John Dougill was born in the UK and studied at Leeds and Oxford Universities. He has recently retired and is now professor emeritus at Ryukoku University in Kyoto. He runs the Green Shinto blog and is the organizer of Writers in Kyoto. He has written papers on Shinto and paganism as well as a study of Lafcadio Hearn, and amongst his many books on Japan are Kyoto: A Cultural History, Zen Gardens and Temples of Kyoto, Japan's World Heritage Sites, and In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians.

Patrick Hochner started taking photographs in his native Alsace, France, when he was 14, squatting the family bathroom for his darkroom. At around the same time, he started to be interested in traveling, in meeting other people, and discovering how they live. He has never stopped doing both, combining photography and travels, whenever possible, and has traveled over 100 countries in every part of the world. Arriving in Japan at the end of the 70's, he got married to a Japanese woman, and has called Japan his home for some 30 years. After falling in love with the city of Kyoto, the old imperial capital, he is now sharing his life between this city, Nice in France, and traveling. His main interest is currently the Hanamachi or so-called "flower districts" of Kyoto, an amazing secret world full of grace and beauty.