John, a native of Missouri, in the Midwestern United States, worked as a newspaper photojournalist for fourteen years, on stories large and small, local and international. In 1997, while photographing in Sacramento, California, a gang accosted John, demanding his film. He was summarily beaten, left for dead, bleeding on a sidewalk. Over the next two and a half months he was in rehabilitation. After his attack while working he needed to learn how to be a photographer once again.