Roger Young, Nature Photography | Gallery

He’s been behind the lens for a long time. Roger Young started taking pictures in Valentine, Nebraska where he rodeoed and worked on his family’s ranch. Subjects  dear to his heart included wildlife and flowers. “My  mother had a garden. She really loved flowers and I loved to photograph them. My father, brother, and our friends all liked to hunt, and often I hunted with them, ‘shooting’ film rather as well as bullets.”

From Nebraska, Roger headed south, to Arizona, where he studied Agricultural Management and learned locksmithing. He wound up working for the university as a locksmith and carrying a camera along with his lock picks and shooting saguaro and spectacular sunsets. Roger spent some time as a “Hired Gun” working with a Gun fighting group putting on shows for tourists. And taking pictures, of course, this time, “old timey photos’ in costume, a practice he continued in Colorado.

When Colorado called,  Roger began exploring the San Juans and surrounding mountains with every spare moment he could find. He alternated various ‘day jobs,’ wrangling, bartending, and driving heavy equipment, first for the mines (up near Silverton), then later (and now) for oil and gas drilling activities that take him into Wyoming, Utah, and Nebraska. His home is in Grand Junction, but his camera is aimed allover the scenic west, especially in and around Silverton, Colorado. For ten years, Roger has been the staff photographer for San Juan Publishing, and has done several covers for their “Silverton Magazine.”  Most recently, Roger and his wife Carole haved complete a book "Meditations and Dedications" comprised of his photography and Carole's poetry.

Favorite subjects are waterfalls (“I keep trying to capture the movement of the water,”  wildflowers (“I’m still trying for the perfect columbine,” and trains (“I love photographing the narrow gauge trains in the mountains between Durango and Silverton”).