I grew up looking at pictures.

Since I was a baby--way back in 1958--my mother took hundreds of photographs of our family life throughout the years, capturing small pieces of time frozen in little negative squares. Today, I can still look back with those images and they awaken memories that would be forgotten without them.

In 1968 my dear Mom gave me a Brownie Hawkeye camera and started a fire in me for taking pictures. I remember her words of instruction, "Load the film in a dark place, never open the film door until you rewind, and keep the sun behind you when you shoot."

From that day forward I carried a camera with me often. I took 13-year-old style fuzzy pictures of my hikes up Roosevelt Mountain in Rockwood, Tennessee, USA, with my brother Steven and a friend named Scott Haley. Every major event of my life has a few frames attached.

I photographed my own family starting in 1979 and documented the growth of my five children up until today. Photography has been a part of my life all the way back to my earliest memories. I'll keep on shooting until I'm unable!

The year 1980 was a milestone; the year I got my first Nikon camera. It was a nearly new Nikon FM and I reveled in its incredible build and the unbelievable images it made. Before then, I had been shooting with Kodak 110 and 126 cameras, and although the images have amazing personal value, they would win no contests. I graduated from negatives to transparencies in 1981 as I realized that even sharper and less grainy images could be created in those delightful little two-inch squares. I loved film and shot a lot of it. I wanted to shoot even more, but the cost of raising kids took precedence.

The year 2002 changed everything for me photographically. I had been playing around with a Kodak P&S digital, and finally, a Nikon Coolpix 990. While the images were fun and easy to make, they didn't equal 35mm and medium format in quality, so I viewed digital as a toy. Then Nikon released the 6MP D100® and I became Digital Darrell. Never before had I shot so many images. With no significant processing costs, I took thousands of photographs that I would never have considered taking with expensive film, and I moved to a new level of photography in the process. Digital cameras are an educational course in photography all by themselves.

Since that year my love of photography and cameras has grown tremendously. When I get a new camera, I spend a lot of time with it--getting to know its features and personality. Often, I'll be commissioned by Nikonians.org and Rocky Nook to write a book about the latest Nikon camera. What a great way to make a living. I get to own new cameras and write books to help others enjoy their chosen brand.

I'm a full-time traditional stock photographer and have a nicely equipped studio. Between writing books you'll often find me in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina USA--capturing lots of great images. Drop me a line from the contact link of my new website www.DarrellYoung.com. Thank you for buying my books on Amazon.com, the world's best place to buy books and camera equipment.

Keep on capturing time...

Darrell Young, a.k.a Digital Darrell