"Looking for...pictures that capture the moment" - MLB icon Randy Johnson's recent exhibit celebrates Africa's diversity in every frame
Ten-time All-Star Randy Johnson called time on his baseball career in 2010, but the Hal of Famer didn't stop working. Instead, Johnson managed to turn his photography hobby into a career.
Now, the five-time Cy Young Award winner's latest work is on display at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts in Arizona. Titled, "Storytelling with Photographs," Johnson's photographs capture moments from his travels around Africa. Johnson captured the great herd migrations of the east, Rwanda's gorillas and Ethiopian culture, along with portraits of animals in the wild.
Randy Johnson has been interested in photography since high school and while playing baseball at USC studied photojournalism. Speaking to ABC Arizona, Johnson went into detail about his love of photography:
"With digital cameras, you can take a million pictures of the same thing, but I'm only looking for one to two pictures that really capture the moment. What you see in this room is a combination of about five or six trips to Africa of different areas, different regions.
"I shot a lot of concerts because they asked me to go to these concerts and bring back some pictures. So they could do like a concert review for the newspaper. I learned how to develop film and that whole process and kind of got my feet wet there."
Johnson offered an interesting comparison between his two careers, noting the similarity between pitching and photography:
"I have tunnel vision, if you will, when I put the camera up to my eye, I'm only seeing the subject that I'm taking a picture of. And when I was pitching, I only saw the hitter and the catcher that I was throwing to."
Randy Johnson's infamous 2001 bird incident
While Randy Johnson had an incredible MLB career and has the accolades to prove it, there was one moment that stands out in the memories of many. Back in 2001, while playing against the San Francisco Giants in Spring Training, Johnson threw a fastball that hit a bird, resulting in an explosion of feathers.
The Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher wasn't amused by the scene, nor by Giants player Jeff Kent picking the dead bird up and pointing it at him. He told ESPN at the time:
"I didn't think it was all that funny."
When speaking to FOX in 2016, Johnson said:
"It’s just hard to really put that into perspective. It happened so quick."
Interestingly, Randy Johnson's photography business carries a logo featuring a dead bird and feathers floating in the air.