THE WHO AND THE WHY : The goal of Timid Sky is to serve as an artistic release and motivational tool for what right now is a growing hobby for me, photography. Hello and welcome to my online photography home. My name is David Sutton and I’m a Chester County, PA based amateur photographer. I chose D. K. Sutton as my online artist name because I felt it looked good in print and helps make my name a little more distinctive. If you are curious, the K is short for Keith. Or maybe you are asking, Why Timid Sky?
THE EARLY YEARS : I trace my interest in photography back to 1998 when I bought my first digital camera, a whopping 1 megapixel Hewlett-Packard Photosmart C20 point and shoot with a 4MB Compact Flash card. This camera was bought so I could capture a trip to Toronto, Canada. A few years later in 2001 I upgraded to a 3 megapixel Kodak DC4800 point and shoot along with two add-on lenses (wide angle and 2x zoom). While not a true detachable lens camera, it would foreshadow my future camera purchases. Admittedly these early years were more about capturing vacations and other tourist type photography rather than looking at it as a form of art. Along the way I’ve also gotten involved in video editing and even more involved in music, including playing guitar as well as recording tracks and creating songs to various levels of success. Both of these hobbies definitely took their toll on the time I spent on photography and it shows in my collection of photography which is quite sparse through the middle 2000s.
PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART : In early 2009 a friend of mine bought his first DSLR camera. That purchase, and my aging 3 megapixel point and shoot, got me looking to upgrade as well. Within a month I had my first DSLR, a Nikon D40 along with the kit lens, a Nikkor 18-55mm. Only a few months later by May of 2009, I had added the Nikkor 55-200 VR and the, then just released, Nikkor 35mm prime. This was all in time for a vacation in Corolla, North Carolina – Outer Banks / OBX. Over the next year and half I’ve driven all around Lancaster and Chester counties as well as taken trips to New York City and Washington D.C. and captured many thousands of images. This marks the time period when I fully embraced photography as artwork and not just as a way to capture and document vacations and trips.
FULLY EMBRACED : The most recent chapter in my venture into the world of photography has seen the creation of my personal photography website, Timid Sky, in September 2010 as well as the latest equipment upgrades. In October 2010 I added the Nikkor 10-24mm wide angle zoom to my arsenal and in November 2010 I upgraded my main camera body to the just released Nikon D7000. Again, these upgrades preceded a vacation in Corolla, North Carolina where I snapped off over 1400 shots and recorded around 50 videos with my new toy.
Now I head into a new year, 2011, with a great array of photography gear, a website to showcase my work and plenty of motivation to further increase my ability to capture the beauty just beyond the lens. I look forward to adding to my collection of art photography on this website as well as coming up with new features and pages that I hope people will find interesting.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, requests or comments (good or bad) about my website or photography. Thanks for visiting!
PHOTOGRAPHY GEAR
Primary Camera: Nikon D7000
Backup Camera: Nikon D40
(3) Transcend 32GB SDHC Class 10 Flash Memory Card
Standard Zoom – AF-S DX Nikkor 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G II ED
High Power Zoom – AF-S DX Nikkor 55-200mm 1:4-5.6G ED VR
Wide-Angle Zoom - AF-S DX Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED
Prime – AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm 1:1.8G
Nikon SB-600 Speedlight Flash
B+W 77mm circular polarizer filter
Hoya 52mm circular polarizer filter
Tiffen 52mm 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 neutral density filters
Tiffen 77mm 0.6 neutral density filter
Vanguard UP-Rise 28 messenger style camera bag
Joby GP3 Gorillapod SLR-Zoom Flexible Tripod
AlienBees B400 Strobe/Flash
Neewer 300W Strobe/Flash
Impact Background Support System – 12′ Wide
Umbrellas and light stands, 32″x48″ soft box, 10 x 20′ white muslin backdrop, 10 x 12′ black muslin backdrop
COMPUTER AND SOFTWARE
Intel Core i5 Quad 2.66 - 4GB RAM
Dual Dell 23″ monitors (vertically stacked)
Windows 7 Professional 64bit
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.3
FastStone Image Viewer
Nikon ViewNX
GIMP 2.6
Some Early Photos
10/09/1998 Niagra Falls
03/30/2000 Blurry Toronto
07/06/2001 Maryland Farm
12/05/2003 Snowy Backyard
2 Comments
I am completely blown away! How proud I am of you and the wonderful person you are. Reading all of this has made me realize that you are truly a gifted artist in many ways.
Thank you for being my son.
Thanks mom!
One Trackback
[...] Circular Polarizer Filter I find that I use my circular polarizer filters often when out in the field. I love the effect they have on colors in nature, particularly greens and blues. I’m a big fan of the gradient effect it creates in the sky, although this is certainly a matter of personal taste. And of course circular polarizers really do help to cut down on glare and haze in certain situations. I have a B+W 77mm circular polarizer that I use with my Nikkor wide angle zoom lens and a Hoya 52mm circular polarizer that I use with my other three Nikkor lenses. [...]