John Reese, who runs a number of music festivals, including several hardcore metal shows, got a call one day from an excited friend. Word was out that Randy Johnson wanted to work as a photographer at one of Reese’s events.
“Um, I don’t know anybody named Randy Johnson,” Reese replied.
Actually, he did. The Phoenix-born baseball fan knew all about the Arizona Diamondbacks and the 6-foot-10 pitcher who will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this weekend. He just didn’t realize that The Big Unit was now The Big Shutterbug.
“The pitcher?” he finally said. “Seriously?”
Reese saw just how serious Johnson was once they met. Johnson was carrying his Canon 1DX and his Leica M-240 and insisting on detailed checklists for each photo shoot.
Johnson, 51, is now a regular at Reese’s events, having shown a willingness to jump into the mosh pit if that’s what it takes to get the shot.
The five-time Cy Young Award winner has also pointed his lens at bands such as U2, Rush, Soundgarden, Kiss, Slayer, Metallica and Pearl Jam, usually with backstage access.
Such are the perks of 4,875 career strikeouts.
“Baseball opened a lot of doors for me,” Johnson said, “including doors that I can now go through with my camera.”
Johnson said his interest in photography dates to a class he took in high school. His film skills just needed time to develop.
“I brought my camera every once in awhile when I went to ‘Day on the Green,’” Johnson said, referring to the famed Bill Graham concerts at the Oakland Coliseum. “I enjoyed those, yeah, but I wasn’t very good back then. I didn’t have the same access that I have now.”
Johnson will have some close-up opportunities Sunday, when he is inducted as part of a Cooperstown class that includes John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez and Craig Biggio.
Johnson was a first-ballot selection, getting named by 97.3 percent the voters — the third-highest percentage ever for a pitcher. (Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan topped 98 percent.)
Now, Johnson, a former perfect-game pitcher, is in pursuit of the perfect picture.
“It’s just like baseball,” Johnson said. “You start off kind of raw, but if you spend enough time and practice something enough — and you’re inquisitive enough — you’ll find ways to get better at it.”
After Johnson’s final season in the big leagues, with the Giants in 2009, he took what he called “my first summer vacation in 26 years.” Doing so allowed the onetime photography major at USC to embark on his second career.
Johnson’s photography has appeared in publications such as Rolling Stone, Spin Magazine and Stars and Stripes. He also offers extensive galleries on his website — rj51photos.com — and on his Instagram account (rj51photos).
He usually uses professional-grade digital cameras but sometimes uses Pentex 67 film. The man who once pushed a TV cameraman in New York now seeks out his fellow shooters for advice. “You ask them questions. You research. You figure out how to do things,” he said.
It’s not just the music scene. He’s sporting events, including NFL games. Johnson and his pack of lenses have been traveling companions for seven USO tours. He has snapped shots in places such as Cuba, South Korea, Turkey and Africa.
From the camera pit, as from the mound, Johnson will come at you from all angles. He loves documenting wildlife, auto races, surfing — pretty much anything but baseball.
The 10-time All-Star is willing to work cheap, as Reese discovered. The Knotfest co-producer offered Johnson a small fee, plus travel expenses, to shoot the two-day event in San Bernardino last October. Johnson showed up with the enthusiasm of an intern — and left with a paycheck to match.
“Most guys of his stature would say, ‘Put me up at the Four Seasons’ blah, blah, blah,’” he said. “Instead, here’s a guy that worked 15 hours — from 9 in the morning until 1 a.m. — and then slept in this little motor home village with everybody else.
“This is probably one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball. And yet he slept on a little cot over the driver’s seat of a 25-foot motor home.”
Johnson won over Reese with a dedication to his craft. Easy as it would have been for one of the tallest players ever to simply loom above the crowd and click away, Johnson roamed the grounds and tried to please his boss.
Johnson told him from the start: “I don’t want to just come and do this because of my name. I really want to get good (stuff) for you.”
“And I don’t want you to do it unless you’re going to get good (stuff),” Reese replied.
So they met for more than an hour before Knotfest, creating a shot list that would capture the essence of a festival headlined by Slipknot.
Reese said he didn’t want to capture just the bands on stage. He wanted shots of girls crying, people passed out asleep and lunatics fighting each other with big mallets in an area called the Thunderdome.
The resulting photos, still available at Rolling Stone’s website, provide a grungy — even disturbing — look at the festival’s gritty vibe. Johnson took a photo of one fan proudly displaying a bloody gash over his eye.
“It looked like he went a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson in his prime,” Johnson wrote in his caption for Rolling Stone. “You’re not going to see that at a Taylor Swift concert.”
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