William Lesch was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and grew up in the Midwest. His childhood summers were spent on Lake Wawasee in Northern Indiana and it was at Wawasee that he began forming an intimacy with the natural world. Lesch discovered photography and met his future wife, his two life-long loves, in the same year at the age of 21. He took photography as an elective course while in a pre-med program. Lesch had found his calling, he dropped out of pre-med and switched to art school the following semester.

Lesch earned a BFA in photography from the University of Arizona in 1976. He was the first Staff Photographer at the Center for Creative Photography* from 1976-78. It was at this time that he began work on many of his signature ...