Thomas Sutton set up a photographic firm in Jersey in 1855. He is remembered as a prolific writer on photography. For 11 years he edited Photographic Notes, a journal which he had founded together with Blanquart-Evrard, who was responsible for the first English Dictionary of Photography (1858).

Sutton also credited with inventing the first true mirror single-lens reflex camera which he patented in 1861. This design is still popular; basically the same lens though which the light passes to expose the film is the same lens though which the photography views the scene though the viewfinder. The camera he patented was manufactured by Thomas Ross and J. Dallymeyer.

"Photography is yet in its infancy, and it offers to the intelligent amateur a field for readily gaining distinction as the author of valuable experiments. Let him consider whether he will occupy his spare time and cash in producing photographs of more or less merit and which may be doomed to fade before his eyes, or whether he will employ the same opportunities to advance the art"
-Thomas Sutton, in 1857