Win Globally, Accept Locally: Dottie Campbell '74

Release date: May 14, 2008 |

What do you do if you win a prestigious international photography contest, and part of the prize is an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C.?

If you are Dottie Campbell, you laugh.

Campbell learned last November that she had won first prize in two categories of the National Geographic Society’s 2007 Global Photography Contest (the English-language category, which draws entrants from all the countries in which the magazine is printed in English, and the landscape category).

Her prizes include a Canon 5D camera and lens, a trip to the nation’s capital, and the opportunity to have her winning photograph published in the May issue of National Geographic.

Her winning photo, taken in Moab, UT, is a swirling image of the bright yellow-green leaves of cottonwood trees, reflected in the body metal of a very shiny Buick. (Her work can be seen at her website, www.dottiecampbell.com.)

Through her willingness to look beyond the ordinary, the artist stretched the definition of landscape photography, the contest judge commented on the National Geographic website.

Although she always was interested in art, as a Goucher student Campbell changed her major every year. "I started as pre-med," she says. "Then I morphed into bio, then a combination of bio and art. And finally, I thought, ‘I really love art.’" After graduating from Goucher, Campbell earned a certificate of art in photography from the Maryland Institute College of Art.

For several years, she and a friend ran a photography service, then Campbell created her own line of jewelry, for the most part using sterling silver, anodized aluminum, and niobium. "All along, I thought, ‘OK, I will do this jewelry so I have money to do photography.’ But when you do well with jewelry, you have to do more jewelry."

Three years ago, she says, "I woke up and thought, ‘You know, this is not what I set out to do.’"

So with the blessing of her husband, retired systems engineer Ed Hopkins, she stopped making jewelry and began working full time as a photographer.

One might say the rest is geography.