About Mark Johnson

What I do

I am a professional writer and photographer who owns Ironstring Communications. I've contributed to organizations including Pearl Izumi, Microsoft, The California Travel and Tourism Commission, The San Diego Reader, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Editor and Publisher, VeloNews, Popular Photography, the Modern Language Association and numerous professional sports franchises. I've been honored with awards from the Society for Professional Journalists and the Society for Technical Communication. I've ghost written books and have been privileged to photograph some of the most beautiful places in the world.

How I got here

While an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, I saw that English professors lead a fine life. I wanted to be one.

By my second year of graduate school at Boston University, it also became clear that, while professors lead a fine life indeed, until they land tenure, it is fraught with the anxiety of a migrant laborer. So I assayed my values.

While I delight in opening students to literature, I am also committed to surfing. Did I really want to give up surfing while I sought full time employment at schools not on an ocean? No. The Mack truck with my name on it could be around any corner, and it's important to not squander what could be our last days doing things that don't matter. So, after completing my PhD, I heeded my inner compass and moved back to San Diego. There, I could surf. I also figured I could marshal my talents into some sort of paycheck.

Fueled by conviction, discipline, and resourcefulness, I cold-called my way into work doing marketing and corporate communications writing for several San Diego companies. These initial contract jobs were the alpine tributaries of a vocational river that, for me, grows wider, faster, and more exciting with every year. I eventually spent 10 years as a writer, researcher, and product manager in the software industry, the last five of which I spent with colleagues (many of them also with PhDs) conducting studies on how people use software in their everyday lives.

That field of research, known as human factors, is a branch of psychology and industrial design. It's a behavioral science extending to Frederick Winslow Taylor and Catherine Beecher (novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe's sister). The goal is to make software accommodate humans, rather than forcing people to bend to software's ways.

Throughout my years in the software industry, I continued to write and photograph for companies, publications and individuals during my outside hours. Today that's all I do.

It's not all work

I believe in defining oneself by getting out and doing.

Toward this end, I've bicycled across the United States on two separate occasions, and I did an Ironman-distance triathlon. Today I stay fit as a Category 2 competitive road cyclist. Along with getting to know New England and Southern California's bike racing cultures, I spent a season racing in Grenoble, France. My wife also races, and I help her keep our sons Samuel and Nico Johnson, shown here in Belgium for Liège-Bastogne-Liège, out of the spokes.

Surfing is my greatest passion. Like Don Quijote questing for Dulcenia, I've traipsed from Australia to Peru, Portugal to Barbados, looking for the ideal wave. Jeffrey's Bay in South Africa is the most perfect wave I've ridden. The most sensual mix of culture and surf is the Spanish Basque Country. Here are a few photos I've taken of these places. Thanks to La Jolla Surfing for posting them.

Education

• PhD, English, Boston University
• MA, English, Boston University
• BA, English and American Literature, University of California, San Diego
• While at UC San Diego I also studied at the University of Seville in Spain
• While at Boston University I spent a semester at the University of Grenoble in France