Dudley M. Brooks is the Deputy Director of Photography for The Washington Post, where he manages the creative strategy and production of photo content for the Features, Local and Sports departments. Before its discontinuance in December of 2022, he was also the Photo Editor of The Washington Post Magazine. 

Immediately prior to these positions, he was the Director of Photography for the monthly magazine Ebony and Senior Photo Editor for its weekly sister periodical Jet - both formerly published by Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago. These iconic publications chronicled the African American experience for nearly eight decades and Brooks was a member of the senior staff responsible for redefining the editorial significance of their brand. 

Born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Brooks is a graduate of Morgan State University with a degree in Fine Arts. He began his journalism career in 1981 as a staff photographer for the Rockford Register Star newspaper in northern Illinois. He later joined the staff of The Washington Post newspaper (1983-2005) and received numerous awards for his work as a photographer there. The stories that he’s photographed range from those of local and national interest to major news events of international scale.

 Brooks was the Assistant Managing Editor of Photography at The Baltimore Sun newspaper (2005-2007) and the co-creator/director of the landmark1990 photography project Songs of My People: African Americans – A Self-Portrait (sponsored by Time-Warner). This was a best-selling book (published by Little-Brown), and an internationally toured exhibition by the Smithsonian Institutes Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and the United States Information Service (USIS). The massive undertaking commissioned new work by fifty-three African American photographers and has been widely celebrated for its fresh perspective of contemporary Black culture.