, and distilling broad subjects to their humanistic implications.

Bill is a leading documentary photographer from the Washington DC area who recently spent two years living in Nairobi, Kenya. He has won awards and grants, exhibited internationally, and has been published by publications such as New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic’s photo blog, and countless others. In his long-form personal projects he has taken nuanced looks at:

  • Daily life in post-Soviet Belarus

  • Gentrification in Washington DC

  • The climate crisis

  • Fracking

  • Nairobi

Bill was voted Best Visual Artist in Washington City Paper’s 2015 reader poll.

As a full-time photography educator at the prestigious Maret School for fifteen years, Bill integrated forward-looking ideas about empathy, personal vision, and nature into his photo curriculum (both darkroom-based and digital) for students. He also taught Publication Design, collaborated with art department colleagues for various projects, supervised the award-winning Literary Arts magazine, and was instrumental in helping facilitate the yearly all-school art exhibition. In addition he has taught private photo workshops from the World Bank to Minsk to Nairobi’s Kibera slum.

As a solo musician and singer-songwriter, Bill’s original music is both melodic and atmospheric. He considers himself a ‘future-folk’ artist - themes and stories not of the past but that imagine the future we want. He conceived and created a unique music-photo hybrid project, the 2016 concept album New World Voyage, about the first humans to leave Earth forever for barren Mars. The songs and accompanying art booklet imply the need to safeguard the environment of our only home.

As an organizer, he has hosted numerous local art salons, concerts, meetups, and discussion events at the grassroots level. During COVID, he hosted a series of socially-distanced driveway concerts, funded by the city government, for his community and to support local artists. He promoted the role of art and artists in shaping our future through his Viaduct Arts email newsletter. He brought a photo exhibition on the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl to the United Nations and Capitol Hill. He created a collaborative exhibition/workshop to help photographers in authoritarian Belarus. Over the years he has been involved in projects around climate, fracking, BLM, and Ukraine.

He has given artist talks at the International Center for Journalists, the National Press Club, American University Metropolitan Policy Center, and the FotoweekDC photo festival, among others.

Photo Services

See the Portraits and Events pages for more about my photographic services.

Browse a selection of fine-art prints.

Mentorship, consulting, and custom presentations are also available for individuals and organizations. Want to bring a See For Yourself photo workshop module to your school to help students develop personal vision with any camera? Contact me with inquiries.

Student Testimonials

“You taught me that art is everywhere, and can be done by anyone. It's been an amazing and rewarding journey.”

"I'm very grateful to have a teacher who created such a positive and caring environment."

"I've learned so much, from the basics of photography to exploring more of what makes me me."

"It was your perfect balance of guidance and allowing for artistic freedom and experimentation."

"I feel so lucky to have learned about photography from an expert whose work I so greatly admire."

"It's amazing how my view on the world has changed because of this class."

"You taught me how to process and capture the world around me in a new way - it has been truly life-changing."

"I will never forget your mentoring. You helped me develop not just as an artist, but as a human being as well."

"I am so proud of what you have helped me create. You are truly a gifted teacher."