Shooting from the Heart

by Madeline C. Lanshe

Randy Dunn’s journey as a photographer started in 1975 when he came across an old 35mm Rangefinder camera in a closet when he was fifteen years old. His dad had bought it years before while serving in the army. He fiddled around until it worked, then took it on vacation that summer. His newfound interest did not go unnoticed, and the following Christmas, his father bought him a “real” camera: a Canon FTb single lens reflex with a 50mm lens. He’s been in and out of photography ever since.

Randy worked in construction management and as a technical representative for a manufacturer of construction products and tools later in his career. At the end of 2019, he was able to start enjoying an early retirement. This has allowed him to pursue his passion of photography. He doesn’t worry about selling his photos, which relieves the stress other photographers experience while trying to market their images. He does it just for the pure joy, which is when he believes most artists produce their best work.

Randy’s favorite thing to photograph is nature.

“Most landscape photographers got into it because they just enjoy being out in nature. The picture is secondary to being in the environment.” For Randy, it’s a way to document and relive once-in-a-lifetime trips. You can forever look back on those memories. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

Another aspect of photography that he loves is how you can pick up or put down the camera whenever, even if it’s been a while. Your vision changes, just as your life changes and your experiences grow. There are things that make you who you are and influence how you see the world, which in turn influence the shots you capture. This, Randy explains, is demonstrated when you do workshops with a group of people, all taking photos at the same location. Very few participants come back with images that are even similar.

Randy considers himself self-taught, as he never studied photography formally. He does come from an artistic family, however. His mother was an artist, and his father was musical, though he did not inherit the music genes. He has participated in numerous workshops with other professional photographers. This includes a recent trip to Alaska to take pictures of grizzly bears, coming within mere yards of a mother bear and three cubs.

The first photography road trip he did was from Chicago to North and South Dakota, the Badlands, Madeline Island, and down through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The fall colors were remarkable in Wisconsin and the UP. Every spring, he goes to the Smokies to capture the wildflowers and the wide variety of greens as the trees leaf out. Otherwise, some of his most notable trips were to the Galapagos Islands and the Svalbard region in the Arctic. About the former, he said, “It’s like walking through a zoo without fences, the amount of times we had to tiptoe around iguanas and sea lions.”

While working their way through the Arctic, the captain brought the small ship by a huge iceberg during dinner. Randy remembers how he had to quickly finish eating so that he could get up and get his camera. Pretty soon, everyone was out on the deck taking pictures. That same night, they saw a young, male polar bear with a pristine coat. “No scars or anything,” Randy said. “Walked up to the ship, did like, one lap back and forth. Decided, ‘there’s no food here for me, it’s time to move on.’ Those kinds of experiences, whether you had a camera or not, to capture that, is just incredible.”

While Randy focuses mainly on the domestic, as there’s enough in the US to keep a photographer occupied for life, he is planning a trip to Antarctica later this year. The cruise will cater well to photography. For him, it’s not just about being on the ice with the penguins, but taking in the landscapes and ice formations as they travel in the ship.

If you’re an aspiring photographer, Randy cautions against getting too caught up in the gear or copying what you see on the Internet. It’s about going out into the world and being open: stumbling across a waterfall, a group of flowers, light filtering through the trees just right. Showing up without expectations. You can hike for hours in the dark to reach the summit of a mountain to capture the sunrise, but you have no control over how the sky chooses to behave. Carve out your own way of seeing things.“Shoot from the heart,” Randy says. “Do what makes your heart sing.”

More images can be found on his website: DunnByRandall.com