About

Will Wissman’s path into photography wasn’t planned—it was built from a lifelong obsession with skiing, light, and being in the mountains before most people are awake.

Born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Wissman always gravitated toward a less conventional path. In 1995, he moved to Salt Lake City, where he joined the Alta snowmaking crew—still a job he considers one of his favorites. Working overnight shifts on the mountain, he became intimately familiar with a time of day few people experience: the quiet moments before sunrise, when the peaks begin to glow.

It was during those early mornings that everything clicked.

Drawn to the fleeting light of alpenglow and the lines skiers carve through untouched snow, Wissman picked up his first camera in 1996—a Minolta film camera with a motor drive that could shoot four frames per second. With little technical knowledge but a deep instinct for movement and terrain, he began capturing what he already understood: skiing, powder, and the feeling of standing on a summit just as the light breaks.

What started as curiosity quickly became something more.

In the late ’90s, while still early in his career, Wissman attended a telemark competition in Crested Butte. What began as a typical day shooting turned into a defining moment—one that reinforced his belief in being exactly where he was meant to be. From that point forward, there was no question: he would be on the mountain, camera in hand.

By the early 2000s, photography was no longer just a passion—it was a commitment. After the birth of his first daughter, Wissman made the decision to pursue it fully, building a career around documenting the landscapes and moments that had shaped him.

His work has since taken him across the mountains of the American West and deep into Alaska, where he developed a lasting connection to Haines—returning year after year since the early 2000s to photograph some of the most dynamic terrain in the world.

Wissman’s photography is grounded in more than composition or technique. It reflects a skier’s perspective—an understanding of timing, terrain, and movement that can’t be staged or recreated. His images capture not just where a skier is, but what it feels like to be there.

At its core, his work is about light, motion, and being in the right place at the right time (#rprt).