Randi Baird

0 Reviews

Martha’s Vineyard Family Portrait & Wedding Photographer

Randi Baird is a Martha’s Vineyard-based editorial and commercial photographer with over thirty years of experience. As a visual storyteller, Randi has spent the last three decades using her photographs as a means for communicating, educating, and enacting social change. Her approach to photography is not simply capturing what she sees, but understanding how she sees it, and reflecting that distinction in her work. With a unique perspective, discerning eye, and relentless commitment to her art and her passions, Randi’s work serves as a thoughtful curation of her individuality and her deep-rooted connections to the world around her.

Art and design have always been at the center

Some people know what they want from a very early age, and I am lucky to count myself as one of those people. Beginning with the High School of Art and Design in New York City and continuing to a Fine Arts degree in Photography, I always felt called to capture life through the lens.

My first real photo adventure as the Photojournalist for Greenpeace took me to an extraordinary world . I completed expeditions on the Rainbow Warrior in Russia, Tahiti, and Japan. This was a turning point for me. There was no time to “set up a shot” as taught in school – life was happening. It was happening fast. And I couldn’t get enough.

I learned to make quick decisions. I learned to tell stories in an instant, before they were gone. The lynchpin was becoming eternally aware of the environment around me, to dive into it and get to know it before I needed it.

My surroundings became the palette for my portraiture and life was captured for real.

To this day, and with an earthy intuitiveness, I tell the stories of my subjects using the environment as an extension of character and the journey. On the Vineyard, my home of 20 years now, this vision has reached into the portraiture of people, living local, food, and of course, the continuous celebrations that burst forth on this island.

The challenge I set for myself every time I pick up the camera: Where is the art? How do I bring forth the design?

Art and design must stay at the center. Of every subject I capture, of every story I tell, and – always – in the heart of the woman behind the camera.