Portfolio: John Dugdale

by Beth E. Wilson, May 27, 2008

John Dugdale was an extremely successful commercial photographer, doing high-end advertising work for clients like Bergdorf Goodman, Ralph Lauren, and Martha Stewart. He was, that is, until a series of strokes, along with CMV retinitis (an AIDS-related illness) took away most of his sight. Now totally blind in one eye and with less than 20 percent of his vision in the other, he looks upon the loss of his sight as a sort of gift—unable to continue with commercial photography, he has spent the past 15 years dedicated to his artistic vision, which is indelibly attached to the (comparatively) slower pace and craft-intensive processes of the 19th century.

Now known for his luxurious cyanotypes and large-format, gently lit albumen and velvety Van Dyke prints, Dugdale has turned adversity into an opportunity for fierce independence. While in recent years he’s depended on assistants to help focus his large-bellowed view camera, he’s now undertaken to devise a system of premeasured cords and cables to allow him to work alone in the studio of his lovingly restored Stone Ridge farmhouse, which itself feels like a portal to the 19th century.

A selection of Dugdale’s work is featured in “The Camera Always Lies,” the Center for Photography at Woodstock’s second Regional Photographic Triennial, opening on June 14 and continuing through August 17.
(Full disclosure: I curated the exhibition.) (845) 679-9957; www.cpw.org.