William Toti is an award-winning, global landscape photographer with a style that straddles the gap between a hyper-realistic, journalistic style, and scenes of fantasy.

Growing up in a dreary steel town in Ohio. William attended Annapolis where he spent his early years immersed in physics and engineering, eventually being nominated for the astronaut program, before being rejected for failing to meet NASA’s strict medical standards. He then spent years on and under the ocean as a submariner, eventually rising to command the nuclear fast attack submarine USS Indianapolis.

Then 9/11 happened.

William was on duty in the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building about a hundred yards away from where he was standing.

Although he would spend five more years in the Navy after 9/11, the memories of that day continued to burden him.

Until he discovered photography.

His work has been published internationally, including in Landscape Photographer, Nikon Asia, and N-Photo Magazines, and some of his best African images were published in the book Safari!, available on Amazon. His images “Serpentine Vapors at Yosemite,” “Manarola at Sunrise,” and “Giraffe in Silhouette at Sunset,” have won first place awards in several photography contests.

My inspiration is to create images that have the ability to draw viewers out of the trials and tribulations of their everyday lives, into the magnificence of creation. I search for that fine line: creative, even slightly surreal, but realistic enough to reach out and touch. I chase the “decisive moment” in landscape photography, and succeed when the viewer, if only for a moment, becomes lost in the image, is filled with wonder that a place such as this might actually exist, becoming immersed in thought or reflection. – William Toti