John Birchard has lived in Mendocino, California for over 20 years. He has studied and worked as a photographer for longer than that, having majored in magazine and photo-journalism at the University of Kansas. For the last ten years, he has made his living as a writer and commercial photographer. His work has appeared in national magazines and books, and he is well known for his constantly changing images of Mendocino on the Mendocino Community Network home page at www.mcn.org. Though John feels that any type of photography is better than an honest job, he especially likes traveling and spending time in nature. Photography is more than just taking beautiful or expressive pictures, though, and John has long been interested in the expanded creative power that digital imaging is bringing to modern photographers. John's fine art images strive to bridge the gap between illustration and and traditional photography, combining the best qualities of both.