Will Sardinsky ’13: One Year at CRMS Sets Course for Photography Career

For Will Sardinsky ’13, his one pivotal senior year at CRMS served as a launchpad, shifting him away from a standard academic path and toward a life defined by creative risk, community, and the lens of a camera.

Today, Will is a celebrated, award-winning freelance photographer and filmmaker whose name appears alongside the industry’s most prestigious institutions. But if you ask him how he got there, he points back to the Roaring Fork Valley and the lessons learned as a CRMS student.

Will arrived at CRMS as a senior, and though his time on campus was brief, the impact was immediate. His teachers, Bobby Rosati, Dan Pittz, and advisor Matt Norrdin, were supportive of his interests and created space for him to learn more about himself.  “I hadn’t felt a sense of community like that in an academic setting,” Will reflects.   

His Senior Project became perhaps the most formative moment. Supported by faculty member Tracy Wilson, Will secured a spot working with Sweetgrass Productions on the feature-length ski film Valhalla.

“It opened up a new idea of how to live life—working on projects, working creatively with a tight-knit team,” Will says. “I’m not sure I would have had the idea that that was how you could live your ‘adult life’ if it weren’t for my experience on senior project.”

Since graduating from CRMS and later Colorado College, Will has built a career that reads like a National Geographic adventure log. 

• Documenting agave restoration projects and migratory Bats in New Mexico with the BBC 
• Chasing baseball-sized hailstorms in Texas with New Scientist 
• Filming “Field Recordings” in Aspen with NPR
• Photographed the Lake Christine Fire of 2018 “My Fires” included in his New York Times portfolio review
• Presenting his films at festivals around the world, including the award-winning documentary “A Few Acres at a Time,” following 500 goats as they travel the Western U.S., bringing life back to the land.
• Working with Wilderness Workshop on “Take it off the Table,” a film documenting the Wild & Scenic designation for the Crystal River in Carbondale, Colorado. 

His talent hasn’t gone unnoticed. Will recently won the Colorado Press Association’s Best Photography Portfolio award for his work with Carbondale’s own Sopris Sun newspaper. Even more impressively, he was one of only 80 photographers selected for the New York Times Portfolio Review, where he shared his work with editors from The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Smithsonian.

While his work takes him across the country, Will remains deeply rooted in Carbondale. He has found his “reason for being” by balancing freelance work with local community leadership. Whether he is running the local ultimate frisbee league (a passion sparked at CRMS), throwing pots at the Carbondale Clay Center, or training his dog, Veronica, Will embodies the CRMS ideal of a well-rounded life.

At the heart of Will’s practice is human connection. “The most rewarding part of my work is the connections that I get to make with the people I document and work alongside,” he explains. “Whether I get to hear their story or be creative with the team I’m working with, we get to share a bit of ourselves and our lives, and I always learn something new from that exchange.”

Will just completed a three-year mentorship program through Anderson Ranch, led by Ed Kashi and Jim Estrin. Ed Kashi is an internationally recognized photojournalist with VII agency and a long-time National Geographic contributor. Jim is a staff photographer at the New York Times. Over the three years, he worked on his long-term project, a meditation on his own family relationships, bringing it from a rough idea to a book maquette, which he will begin showing to prospective publishers. Along the way, Jim, Ed, and the cohort inspired more ambitious storytelling, confidence in running a creative business, and a commitment to using stories for good as often as possible. 

This photojournalism project on family relationships started in 2018 after the Lake Christine Fire. The work explores his connection with each of his family members as he uses a camera and lots of time to observe their dynamics, project his challenges, and accept the imperfections of familial connections. “Relationships and social dynamics are really interesting,” he notes. “Some are easy, some are hard, but still really important.” Through his camera – which offers both a buffer and a tool for deeper understanding – he’s creating a visual narrative that’s “poetic and subtle,” incorporating journal entries, letters, thoughts, and mostly photos.  

“Freelancing gives me the flexibility to say yes to unusual, deeply enriching experiences.” Will Sardinsky has chosen this path because it allows him to build a life rooted in curiosity and meaningful human connection—things that he realized were part of a fulfilling life while at CRMS. In addition to his long-term personal projects, Will is regularly commissioned to use his creative practice and sensitivity to create images for publications and brands. 

Will’s advice to current CRMS students is to take a step back and fully appreciate the unique opportunities and caring community you have at your fingertips every day. Say yes to opportunities, lean into your interests even if the path forward isn’t clear, and trust that the “through line” will make sense later. Will reminds students that relationships matter deeply: the friendships they form at CRMS may last a lifetime, and learning how to collaborate, reflect, and grow within a community is just as important as any technical skill. 

Most of all, he urges students to be present during their short time at CRMS, to take advantage of the opportunities that are so easily accessible, and to recognize just how special this moment and this community truly are.