J. Randall Owens
Having grown up in Wisconsin, trained in Arizona, and moved to the United Kingdom, I have come to feel at home in a wide variety of climes. Recovering from a knee injury presents some challenges at the present, as I find out just how far I can still walk and how high I can climb to get those pictures.
How it began
My interest in photography began when I was about 13 years old, after taking a middle school photography class. It would be several decades before I could get my hands on some top quality equipment, but that didn’t stop me experimenting.
Astronomy has been an interest for as long as I can remember, and my father was a keen astronomer. I was able to use his telescopes and my love for astrophotography was born. In 2007 I moved to Arizona, which was an amazing opportunity to be the astrophotographer I wanted to be. In 2014 I bought my first interchangeable lens and less than a year later I was doing professional astrophotography. I also got an opportunity to meet some of my astro heroes while working as a telescope operator at Sky Bar in Tucson.
How it began
My interest in photography began when I was about 13 years old, after taking a photography class. It would be several decades before I could get my hands on some top quality equipment, but that didn’t stop me experimenting.
Astronomy has been an interest for as long as I can remember, and my father was a keen astronomer. I was able to use his telescopes and my love for astrophotography was born. In 2007 I moved to Arizona, which was an amazing opportunity to be the astrophotographer I wanted to be. In 2014 I bought my first interchangeable lens and less than a year later I was doing professional astrophotography. I also got an opportunity to meet some of my astro heroes while working as a telescope operator at Sky Bar in Tucson.
In addition to the astrophotography, I took inspiration from the breathtaking landscapes of Arizona and how fierce Mother Nature can be there. One of my most fascinating photography experiments was doing time-lapses of the wildfires on Mount Fagan. This and other time-lapses can be found on my YouTube channel.
Once I began to think of my photography as a profession, rather than purely a hobby, I set up GhiaPix. It was a subset of my project GhiaPet.net. The origins of the name being from a beloved Volkswagen Karmann Ghia—which is another story.
In 2006 I moved to the UK to be with my wife. This was a considerable change in scenery. Sadly, it also made astrophotography a lot more challenging, living in an area with light pollution and almost constant cloud coverage. When you’re faced with a challenge, you need to rise to it and grow from it. Don’t look at what you can’t do—look at what you can do. I’m a huge Tolkien nerd, so I took the opportunity to see the woods that inspired his stories.
Some of my favourite photography targets in the UK are waterfalls, cloughs, and sheep. I love the outdoors, and I believe that comes through in my photographs.