[3] A professional photographer, Dufty, with his brother, Edward, traveled the Victorian goldfields with a horse-drawn, portable studio.

[8] In June 1866, in partnership with Carolin, he produced twenty-one views of Kyneton for the 1866 Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition.

Three views of Victorian scenery, by Dufty and Carolin, was selected to be sent to the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition.

[7] At the age of 25, Dufty arrived in Levuka from Victoria in the SS Egmont in June 1871.

[3][10] They photographed missionaries, European settlers, the Fijian hierarchy and commoners, and other people from the Pacific.

A dealer in Fijian handicrafts, Dufty acquired a range of props which were used repeatedly.

He was a prominent member of the white supremacist British Subjects' Mutual Protection Society, in opposition to Cakobau's Government, and a staunch advocate of annexation to Great Britain.