Welcome to Me

The Bio page is the hardest thing to do. I am just an ordinary guy that likes to take pictures. I am an engineer by education and training and don't consider myself a great wordsmith so I will not attempt to seduce you with prose. Hopefully, my pictures will do the seducing.

Obviously, my name is John Willard. I was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Delaware. My parents took the family weekend camping probably every couple months. In the summer we would spend two weeks in Shenandoah National Park and/or travel up and down the East Coast. I was also in Boy Scouts and we went camping just about every month. As a result I got a lot of exposure to the natural world and I saw just about every darn Civil War battlefield and Revolutionary War fort. I loved it. I believe this instilled in me my current wanderlust and my love of the outdoors.

I moved to West Texas to put my engineering degree to work in the oilfields. After West Texas I moved to Denver, then to Cortez in southwest Colorado, back to Texas, and now back to Cortez. I like it here.

During that time and even now I have been able to travel all across the country and a couple trips outside the country. I haven't seen it all, nor will I. Others have traveled more extensively, but I do more than normal. The places I do visit I try to see the local art, history, and science museums. I am quick to detour into galleries to admire and sometimes purchase others' artwork, be it sculpture, paintings or photos. I will walk through the city or town and check out the architecture, landmarks and historical sites (and some hysterical sites). If there is a state or national park nearby I will try to take a day or maybe just a couple of hours and go hiking. There are some cool places out there and they are not always widely known.

Besides photography my other interests are hiking, bicycling and golf. I can pack my camera and tripod for the first two. Golf, I just like to play and not worry about anything else, no work, no pictures, just "a good walk spoiled."

Oh man, I just read that, I sound like a complete nerd. Now I know why I didn't want to write a Bio page. Everyone said "Oh John, you have to write a Bio page, everyone else does it". Please go back to looking at pictures, that's what this website is all about.