We were lucky to catch up with Will Fenwick recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Will thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One deeply underappreciated facet of being an entrepreneur or creative is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?
During my time working as a park ranger in Washington state I was in a truly confused mindset going back and forth about whether or not I wanted to be a professional artist and how I could even afford to live in a city like Seattle working as a photographer or videographer. Around the same time, I was really pushing myself when it came to backpacking and got into the habit of going out alone into the wilderness. For four months straight I averaged 40 miles every weekend with only a 40-to-50-pound pack on my back and a camera as I tried to get pictures from the backcountry that no one had ever seen before. Right before the wildfire season started, I started getting into mountaineering which definitely took things up a notch.
I built up to one specific mountaineering route throughout the summer and in August of 2022 I set out to complete it solo. I started early and made it 17 miles into the wilderness, half a mile from my destination I could even see it from where I stood, but I had to cross a sketchy ice field for the entirety of that half mile. Something didn’t feel right but the pictures I planned to get were too good to pass up. I scrambled along a rock wall which I hoped would lead me to a safer route on the glacier and in the process was coincidentally struck in the head by a falling boulder. I didn’t lose consciousness, so my first instinct was to keep going and get the pictures I wanted. The wide-open hole in my head eventually forced me to think otherwise, so I turned around and went straight to the ER.
In a nutshell this life-threatening day forced me to love the outdoors and my craft ten times more than I ever did before. Although I still want to go back and finish the route, I decided to move back to Kentucky the following month so I could restart my creative business and the rest is history!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Well, my name is William Stephen Fenwick, and I am a 23-year-old self-taught professional photographer, videographer, and creative director based in Louisville, Kentucky. As of May 2023, I will have about 14 years of experience with a camera under my belt and about 5 to 6 years of building up to the professional that I am today. Although I started with videography during my years as a sponsored skateboarder, most of my passion comes down to photography given I’ve placed as a finalist in prestigious international competitions, worked alongside several of my favorite artists such as Portugal. The Man, Jack Harlow, and Snoop Dogg, and I’ve even had my photography shared by artists like Tame Impala and RZA from Wu-Tang. More recently I published my first book called Get Busy Livin’ back in 2022, I moved just north of Seattle for a bit and worked as a USFS park ranger, but ultimately my love for visual arts brought me back home to the bluegrass.
Since moving back home to Kentucky I’ve been collaborating with my good friend Zach Sinclair and his company Grizzly Media which has helped me gain a lot of unique experience working as a team and expanding the creative possibilities of any project. So far, we’ve executed creative productions for outdoor-based television shows, commercials, documentaries, large-scale product releases and so much more yet to come. While I can’t exactly explain to the world how we try to stay ahead of the curve on our projects, thinking outside of the box is a constant between working with Zach/Grizzly Media and promoting my own brand, Will Fenwick Visuals. Until October of 2022 I had never really had the chance to work with a creative team so having this opportunity was like a personal blessing and Zach has been the best mentor I could’ve asked for.
I personally love getting in touch with the nitty gritty lifestyle that motivated me from skateboarding, the uncontrollable electricity of the music industry, and the tranquility and unexplainable beauty from backpacking, rock climbing, or fly fishing. Up until 6 months ago I had absolutely no clue how I could turn these three core motivators into a successful brand, but I knew working a 9 to 5 would kill whatever inspiration was growing within, so I said screw it, dove straight into the deep end and with a lot of hard work it turned out for the best. It’s such a blessing to wake up and maintain a full-time career that truly represents who I am and gives me a reason to create every day.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Oh man I’m so used to the pivot at this point that it feels weird to not be in situations that force me to adapt. I mean that’s where you really learn your boundaries! You just can’t be complacent in such a progressive industry. I’ve made a lot of big pivots over the span of my career that’ve helped more than I ever could’ve imagined, like strictly surrounding myself with people who have the same level of ambition, if not more ambition, as I do, or better yet learning how to manage the never-ending trains of thought that come with being such a passionate artist. When it comes to the smaller things in life, I’d say I have fair boundaries, but when it comes to the bigger challenges, I’ve yet to find my limits, so the adrenaline junkie within sees that as beautiful unexplored territory.
I have a crazy amount of energy for an introvert, so one of the biggest adaptations I’ve experienced has been leaning into that energy in order to break out of my introverted shell and talk to people. It’s worked out better than I ever could’ve imagined, especially when it comes to cold calling people I don’t necessarily know. About two weeks ago I worked as an official in-house photographer for McDowell Mountain Music Festival in Phoenix, Arizona, and it was easily one of the best experiences I’ve had in my career thus far. We had such an amazing team to collaborate with, and if it weren’t for our team manager, Warner, picking up one of my cold calls, I would’ve never had a chance to make so many new great friends on that trip.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
In this day and age there is so much non-creatives don’t understand about creatives. Creative fields such as photography and videography have morphed substantially with the growth of the internet, nonetheless, being an artist is an extremely valid career with a rapidly growing worth. Here I feel like it is our job as artists to properly explain to our clients or anyone interested in our work that we will not work for free and why we charge what we charge. Starting out will play out differently for everyone, but keep in mind when McDonalds wasn’t just handing out free burgers for exposure when they started off and neither should we.
Non-creatives need to understand our process isn’t learned in 1 day, week, month or year as it usually builds over 5-10 years for most. Every creative is unique in how they work, so let them work however they want to as long as they’re creating. As a creative we have the right to charge for all of our time allocated to a project including pre-production, individual deliverables, time spent editing, feedback and revisions, licensing between separate platforms, storage, and last but not least anything involving copyright. This is when I’d like to introduce the golden triangle of project management: quality, schedule, and cost. A quality project is not going to be cheap or fast but a rushed project may not have the highest quality result although it may cost less.
I also think there is still so much artists don’t know about other artists. First and foremost, every artist needs to figure out their worth and stick up for their worth. Charge lower rates when you’re starting out and build onto your rates as you have a quality portfolio that you’re proud of sharing. A huge win for any artist is backing up their work with signed documents like contracts, estimates, rights managed agreements, NDAs, releases, and invoices even for cash payments not only to help the artist stay organized but to keep clients from taking advantage of an artist. I also think it should be known to have a healthy ego or no ego at all once you start to build your brand. We’re all here to make friends, no one is better than the other and although we all have people we look up to they’re exactly the same as us when the cameras are tucked away.
If there are any creatives or non-creatives reading this with specific questions you think I could answer, please feel free to reach out through my personal website’s contact form.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://willfenwick.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willfenwickness/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/willfenwickness/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-fenwick-8a5557138/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/willfenwickness
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WillFenwick
Image Credits
Personal photo credit goes to @snipezart