He dropped out in 10th grade to join the Army, but World War I came to an end and he could not enlist.
By the late 1920s, he began to work in commercial photography for publications, such as Life, Sunset, Time, U.S.
Photographs of commercial, industrial and retail sectors make up the majority of his later work.
Connell taught photography at Art Center College of Design then in Los Angeles, from 1931 until his death there in 1961.
The UCR/California Museum of Photography Will Connell archive at the University of California, Riverside archive contains approximately 15,000 of Connell's negatives and prints along with individual periodicals, personal notes, technical photographic books, manuscripts, and photographic equipment.