Dupain received his first camera in 1924, and he had opened a studio on Bond Street, Sydney ten years later. He captured the photograph 'the Sunbaker', arguably his most recognized piece, in 1937, which did not become a national symbol untill after 1970. Dupain then travelled and served in both Darwin and Papa New Guinea during World War II with the Royal Australian Air Force part of an international movement of artists deployed to work in camouflage. He used shape and shadows to conceal/expose objects and people. After the war he went back to his studio, now to capture "the creative treatment of actuality". Dupain married twice, once to Olive Cotton (who he soon divorced), and then to Diana Illingworth, who which he had two children with.