PHOENIX — With great enthusiasm, in great detail, Randy Johnson talks of watching through a camera lens as wild dogs in Africa chased a leopard from the carcass of a gazelle, and how the leopard stayed warily nearby for his chance to salvage what food it could. He witnessed female lions work to extract a dead baby elephant floating down a river, the male lion watching from above on a nearby ridge.
He has photographed rock-star friends from onstage and taken his cameras on USO tours to military installations around the world.
Somewhere along the way, the Walnut Creek native and Livermore High graduate’s intimidating glare faded away.