Road Trip With Randy Mallory From Earth to Uncertain

By P..A. Geddie

Well known for his talented photography and writings about the Upper East Side and all of Texas, Tyler native Randy Mallory is releasing his first book with a collection of his work. Produced by the University of North Texas Press, The Fifty-Year Texas Road Trip: On Assignment from Earth to Uncertain releases this April.

UNT Press says, “At the turn of every page — just like the rounding of every bend — there are delightful and surprising places: a thunderhead billowing behind a spinning Ferris wheel, a Volkswagen Beetle hung from a giant oak, a steam-powered riverboat gliding through mossy swamps, and yard art of a pregnant woman playing electric guitar. Meet the proud and diverse people he encountered: an organic farmer with a UFO museum, rural church members at a foot-washing ceremony, an adventurer riding the highway in a wind-powered sail trike, and five US presidents sharing the same stage.”

The book is drawn from thousands of images contained in the Randy Mallory Collection at the University of North Texas. The collection and this book serve as a colorful and telling record of one photographer’s attempt to capture Texas’s sense of place during an important and ever-changing half century. The breadth of his career (1972–2022) allows the book to showcase many aspects of Texas history and culture that are gone or are rapidly fading away.

A foreword by Dan K. Utley, former chief historian for the Texas Historical Commission, places Mallory’s photography in perspective as a valuable resource in the necessary work of chronicling history as it evolves around us every day.

“By the luck of the draw, Randy and I were assigned to the same van in a caravan that spent much of each day motoring along the blue highways and backroads of a particular region while the occupants talked about history, personal and otherwise. By the end of that first day, Randy and I were buddies for life, drawn together by humor, Longhorn loyalties, shared world interests and experiences, and the fact we both spoke fluent East Texan, albeit with different dialects — his by way of Tyler, to the north, and mine more central, like around Lufkin.”

Utley continues, “While this is primarily the work of a superb photo documentarian, the prose is equally noteworthy. Randy is a gifted wordsmith, and his framework of memories is a fitting complement to the images. Both text and photos are comfortable, accessible, thought-provoking, and memorable, and both draw you back again and again.”

Mallory is a fourth-generation Texan who spent 50 years as a travel writer and photographer covering diverse Texas topics. A journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, he contributed hundreds of photos and articles to statewide publications such as Texas Highways, Texas Co-Op Power, Texas Journey, Texas Monthly, and the Dallas Morning News and more than a few were featured in County Line Magazine. Mallory also wrote and photographed projects for agencies such as the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. He donated his photography archive to UNT Special Collections in 2021.

Mallory says, “I hope the book’s community of photos — accompanied by short reflective essays — will help you see what I’ve long sought to see. … a sense of Texas and of Texans, of how the land shaped the people and how the people shaped the land. More importantly I hope to entice you — native or newbie — to explore this uniquely fascinating place by looking and seeing Texas in your own way.”

Get more information and order details on the UNT Press site. A sampling of his photographs from the book are below.