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 raised on the east coast. 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 and history.

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." Though I just photographed our local course, I wasn't playing at the time. You can see them at fourcornersgolf(dot)com, click on "The Course"

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.