Friday, March 16, 2018

Tribute to Randy Walton. December 7, 1946 - April 8, 2017





Where do I start……

Randy Walton passed away on April 8, 2017!!  He was a great photographer, lived in Oakdale to be close to Yosemite and the Sierra Mountains.  He was hoping for a wonderful retirement, but life happened.  In 2010 things kind of gone downhill for him, his kidneys finally deteriorated to the level he had to go on dialysis 3 times a week.  He was on the kidney transplant list at Stanford, but even so he was called twice it never worked out in his favor.  In January 2011 his wife Diane had a stroke and lost some mobility that never really came back.


I met Randy on FM Forum (Fred Miranda) in 2006 or so.  In 2008 he and his wife Diane joined me for 6 days to shoot Eastern Sierra Fall colors.  We had a blast and became good friends.  We met up one more time in October 2009.  Then we stayed in intermittent contact until August 2016 but he was just not the Randy I knew from our trips to the Eastern Sierra.  He sounded so defeated and down.  He gave up on photography and sold all his gear in 2016 on Fred Miranda and eBay.  I tried several times to meet up with him in Oakdale; he was not responding to my requests.

Then I found out almost a year later, that he passed away.  I feel so sad he never got the kidney transplant he was waiting for.


Rest in Peace my dear friend, I will cherish the time we spend hunting fall colors.
















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