Randy Johnson Uses His Old Pitching Techniques in Photography
Randy Johnson, a National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher with a 22-year MLB career, has now dived head-first into his career as a photographer. The same focus he applied to preparations for a game, he now utilizes when he takes photos of an animal in the wild, he told Sportico in an extensive recent interview.
Johnson has some of his work on display in a small gallery at the Scottsdale Performing Arts Center, some 12 miles from Chase Field in downtown Phoenix where he earned his reputation as the last 300-game winner in his years pitching for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
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He said there are similarities in pitching and photography, such as the singular focus required in both. Much like when facing a hitter, Johnson said, “When I put that camera up to my face, it’s just me and the subject I’m taking a picture of.”
In this case, the subjects are some of the animals and Indigenous people he photographed last year on a trip to Ethiopia. Some of the photos at the display depicted elephants, zebras, gorillas, a full-maned lion in black and white and a spotted leopard hanging on a limb peering directly into the left-hander’s camera lens.
Like Johnson facing Barry Bonds, it’s a matter of patience and finesse. As a pitcher, it was putting the ball in the right place. As a photographer, it’s a steady hand on the camera and a discerning eye for just the right shot. Johnson said the ratio could be as many as 14,000 shots of the same subject before he determines the one he absolutely wants to put on display.
“I’m waiting for that subject to turn and look at me to get whatever shot I want,” Johnson said.
The highly introspective 60-year-old is on the long road recovering from right knee replacement surgery after 22 years of pounding his 6-foot-10, 225-pound frame on that leg as he followed through after thousands upon thousands of pitches. As such a tall man, Johnson’s landing leg took the brunt of the punishment. He’s had back surgery and shoulder issues, but nothing prepared him for recovering from this knee surgery, he said.
Johnson is being inducted in the first class of the D-backs own newly established Hall of Fame sometime this season, along with Luis Gonzalez. The two starred in Arizona’s only World Series championship, won in seven games over the New York Yankees in 2001. Johnson was co-MVP of the Series with fellow pitcher Curt Schilling. Gonzalez hit the single off Mariano Rivera to win the Series. Their numbers—Johnson’s 51 and Gonzalez’s 20—are the only ones retired by the D-backs.
Johnson was blunt and sometimes irascible when he came off the mound during his playing days, win or lose. Since his induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015, a much more eloquent Johnson has emerged.
The pitcher was 45 and a member of the San Francisco Giants when he limped to his 300th win at the newly opened Nationals Park in Washington on June 4, 2009. He finished with 303, and there hasn’t been another pitcher to reach that mark since.
Following his retirement at the end of that season, Johnson has traveled the world pursuing his post-career passion; he photographed rock concerts, landscapes and animals, whatever tickles his fancy. But right now, he’s not going anywhere except rehab for his knee, hoping to recover in time for this year’s induction ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y., on July 21.
It’s a big one with Adrian Beltré, Joe Maurer, Todd Helton and Jim Leyland all getting in.
“It’s definitely been one of the most painstaking surgeries I’ve had to recover from,” he said. “The back surgeries happened during my career, and I recovered nicely. But this one I’m about three-and-a-half months out and my knee is still pretty swollen. It’s going to take a while to get it back to where it needs to be.”
Johnson had a photographic exhibition last year during induction weekend at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown. Another is planned in the months ahead at the FOUND:RE Phoenix Hotel where some of his rock music photos will hang for the first time.
Johnson was given access by Metallica, Billy Joel and Elton John, among other famous musicians. He says he’s excited about viewing these pieces of art on a wall, “because I’ve only seen them on social media, and they’re pretty small.”
“When you blow them up to 16×12 you see a lot of great detail,” he said. “Some pictures just look pretty cool when they’re blown up, you know?”
Johnson has been a photojournalist since he received his Bachelors’ degree from USC in that discipline. He worked for the school newspaper and played baseball, but his photography took a backseat to his pro baseball career when he was picked by the Montreal Expos in the second round of the 1985 amateur draft.
“I figured there might be something bigger in baseball than photography,” he said.
He’s never photographed sports (aside from testing a lens on the football sidelines) and said he really has no interest in doing so. Though he laments now not having a camera in the dugout or bullpen to record moments at now-ancient ballparks where he once played.
“Celebrations and home runs, things like that,” he said. “Tiger Stadium, old Yankee Stadium, old Comiskey Park. Walk in and around those old ballparks. But that wasn’t where I was at with my photography back then. I was just trying to be a ballplayer and be consistent.”
These days he loves travels to Italy, Paris, Japan, Prague and Africa. He says he misses the competitive nature of baseball, but not the grind. Taking photos has gone a long way in replacing it.
“It’s kind of like when I was playing baseball,” he said about being in the wilderness on a photo shoot. “I’m on edge waiting for the moment to happen because it will happen and then it will be gone, and you may not get that moment again.
“That’s what I love about it.”
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