Randall Lee’s office in the Chelsea clocktower is covered floor to ceiling in photographs: black-and-white, vivid color, kids, alligators, a series of the same tree in his backyard during various sunsets. According to him, “You can never have enough pictures of sunsets.”

“I really like this space. I like to come in here and pretend I’m working, but really, I just pick up the guitar. On Thursdays I’ll do The Sun Times crossword because that one I can actually do.”

Currently freelancing and working with the Chelsea Update, Lee is responsible for a large portion of photographs of local Chelsea events and has been for over a decade.

He’s had the business since 2005, and the clocktower office since 2010, but his history in photography and media extends far beyond that, spanning several decades and hundreds of miles.

“It was my dad that originally got me interested in photography,” Lee said. “My sister was in a talent show at Jackson High, and he had to go out of town for business. He worked for Consumer’s. He gave me his Nikon, and he says ‘I’ve got it set’, and somehow I knew the lower the number the higher the iris and figured out the film speed, so when the battery died on that I was able to continue shooting by just opening up the aperture all the way and not letting the film speed get too low.”

After that, his dad would let him use the camera to take pictures for fun.

“If he ever wanted to be in the picture, I would be the one taking it,” Lee said. “That’s the only time he would be in the picture.”

Randall shares that trait. After getting an associate degree at Jackson College, he transferred to Eastern Michigan. At EMU, he worked at the college’s paper, and his past experience in journalism is evident; throughout the conversation I kept having to redirect the focus back to him as he tried to interview me. He’s more used to being the one behind the camera, it’s clear. Get him started about his family, though, and he has plenty to say. While in his office, he pointed out a photo of a young man in the middle of a karate kick.

“That’s my son,” he said. “When he first started karate, we were in Florida. I was a single dad, and he and his best friend decided they would take karate. And I got this outrageous photograph. He had one lesson, and he was doing that same kick as in that photo. And it was perfect. Now he’s got national awards for this kind of stuff in several areas.”

While in Florida, Lee stayed with media production professionally as well, not just personally.

“I got into copy editing, freelancing, and video eventually,” he said. “Did a few documentaries, got involved with MTV. This is the 80s, when MTV first started and was actually doing something. God, we had fun. We had no idea what we were doing, but we had fun.”

His family is what originally brought him back to photography when he returned to his childhood home of Michigan. After the production company he worked for shut down and the job offer that had brought him to Michigan fell through, he met his now-wife who inspired him to create the photography business he now runs.

“I met my wife, and when I met her, I was in real estate. She asked me: ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’” he said. “And I said I really want to get back into video. So, I started that up in ‘05 working in Chelsea.”

For several years he was responsible for photographing and recording Chelsea City Council meetings before leaving the position in 2021, focusing on his freelance work instead. Recently he photographed baseball player Jim Abbott when he visited the Chelsea District Library.

“I would have to say the most emotional that really impacted me was recently the Jim Abbott event at the Chelsea library,” he said. “He was so eloquent. And he was in front of a black curtain. I can only shoot so many pictures of him and the guy that’s interviewing him. So, I’m looking at some audience reactions, and I just look at all the kids, like 8-14, year olds, they all have a ball cap on. How do you kids even know about him? It was moving, I would have to say. That had a very major impact on me. I’m very grateful.”

The pride in his work shows in everything he does. When asked for half a dozen of his best photographs he’s taken over the years for this article, he selected eleven.

“It’s my favorites,” he said. “Florals and portraits. And the dancing girls.”

As we wrap up the interview, he gives me the grand tour of his studio space, talking me through the stories of his photographs. Local singers, garden spaces, alligators, strangers smoking a pipe on a street bench.

“I hope this won’t be a very long article,” he says after recounting a five-decade career filled with things people dream of accomplishing even once.

I laugh and tell him it will probably be longer than he’d like, considering the frame will be on him now.