“Photography weaves through my whole story,” Randy begins. “It probably comes from my roots in skateboarding, believe it or not. Everyone was showing everyone else tricks, and everyone was really supportive and happy. People skateboarding were some of the first things I photographed.”
From then on, Randy could be found with camera in hand, capturing his world on film.
Randy’s love of photography led him to seek out formal education. “I went to Piedmont Technical College, but they didn’t have a photography program. So, I enrolled in graphic design. However, I was very motivated and started a petition for them to start a photography program. I got a couple hundred signatures and took it to the president of the college. The next semester, they had a photography teacher. I still go back there and do lectures at Piedmont Tech,” reminisces Randy.
After leaving Piedmont Tech with his associate's degree, Randy continued to pursue photography education at Lander University. It was during his senior year at Lander that Randy interned with Rolling Stone Magazine and got a taste of life in New York City. He is very modest about this remarkable point of his journey, as he is with most of his accomplishments.
When he finished his bachelor’s degree from Lander, Randy opened a photography studio. “I was shooting weddings, portraits, and commercial jobs, but I’d always wanted to do fashion and editorial photography – which is magazines. So, I saved up my money, and I moved to New York City. While I was there, I did tons of work for modeling agencies and cosmetic companies. New York was really fun.”
Randy moved back south in 2010 and began to pursue a teaching career in photography, completing the Master of Fine Arts in Photography program at the Academy of Art University.
“I guess it’s always been in the back of my head to teach,” says Randy. “When I was at Lander, I was asked to teach a photography session for kids at a juvenile detention center. They were all there for different reasons, but I saw it change them to work with photography. It was fun for them; they could express themselves with photography. It was also fun for me to teach.”
Since 2012, Randy has been a Lecturer of Art Photography at Augusta University. He teaches all levels of photography for majors and non-majors, including art appreciation, 2-d design, and sequential levels of photography.
“It’s is a tough medium to teach because it’s wrapped up in creativity and technical things like lenses, apertures, and shutter speeds,” says Randy. “Photography is 98% vision or concept….not seeing with your eyes, but with your head and your heart. So, I push my students to go beyond what something looks like and explain that how you feel about something is more important. It’s a creative outlet in itself. I feel like I learn just as much from students as they learn from me.”
One of the things Randy brought with him from his time in New York is street photography. “I do a lot of portraits of people on the street. Some are strangers, some are friends of friends. When I started, it was pretty black and white, and I didn’t use much color. But over the years, I’ve started to do some color images and worked that into the series.” His years of street photography have been compiled into a gallery called A Look at the American South.
You can find the portrait gallery for this and other projects at Randy’s website RandyPacePhotography.com. You can also see his work featured monthly in Evans Lifestyle Magazine at LifestylePubs.com/Evans.
