A Riverdale resident for the past 15 years, Johnson was born in New York City, lived in the Bronx (Parkchester) and was raised in East Texas. With degrees from Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, he worked in both academics and finance.
He studied photography at Harvard’s Visual Arts Center, where his major influences were Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, and the iconic Family of Man Collection at MOMA. Most recently he has worked closely under the informal tutelage of two established photographic artists, one in particular inviting close viewing of and comments on his work and, in return, viewing Johnson's work critically.
Johnson works with a Fujifilmx100, SonyRX-100, Lumix fz1000, Nexus 6P and Pixel 2xl. He develops his images using Adobe Lightroom to crop and to adjust color and intensity. None of the images have been assembled or altered with Photoshop nor are they displayed anywhere online. Each print is framed and matted with archival materials and available in a signed edition from his studio.