While there he was drawn into a world of political action, joining with other progressive students on campus to support labor causes and to protest the rise of fascism in Europe.

He left Reed after a year, found work as a projectionist for an advertising agency and, with a friend, began distributing foreign films in Washington State and Oregon.

When the Civil War erupted in Spain, Randall enlisted in the International Brigades—battalions of foreign volunteers that supported the Republican Army—to fight against Franco's fascist forces.

The team was given full access to move about the camps, chronicling the troops at rest, and venturing to the front to capture scenes of the battalions in the trenches and under fire.

Although initially successful in procuring the necessary photographic equipment to carry out their work, as the war progressed lack of film and printing paper hampered the unit's operation.

In January 1939 Randall spent several weeks in the New York Film and Photo League darkroom developing a complete set of fresh prints and making enlargements of all of the photographs taken by the unit in Spain.

The Spanish province of Aragon (August 2008 through March 2009) presented an exhibition of the work of the Photographic Unit consecutively in Zaragoza, Teruel and Huesca.