A Thousand Windows into the Wild: Randy Robbins’ Pursuit of the Unseen
- 7 days ago
- 16 min read
Website: https://www.athousandwindows.com/
Randy Robbins is a wildlife and nature photographer based in Lassen County in far northern California. Although he shoots landscapes and night skies as well, it is his wildlife photography that has earned him the most recognition.
He has had 6 images awarded as finalists in the California Wildlife Photo of the Year contest, and he was the overall winner in 2019. He also had back-to-back Sierra Nevada Conservancy Photo of the Year wins in 2023 and 2024.
In 2024 he earned international recognition, being awarded with a “Highly Commended” image at Wildlife Photographer of the Year, an event which has become known as the “Oscars of wildlife photography.” This prestigious contest is hosted by the Natural History Museum of London, and winning images tour the world’s museums and receive international publication.
His work has been featured in Outdoor Photographer magazine, the Journal of Wildlife Photography, USA Today, and several other national media outlets and.
Randy’s gallery is called A Thousand Windows, and is located in Susanville, California, where he lives with his wife and four children.
What initially drew you to wildlife and nature photography, and can you walk us through how that interest developed into the work you’re creating today?
I think for me there are two separate interests there that kind of found harmony with each other. I’ve always had a deep interest and connection with the outdoors and with wildlife and nature. Photography became an interest separately at a pretty young age. It just made sense to put the two together as an adult.
I never really had an interest in shooting photos of events or portraits or doing anything in a studio. I was not an aspiring photographer looking for a niche, I was more of a lover of the outdoors looking for a way to document the beauty I was seeing.
I think my passion for nature and wildlife photography grew out of a desire to share the glimpses of God’s creation that drive my passion for the outdoors.
My grandmother was a newspaper photographer on the northern California coast in Fort Bragg/Mendocino. I remember seeing her darkroom when I was very young and being pretty fascinated by it. When she passed away, my aunt gave me one of grandma’s film cameras, and I really dove into learning the basics of photography.
I grew up in the far northern Sierra of California (Plumas and Lassen Counties), where mountain landscapes and wildlife shaped my view of the world. After spending my college years in Southern California, my wife and I moved back to this area and have raised our kids here. I feel very connected to this area, and I love being able to “show if off” through my photography.
Thankfully, my work has been well received enough that I’ve been able to turn it into a small business that has allowed me to do some traveling to document the beauty in other parts of the world as well.
You’ve said that wildlife photography is the hardest form of photography, and that’s exactly why you’re so passionate about it. What makes it so challenging compared to other genres in your experience?
I think the list of variables involved, and the difficulty of being in the right place at the right time for a truly remarkable wildlife photo makes it incredibly hard to do well. A fellow photographer who I’m friends with on Facebook recently made the statement “You can’t photograph what you can’t find.”
This kind of sums up the difficulty of wildlife photography. It’s more than being a good photographer. You have to have an understanding of animal behavior, habitat, seasonal and weather impacts, and topography to even have a chance at being in the right spot to locate the species you’re after. Once you’ve done all that, you still have to position yourself In the right place at the right time to have good light and a good opportunity for a decent shot without impacting the animal’s behavior.
If you get lucky enough to actually find the animal with all of those variables, THEN you have to be a good enough photographer to get the shot right. If you blow it, the chance might not come again for years. The amount of patience required is sometimes staggering. As an example, 99% of people will never even see a mountain lion in the wild in their lifetime. Of the 1% who actually do see one, 99% of those sightings will be of the back end of it while it’s running away.
People don’t want to buy a print of the back end of a mountain lion that you took form a moving car window on that one occasion when you saw one. People want to buy a tack sharp portrait of a mountain lion staring into the camera like it’s looking directly into your soul. No offense intended, but I think this is partly why so many “wildlife” photographers are primarily bird photographers. Birds are pretty easy to find. You can get a decent photo of many different species of birds without spending several years failing to even see one. You don’t have to learn how to track them or recognize how their poop is different from other bird poop in order to locate them.
I’m not saying there aren’t challenges, but I think in general, people photograph what they can find. I don’t think most photographers make a point of trying to find something like a mountain lion. They photograph one if they get lucky enough to bump into one, but setting out in pursuit of a photo of one is accepting an incredibly difficult task.
I’m also not saying that other forms of photography aren’t hard… I would NEVER want the pressure of being a wedding photographer for example. There are certain challenges to every type of photography, and I don’t mean to minimize that. I love landscape photography, and It can be a huge challenge waiting for the right weather, the right light… but at the same time, that landscape isn’t going anywhere. Watch the weather for a few months, go when the conditions are right, and you’ll get your shot.
But I compare that to a few years ago when there were only an estimated 20 gray wolves in the state of California. The pack I was chasing has a range of around 500 square miles. I spent two years pursuing a photo of a wolf before I even found a track on the ground (I got the shot a couple weeks after that). Two years without finding a single track would make most people quit.
Wildlife photographers don’t think like that.
Bottom line: the list of variables with every other type of photography that I can think of is just smaller than it is with wildlife.
Without the ability to direct your subject, how do you approach composition in a way that still feels intentional? And over time, have you found that strong wildlife images rely more on technical skill or on a deep understanding of animal behavior and environment?
With in-person wildlife photography, you sometimes only have seconds to compose a shot. It’s often a matter of what the subject gives you in that moment. If you’re in a blind, or sitting motionless in a ghillie suit, you had better have already thought about your composition and where the animal might show up before you parked yourself there.
However, if you’re intentional about not pressuring the animal and working with what it’s giving you, you will often find that a “fleeting” moment can turn into an extended encounter, giving you plenty of opportunity to re-compose and shoot an intentional composition. When I have an encounter with a wild animal, my first move is usually away from the animal, not towards it.
If I’m hiking and see a shy animal about the same time it sees me, I’ll change my course and keep right on moving in a direction that makes it clear that I’m not interested and am not a threat. Meanwhile my brain is going crazy scanning the scene and trying to figure out where I can stop to line up a good shot. This gives the animal a little time to evaluate you while it thinks you don’t see them.
Most animals will watch you and not bolt when you continue moving in a predictable manner. It can be hard to resist stopping and trying to get a photo right away, but it usually pays off to set up an interaction where the animal is curious and unthreatened. It will almost always give you more time to get better photos. If you stop right away when you first see each other, this usually triggers the animals “flight” response.
The technical skill/animal behavior question is a tough one. One form of wildlife photography that I pursue quite a bit is camera trapping. This involves using a DSLR or mirrorless camera, a wireless infrared motion trigger system, and off-camera lighting. It’s essentially applying all of that animal behavior knowledge and setting up a mini motion-triggered photo studio in a place where you believe the animal is going to show up.
The difficult thing about camera trapping from a technical standpoint is that everything has to be predetermined, and all settings are manually configured. All camera settings, flash settings (flashes are usually very soft, around 1/16 or 1/8 power), trigger settings, etc. have to be thought out ahead of time.
Focus has to be manually set and pre-determined also, since a camera can’t autofocus in the dark. You have to predict the animal’s position within a few inches. From a technical standpoint, this can obviously be very difficult to do well. Building a camera trap and making all the parts work together is in itself a technical challenge, let alone getting all the settings right for the shot you want.
But at the same time, none of that matters if you’re not setting it up in the right spot, so the animal behavior piece is obviously critical. The advantage of camera trapping is that you can put some thought into composition and really set up for the shot you want, as long as you’re fairly sure the animal is going to be in exactly that spot eventually.
All that to say, I think this is an impossible question. Technical skill and an understanding of animal behavior are probably equally important.
Looking at your body of work, is there one image that means the most to you? What went into capturing it, and what makes it stand out compared to the rest?
There are a couple images that I could easily put into this category, but I think for this answer I’ll go with the image I call “The Space Between.” It’s a shot of a brown bear catching a leaping salmon at the lip of Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska. I have it printed on metal at 60” wide in my gallery. In a way this image represents my whole journey as a photographer.
Most people have seen an image of this same spectacle that was taken by Thomas Mangelsen, who is currently probably the most well-known name in wildlife photography in America, if not the world. He’s had a storied career as a photographer, and has multiple galleries, books, and regular museum showings all over the US. I regularly tell people that if they think the prices are too high at my gallery, they should go visit a Mangelsen gallery first, and then my prices will seem dirt cheap!
Mangelsen’s photo is called “Catch of the Day,” and he shot it on film in 1988 (when I was 11 years old, learning all about my grandma’s old film camera that my aunt had given me). At some point I saw that photo and was (like most people) blown away by it. It was mind-boggling that not only did this event actually happen somewhere on earth, but that a photographer had been there at exactly the right time to capture such a great image of the fleeting moment. Going to Brooks Falls and seeing this in person was on my bucket list before I knew what a bucket list was.
It was well into my photography journey before I ever even considered the idea that photography itself could help fund any kind of travel, but as I slowly built up a website and social media following, I started to realize that maybe there was some potential there. I had a couple images make a decent splash on social media, and I started to see the resulting traffic on my website, and the resulting (very slow at first) print orders come in.
Eventually, it was my photo of a gray wolf in California (in the very early stages of their reintroduction to the state) that led to enough attention to help me generate enough income to fund a photography trip to Alaska. In the lead up to that trip, I questioned not only the likelihood of actually seeing this spectacle play out, but my own ability to capture an image of it that could do it any justice.
Seeing this image on the back of my camera while I was standing there at Brooks Falls was an emotional moment for me. It was a bit overwhelming that I was actually in that place, and that I had captured that image, and that photography was what had gotten me there.
When Mangelsen was interviewed about his “Catch of the Day” image, he pointed out that what really made the image work was the little space between the fish and the waiting mouth of the bear. It gave the viewer a sense of anticipation, and all of the drama of the moment depended on that space.
I called my image “The Space Between” as a nod to Mangelsen. Getting this shot was very validating in a way. It helped me realize for myself that my work was indeed on the level that justified opening a gallery, upgrading my website, and expecting to find at least some success in wildlife photography.
How did you come up with the name of your gallery, A Thousand Windows, and what does it represent to you, both creatively and personally?
“A Thousand Windows” comes from a John Muir quote. John Muir is synonymous with the Sierra Nevada mountains, and his writings have inspired many to fall in love with the mountains of California, myself included.
I’m a pretty big John Muir fan. In “My First Summer in the Sierra,” which is essentially a journal of his travels in the Sierra as a sheepherder in 1869, This is the first part of his entry for June 23rd: “Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God.”
To me, this perfectly sums up what I hope my photography can do for people. It is my goal to open those windows to show people the beauty of God’s creation around us.
My faith is an important part of who I am, and my deep love of the outdoors is the result of a deep appreciation for God’s creation. Outside of photography, I serve on part-time staff at my church as a worship pastor (I play guitar).
For me, the words “A Thousand Windows to show us God” just leapt off of the page as I was considering names for my gallery. After reading those perfect words from John Muir, there was no other name to consider at that point.
I have been seeing those windows opening for myself in these mountains my whole life, and the idea that I could help open them for other people through my photography is an honor and a privilege.
In a world where most photographers share their work online, what made you decide to open a physical gallery space?
There were really three factors here for me.
First, I think it’s just a natural progression for any photographer to want to transition into the world of printed photography. Everyone has hard drives full of images that will never be seen to their full potential on a screen, a website or via social media. It’s crazy that we shoot such high-resolution photos and then they are never seen any larger than a phone screen by most people. So the desire to see my work printed (even if just for myself) was definitely a factor.
Secondly, a love of this area where I live. My gallery is in my hometown of Susanville, California (Lassen County). The idea that I could contribute to bringing some beauty to our little uptown shopping district and help show off our area was very exciting for me. I love contributing something to this place. I love when someone who is passing through town stops at the gallery and tells me that someone local told them they HAD to go check it out. Other local folks pointing visitors to my gallery as a way to show off our area makes me realize that it’s accomplishing exactly what I was hoping it would.
Third, opportunity. My wife and I were looking for larger office space for her business, and this big historic building on Main St. had been sitting empty for over a year. It was bigger than we needed for her, but it provided the space and amazing location for me to be able to give the gallery thing a shot.
I opened the gallery in 2023, so it’s only been three years, but last year (2025) in-person gallery sales surpassed online website sales for the first time. I’ve had many people say something along the lines of “looking at the pictures online just doesn’t do them justice” when looking at the large format prints on the wall of the gallery.
People have a hard time picturing something from a screen in a large, printed format on a wall.
Photographs were meant to be printed.
What advice would you offer emerging photographers who want to specialize in wildlife and nature photography?
I have two favorite photography quotes.
The first is “If you want to take better pictures, point your camera at better stuff.”
This sounds cynical, but it’s very, very true. Pursue the difficult, rare subject or scene. If you are on social media at all in any photography group, you have likely seen hundreds of the exact same photos of the exact same landscapes from the exact same spot. Don’t go to that spot and take that picture. Nobody will care. It’s white noise, they’ve seen it. Point your camera at better stuff.
The other is supposedly what a National Geographic photo editor told an aspiring photographer (I think this came from Art Wolfe, but I could be wrong). The photographer was told “You could have photos of Jesus coming back, but if it didn’t happen in good light, we’re probably not going to print them.”
Ignoring the fact that I believe this particular event will happen in very good light, this is a very common oversight. The photos that deserve to be printed are the ones where the light was perfect. Don’t shoot in the middle of the day (unless the weather is bad… bad weather is the best!). The landscape will be there waiting for you at sunrise and sunset, and when there are amazing storm clouds. Come back when the light is good.
My other piece of advice for the aspiring wildlife photographer is simply to have more patience than everyone else. Be willing to wait years with no photos to show for it. Study your subject, put in the time, and wait for as long as it takes. I’ve spent several summers of my life chasing bald eagle photos from my kayak at a little lake I frequent.
I’ve gotten photos of a bald eagle grabbing a fish from the water exactly two times as a result of the hundreds and hundreds of hours I’ve sat staring at them in a tree, waiting for them to do something.
Most people think getting two photos in 4 or 5 summers is a ridiculous waste of time. But one of those moments resulted in me winning the California Wildlife Photo of the Year contest, and the other is one of my best-selling images at the gallery. You have to love putting in that time, and you have to be willing to come home with no photo 99 out of 100 times.
When people ask about the bald eagle photo they’re purchasing, I tell them “I was in the right place at the wrong time hundreds of times, and in the right place at the right time once.”
That one time will be worth it if you just put in the hours.
When it comes to printing your work, what materials do you personally prefer using, and what draws you to those choices?
I do my own printing at my gallery for everything but metals.
I trust Artbeat for all of my metal prints. I offer fine art prints, canvas gallery wraps, and metal prints at my gallery. For fine art prints, I generally prefer heavyweight rag papers or textured fine art papers over traditional photo papers, especially for larger prints.
For wildlife, a textured fine art paper really seems to work well with animal fur (the texture of canvas works well with animal fur also). I keep a couple different types of fine art paper on hand, and I usually wind up using a smoother one for landscapes, and a more textured one for wildlife, but this isn’t a hard and fast rule for me.
If someone is ordering a print in person at the gallery, I will show them samples of each and let them decide what they like best. I’ve recently started experimenting with metallic papers, but I’m just dabbling with that at this point. I can see using metallic papers quite a bit with black and white images. It’s really a cool look!
I only use archival quality, museum grade papers, inks, and canvas. I want to be able to offer the highest quality possible in a print. I print on a Canon professional large format printer. For canvases, I prefer a 100% cotton canvas, and I hand-spray my canvas prints with an archival museum-grade varnish for UV, moisture, and scratch protection. I hand-stretch all of my canvas gallery wraps.
For metals from Artbeat, I’m a big fan of the White Gloss HD Metal. You just can’t beat the vibrance of the white gloss metal print. Because of the non-reflective and non-glossy options of fine art prints and canvases that I offer, I embrace the high vibrance and reflective finish of the White Gloss metals.
They are definitely a hit on the gallery walls.
When choosing a print partner, what factors matter most to you, such as craftsmanship, color precision, material quality, or collaboration, and how did Artbeat Studios meet those expectations?
All of the above are obviously important, especially when you are putting your gallery’s reputation on the line. I tried a few different print labs for my metals when I was getting started with my gallery. There are a lot of print labs out there.
I landed on a partnership with Artbeat for a few reasons. Early on, I was very impressed with their customer service. Doing my own prints early on, I was working in a colorspace that wasn’t compatible with Artbeat’s workflow, and I got a couple bad metal prints as a result.
The mistake was totally mine, but Artbeat walked me through the issue and re-printed them for me at no cost. The result was a workflow on my end that ensured quality in the future and certainly helped with my trust in Artbeat as a partner.
They were as worried about my prints being perfect as I was.
Another big factor for me is how easy Artbeat makes shipping. They package large metals VERY well in wooden box/crates, and I can be very confident in the package arriving without damage. The dropship option that Artbeat provides allows me to ship directly to the customer at no additional cost to them.
This is an amazing option for gallery sales, as many of my customers are not local, but are passing through on vacation, etc. They can pick out a print that they like on my wall, and I can be confident that an identical copy will be on their doorstep in under two weeks.
I also love that Artbeat is a California company. Since I’m also located in California and have a California seller’s permit, I try to source everything I can from in-state, which allows me to defer sales tax when working with an in-state partner like Artbeat.
Additionally, for a gallery like mine that is making fairly regular orders for metal prints, Artbeat’s loyalty program is really fantastic. I found it to be more appealing than anyone else’s. It saves me money!
The bottom line is that I feel like Artbeat values my partnership as much as I value theirs, which is a rarity in the “big online print shop” market.
Comments