At Home Antiques and Design Gallery Excited to Announce Kingston's First Saturday

Photographer John Dugdale will be displaying 11 newly framed works in Milne's At Home Antiques and Design Gallery store in Kingston during First Saturday on September 7th, 2013 from 5 - 8PM. Milne's At Home Antiques and Design Gallery is located at 81 Broadway in Kingston, New York in the Hudson Valley.

John Dugdale's photos are influenced by 19th century imagery, as seen in his dream-like portraits or in his ordered still-lives. From image to presentation the artist's hand is apparent. He began to use an antique large format camera that makes an 8x10 inch negative, which can be contact-printed onto hand coated photosensitive paper, to make a finished image. He initially learned to make cyanotype prints, a rustic straight-forward process, which uses iron salts and the light of the sun to produce an ethereal blue image; this was the first permanent medium in photography's early history.

John has also made a body of new works printed using the albumen process. With an initial coating of egg whites to float the emulsion on the paper, it renders exquisite detail and became the most dominant photographic process from the 1850s through the 1880s.

John Dugdale is a remarkable artist. Over the past twenty years, working in a state of near blindness, he has created photographs as if from his soul. With his photographs showing in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and more than 20 solo exhibitions, John has reached a notable level of artistic acclaim.

John says he has discovered that "sight exists in his mind and his heart." Unlike most photographers' search-point-and-shoot approach, John sketches and titles each image before it is made. He composes by sensing shapes and his assistant focuses the camera.

"The quietude that people respond to in my pictures is, in part, because of the way the pictures are made: no flash; no harsh electric light; not even the sound of the shutter-just a lens cap removed, and then gently replaced. This encounter provides, for me, a metaphor for seeing."

"The artistry and the beauty of Mid-Hudson Valley antiquities and ephemera came into my life when I first visited Rifton on the Esopus River to work on my first book of flowers. I knew in a heartbeat that I have found my home in the bosom of the Mid-Hudson Valley when the project was finished at the tender age of 22. Much to my friends surprise, I bought my own farm in Stone Ridge. My idea was to be a rustic farmer photographer, but life had other plans for me. After a journey that took me and my photographs literally around the world, I find myself happily back home. Rebekah and Seamus, much like Judy and Jim are elegant forces of nature. Their shop is full of the things that make me love my home and want to photograph it. It is going to be my pleasure to recreate a room from my studio in their shop on the beautiful Rondout. If you are anywhere nearby on the first Friday in September or any time until October, stop by and join us to see some of my photographs and beautiful antiques, and Rebekah has assured me of wonderful food and drink."

"I will be bringing 25 signed copies of my favorite book, Life's Evening Hour, that was published in 2000, which I would be happy to personalize for you."

Come Meet & Greet this amazing Photographer and share his insight and artistry at Milne's At Home Antiques! For more information you can visit Milne's website, "Like" Milne's At Home Antiques on Facebook or email Rebekah Milne at MilneAntiques@gmail.com.