My name is Stephen Dorton, and my business venture is Dorton Imagery. I started out with Photography when I was 12 years old, when my older brother had giving me my first camera at Christmas! From that moment photography had become a passion of mine! I started out with a Pentax K1000 35 mm SLR.  I would start photographing my pets, my family, friends, and other objects when I was 12. As I was growing up, my photography became an escape, a form of relaxation, and way to express myself.   At the same time as I was improving on my photograph, I discovered that I had another passion that I love to do was spending time hiking up in the mountains, and traveling to the beaches and to historic sites. So a lot of my images and my learning of photography came by those hiking trips and also from taken several classes in Photography while I was in high school at Lee-Davis in Mechanicsville, and at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College. I have had several images publish in local newspaper, calendars, post cards, and websites. My main choice of cameras that I currently use: Pentax K1000, Pentax PT30, & Pentax PZ1P, all of these cameras are 35mm SLR’s.  The following digital camera that I currently use is the Pentax K10D.

 My experience in photography has improved over the years from shooting Weddings, landscapes, Nature, Historic Sites, and creating artistic photographical images. I know that a lot of photographers specialize in one section of photography, but for myself I enjoy doing all aspects of photography.  I feel that if I have decided to just do one part of photography that I would lose my creative edge that I put in to my images. I have experience in different mediums of photography from 35 mm Slr, medium format, large format, studio lighting, darkroom development, Black & white, Color, and Hand coloring. Most of my photography is all traditional photography and I have just started to cross over to digital and computer enhancement photo art.

Some of the places that my work has been in is at the gift shop at The Henry Clay Inn in Ashland, Its Worth Framing, and the Chevron station in Ashland. Also in the past my work has been on show at the Ashland Library, The Henry Clay Inn, Randolph Macon College & J Sargeant Reynolds. You will also find me at the following Craft Fairs each year, Ashland Strawberry Faire, Lee-Davis Craft Fair, Atlee High Craft fair, and others.   I would like to be able to travel the world and doing my photography. I love doing my photography and that is all I really want do! I would do anything to be able to just do my photography. One thing is that I would like to be able to help other people to explore into the photography field to be able to express how they feel through their photography! Another thing is that I would like to have a center for children and teenagers to be able to go to a place where they could express their feelings through the arts, and also have access to the equipment, a place where they can work on their art, and be able to help them to deal with an issues that they may have in their life.