Will McBride (American, 1931–2015) was a photographer in the fields of journalism, fine art, and book illustration, as well as a painter and sculptor. McBride was born in St. Louis, MO, and grew up in Chicago. Though he initially studied English literature at the University of Vermont, he went on to study drawing and painting, first at the National Academy of Design in New York, and later at Syracuse University. In addition, he took private lessons with Norman Rockwell.

During his military service for the US Army, he was stationed in Germany, where he remained for the rest of his life. After finishing his military service, McBride studied philology at the Free University in Berlin. In 1959, he established himself as a freelance photographer. In 1960, the youth magazine Twen published portraits of his pregnant wife in profile, which sparked outrage. Throughout his career, he continued to provoke controversy, and some of his nude photos have been censored. In 1965, he founded his own studio in Munich, and produced work mainly for the advertising industry.

Between 1972 and 1982, he largely stopped taking photographs and relocated to Tuscany, where he focused mainly on paintings and sculptures. In 1983, he returned to photography, opening another studio in Frankfurt, which he headed until 1998. In 1992, the retrospective Will McBride – 40 Years of Photography took place in Frankfurt, Bonn, Hamburg, and Munich, among other places. In 2004, he was awarded the Salomon Award by the German Photographic Association.